Is Japanese katakana just a corruption of English words?

Katakana is not a corruption of English language. It is one of the writing systems of the Japanese. The other two writing systems are Kanji and Hiragana. Katakana is greatly influenced by many languages most especially Chinese. It is the preferred method for translation of foreign languages to Japanese and that is why it is influenced by many languages. Katakana is the simpler form of the Kanji which is a more complicated writing system.

Katakana is also used to represent sounds. It is the preferred writing system for technical and scientific writing. Many Japanese companies use this form of writing to translate their company name to other languages. The most common examples are Toyota and Suzuki.

One cannot really say that Katakana is a corruption of English because katakana is also heavily influenced by other languages. It is also used in translating foreign languages and having that translated into Japanese for those folks to have a better understanding. The way that the translation is done in katakana is odd because it is more a descriptive tranlation than a precise or literal one. Linguists compare katakana as if using italics to express oneself.

In the Japanese language, katakana flows with single syllables and is a system that has both a Japanese script and a Latin script. This alone can tell you have just how descriptive writing and reading katakana can be. The katakana system has been around since around the year 800 and is still flourishing to this very day. While it may seem odd to native English speakers, katakana is actually a very beautiful script and a very complex and liberal minded one as well.