English words with Asian language origins
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greatdismalswamp
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- Joined: Fri Jan 09, 2004 1:35 pm
English words with Asian language origins
I'm putting together a short list of words which English has stolen from other languages. Does anyone know any non-food words that we have incorporated from Chinese (Mandarin or Cantonese) and Korean? Japanese would be helpful too, but I'm really stuck on Chinese and Korean. Thanks!
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kevinlin1222
- Posts: 10
- Joined: Thu Jan 08, 2004 11:51 am
Aw, you left out food.
You might want to look here http://spotlightongames.com/quote/chinesewords.html
Lorikeet
You might want to look here http://spotlightongames.com/quote/chinesewords.html
Lorikeet
I must say that the term "stolen" is somewhat strong in defining the borrowing of terms from other languages, I have some examples (non-food):
Chinese: tea, typhoon, kaolin, kunquat, kowtow.
Japanese: kara-kiri, kamikaze, karaoke,
I only assume that you want words we use for concepts unrelated to the countries they come from right? "Samurai" "geisha" "kimono" "sensei"and "aikido" are Japanese words, obviously, but refer to only Japanese concepts. Similarly, "tae kwon do" is a Korean word but only represents a Korean concept. "Sampan" is a small boat used in the Far East but I'm not sure if it would count as a good example of an English word of Chinese origin. Do these help you at all?
wjserson
Chinese: tea, typhoon, kaolin, kunquat, kowtow.
Japanese: kara-kiri, kamikaze, karaoke,
I only assume that you want words we use for concepts unrelated to the countries they come from right? "Samurai" "geisha" "kimono" "sensei"and "aikido" are Japanese words, obviously, but refer to only Japanese concepts. Similarly, "tae kwon do" is a Korean word but only represents a Korean concept. "Sampan" is a small boat used in the Far East but I'm not sure if it would count as a good example of an English word of Chinese origin. Do these help you at all?
wjserson
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greatdismalswamp
- Posts: 2
- Joined: Fri Jan 09, 2004 1:35 pm
thank you
Thank you. These examples are helpful. And, yes, wjserson is correct. I'm looking for words that do not refer to concepts specific to the culture from which they come (e.g. geisha).
Typhoon is a good one. I always thought the English 'typhoon' sounded closer to Korean 'taepoong' than to Mandarin 'taifeng' though. Could the English word have come from the Korean pronunciation of the Chinese loan word?
Another from Chinese: coolie (Mandarin- 'kuli' meaning bitter labor)
There aren't a whole lot of Korean loan words in use by English speakers. Kimchi and chaebol (under the new system perhaps Romanized as gimchi and jaebol?) are probably the only two that would be understood readily.
There is another word that some English speakers use... it was actually used as a racial slur, especially during the Vietnam War era, so I hesitate to mention it here... but the story behind it is worth hearing. Have you ever heard the racial slur 'gook'? Apparently, U.S. troops first heard the word when rolling victoriously through villages in Korea during the Korean War. The welcoming villagers would shout, "Mi-gook! Mi-gook!" (meaning "America! America!") The soldiers, who hadn't had the time or the inclination to learn even the most basic Korean words, such as the Korean word for their own home country, thought the villagers were instead using the English word 'me' to identify themselves as 'gooks'. And so the word gook became the U.S. troops' word for Koreans, then an insulting term for Asians in general. But the thing that I like about the story is that every time someone uses that term, they are not being insulting as much as they are exposing their own extreme, and rather pathetic ignorance.
-EH
Another from Chinese: coolie (Mandarin- 'kuli' meaning bitter labor)
There aren't a whole lot of Korean loan words in use by English speakers. Kimchi and chaebol (under the new system perhaps Romanized as gimchi and jaebol?) are probably the only two that would be understood readily.
There is another word that some English speakers use... it was actually used as a racial slur, especially during the Vietnam War era, so I hesitate to mention it here... but the story behind it is worth hearing. Have you ever heard the racial slur 'gook'? Apparently, U.S. troops first heard the word when rolling victoriously through villages in Korea during the Korean War. The welcoming villagers would shout, "Mi-gook! Mi-gook!" (meaning "America! America!") The soldiers, who hadn't had the time or the inclination to learn even the most basic Korean words, such as the Korean word for their own home country, thought the villagers were instead using the English word 'me' to identify themselves as 'gooks'. And so the word gook became the U.S. troops' word for Koreans, then an insulting term for Asians in general. But the thing that I like about the story is that every time someone uses that term, they are not being insulting as much as they are exposing their own extreme, and rather pathetic ignorance.
-EH
I always thought the typhoon came from Cantonese daifung. (Course it's kinda hard to explain in romanization, but the vowel sound in "fung" is sorta kinda like the sound in book
Last edited by Lorikeet on Fri Jan 16, 2004 4:06 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Duncan Powrie
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- Joined: Sun Jan 11, 2004 3:33 pm
Hiya GDS! So, you are trying to make a list of words which have been incorporated into English, and want interesting (less "obvious") examples, eh? I don't have many examples, but I do have a few thoughts regarding whether the type of words you are looking at actually are English! Allow me to explain...ahem...
You are probably right to exclude items like "tea" - it is now such a part of our way of life. It would probably take a new "Dark Age" with no telly (forget "28 Days Later", I'm talking 28 CENTURIES later!) for us to forget such words in the UK at least (apologies if you hail from elsewhere), so we can simply assume they pose no difficulties for anyone at all. But what about the other words (your focus), though? Are they now accepted as English?
Whilst many such words can be found in the larger English dictionaries, whether they would "roll off the (tip) of the tongue" of the average English SPEAKER is another matter entirely; indeed, a speaker might not go for the loanword at all, choosing instead to paraphrase in English. A main factor is whether or not one has the real-world knowledge of the thing the word represents (we are talking, after all, about exotic imports into our world as well as our language).
For example, one could insist that we all (should) know what "cheongsam" represents, but I suspect many would paraphrase one as a "Chinese dress" (probably due to the difficult pronunciation and/or from not having studied Chinese, or at least loanwords from Chinese into English); and even with my knowledge of Chinese (albeit Mandarin, not Cantonese), I had problems myself committing this word to memory (I can't tell you what the Mandarin is either!)...but then, I am not a transvestite with fantasies about (oriental?) womens' slinky clothing on my mind every waking moment.
I mean, people don't (easily) learn words (in or from whatever language) in a vacuum, and perhaps need a fair bit of "hands on" experience with, in this instance, the silky material, buttons/zips, snappy RUBBER elastic etc of said item of clothing to really get to "know" it, and thereafter stand any chance of USING the WORD that represents the clothing (I was referring to the design of an "SM" choengsam just then, by the way, bet you haven't heard of THEM!!)). And as I said above, there may be difficulties in saying "cheongsam" for the speaker, even if the speaker can appreciate that a cheongsam is indeed what he (or she!) wants to talk about.
Maybe we should look examples of things that we could expect would be easier for e.g. British men to be aware of, "get into"
and finally actually say than "cheongsams". "Sampan" is easier for me, but I can't honestly tell you if it is any different from a "junk" (if "junk" is indeed not only referring to the same thing, but is also a loanword, there is then a battle going on not between native vs. non-native words, but between the loanwords themselves for the hearts and minds of the English! Experts in etymology please also see my above comments on "typhoons" vs. "hurricanes"); in any case, I again suspect a paraphrase along the lines of "Chinese (fishing)boat/trawler" would also "suffice". I need to go to check what these boats look like!!
Perhaps the most interesting word of all to me was "kowtow". I accept that it is used in writing (journalism), but because it has a political ring to it in many examples, and because the average English speaker does not have such extreme demands/orders placed on them (and wouldn't "nod the head" in an oriental way anyway even if they were in such a situation), I don't know if it can really be said to be part of "our" SPOKEN English at all, although it is easy enough to pronounce.
We might need to consider if "kowtow" is, therefore, yet entirely "unrelated to the country it came from" (to paraphrase Wjserson) or "does not refer to concepts specific to the culture from which they come" (to paraphrase GDS). In contrast, those words that seem to have been agreed by Wjserson and GDS to be excluded from consideration (such as martial arts terms) would seem to relate i.e. be relevant to the lives of at least their many practitioners in the west also, and more part of those practioners' everyday parlance and thus their "English" than "kowtow" or similar words are (what MIGHT remain exotic and therefore somewhat "foreign", is the practice of the art or the art itself, not the word for the art!).
So, if you are trying to decide whether words other than "tea" and "typhoon" are part of English, I don't think you can ultimately appeal to anything other than individual use, especially by not just "educated" but more importantly "in-the-know" USERS. When such groups are small, obviously the extent to which the word will penetrate into English generally is limited - it often takes a "boom" or "fad" for the words (but perhaps not the thing it is meant to represent) to become popular enough to be used (or misued) to any noticeable extent (for example, somebody might see Tai Chi and call it "kung fu", due to having only seen the TV series or violent Hong Kong movies).
You could, if you asked the wrong type of people, maybe find out how many words are used in English too generally or INCORRECTLY even! All you would then be describing, however, is ignorance of a foreign culture rather than proper use and genuine knowledge of the foreign words. But perhaps we linguists (unless we are also possibly offended Tai Chi practitioners) just have to accept that meaning is vague, negotiated, temporary, and that we can never capture "the real world" in our descriptions?
I'd therefore like to posit that there are at least four kinds of loanword in English, ranging from "most assimilated" to "still most foreign": those that we may not even be aware were originally foreign, and that everybody uses with no problem; those that are used as possibly inaccurate "blanket" terms; those that are used by some people but paraphrased into English equivalents by others, for whatever reasons; and those that are used accurately, but by only those few who take an interest in the foreign culture and perhaps language. Beyond the last type mentioned, we may as well begin learning or speaking the foreign language itself ("go native")!
You are probably right to exclude items like "tea" - it is now such a part of our way of life. It would probably take a new "Dark Age" with no telly (forget "28 Days Later", I'm talking 28 CENTURIES later!) for us to forget such words in the UK at least (apologies if you hail from elsewhere), so we can simply assume they pose no difficulties for anyone at all. But what about the other words (your focus), though? Are they now accepted as English?
Whilst many such words can be found in the larger English dictionaries, whether they would "roll off the (tip) of the tongue" of the average English SPEAKER is another matter entirely; indeed, a speaker might not go for the loanword at all, choosing instead to paraphrase in English. A main factor is whether or not one has the real-world knowledge of the thing the word represents (we are talking, after all, about exotic imports into our world as well as our language).
For example, one could insist that we all (should) know what "cheongsam" represents, but I suspect many would paraphrase one as a "Chinese dress" (probably due to the difficult pronunciation and/or from not having studied Chinese, or at least loanwords from Chinese into English); and even with my knowledge of Chinese (albeit Mandarin, not Cantonese), I had problems myself committing this word to memory (I can't tell you what the Mandarin is either!)...but then, I am not a transvestite with fantasies about (oriental?) womens' slinky clothing on my mind every waking moment.
I mean, people don't (easily) learn words (in or from whatever language) in a vacuum, and perhaps need a fair bit of "hands on" experience with, in this instance, the silky material, buttons/zips, snappy RUBBER elastic etc of said item of clothing to really get to "know" it, and thereafter stand any chance of USING the WORD that represents the clothing (I was referring to the design of an "SM" choengsam just then, by the way, bet you haven't heard of THEM!!)). And as I said above, there may be difficulties in saying "cheongsam" for the speaker, even if the speaker can appreciate that a cheongsam is indeed what he (or she!) wants to talk about.
Maybe we should look examples of things that we could expect would be easier for e.g. British men to be aware of, "get into"
and finally actually say than "cheongsams". "Sampan" is easier for me, but I can't honestly tell you if it is any different from a "junk" (if "junk" is indeed not only referring to the same thing, but is also a loanword, there is then a battle going on not between native vs. non-native words, but between the loanwords themselves for the hearts and minds of the English! Experts in etymology please also see my above comments on "typhoons" vs. "hurricanes"); in any case, I again suspect a paraphrase along the lines of "Chinese (fishing)boat/trawler" would also "suffice". I need to go to check what these boats look like!!Perhaps the most interesting word of all to me was "kowtow". I accept that it is used in writing (journalism), but because it has a political ring to it in many examples, and because the average English speaker does not have such extreme demands/orders placed on them (and wouldn't "nod the head" in an oriental way anyway even if they were in such a situation), I don't know if it can really be said to be part of "our" SPOKEN English at all, although it is easy enough to pronounce.
We might need to consider if "kowtow" is, therefore, yet entirely "unrelated to the country it came from" (to paraphrase Wjserson) or "does not refer to concepts specific to the culture from which they come" (to paraphrase GDS). In contrast, those words that seem to have been agreed by Wjserson and GDS to be excluded from consideration (such as martial arts terms) would seem to relate i.e. be relevant to the lives of at least their many practitioners in the west also, and more part of those practioners' everyday parlance and thus their "English" than "kowtow" or similar words are (what MIGHT remain exotic and therefore somewhat "foreign", is the practice of the art or the art itself, not the word for the art!).
So, if you are trying to decide whether words other than "tea" and "typhoon" are part of English, I don't think you can ultimately appeal to anything other than individual use, especially by not just "educated" but more importantly "in-the-know" USERS. When such groups are small, obviously the extent to which the word will penetrate into English generally is limited - it often takes a "boom" or "fad" for the words (but perhaps not the thing it is meant to represent) to become popular enough to be used (or misued) to any noticeable extent (for example, somebody might see Tai Chi and call it "kung fu", due to having only seen the TV series or violent Hong Kong movies).
You could, if you asked the wrong type of people, maybe find out how many words are used in English too generally or INCORRECTLY even! All you would then be describing, however, is ignorance of a foreign culture rather than proper use and genuine knowledge of the foreign words. But perhaps we linguists (unless we are also possibly offended Tai Chi practitioners) just have to accept that meaning is vague, negotiated, temporary, and that we can never capture "the real world" in our descriptions?
I'd therefore like to posit that there are at least four kinds of loanword in English, ranging from "most assimilated" to "still most foreign": those that we may not even be aware were originally foreign, and that everybody uses with no problem; those that are used as possibly inaccurate "blanket" terms; those that are used by some people but paraphrased into English equivalents by others, for whatever reasons; and those that are used accurately, but by only those few who take an interest in the foreign culture and perhaps language. Beyond the last type mentioned, we may as well begin learning or speaking the foreign language itself ("go native")!
Duncan,
The word "kowtow" is not solely (or even mostly) used in journalism. Furthermore, your criticism of whether it is a valid suggestion because it might be found more frequently in written English rather than spoken does not matter in the slightest when answering the original question by greatdismalswamp. There's no specification that examples have to be "more spoken" or not. Greatdismalswamp also didn't limit his question to "popular, frequently used, words of Chinese origin" because the examples are so limited.
Furthermore, I do understand why certain "cultural" trerms cannot be included. Some Chinese and Japanese words given by people such as myself represent everyday things that have few traces to the country these words come from. A typhoon, for example, can occur in many places in the world other than China. A "sensei", however, in English is usually associated semantically with a martial art teacher. Judo, karate, aikido, and others are completely linked culturally to Japan. Therefore use of some terms related to food or martial arts are only used in speaking of Chinese or Japanese culture. Coolie is a great one, EH. So whether Tae Kwon do is practiced in the West or not, the same is true. We'd never say "my math sensei at school" but we would say "never kowtow to loudmothed english teachers".
I don't know why you feel so obligated to write such long postings that represent your thoughts and the validity of the answers given by others, when you offer no answers to the original question.
The word "kowtow" is not solely (or even mostly) used in journalism. Furthermore, your criticism of whether it is a valid suggestion because it might be found more frequently in written English rather than spoken does not matter in the slightest when answering the original question by greatdismalswamp. There's no specification that examples have to be "more spoken" or not. Greatdismalswamp also didn't limit his question to "popular, frequently used, words of Chinese origin" because the examples are so limited.
Furthermore, I do understand why certain "cultural" trerms cannot be included. Some Chinese and Japanese words given by people such as myself represent everyday things that have few traces to the country these words come from. A typhoon, for example, can occur in many places in the world other than China. A "sensei", however, in English is usually associated semantically with a martial art teacher. Judo, karate, aikido, and others are completely linked culturally to Japan. Therefore use of some terms related to food or martial arts are only used in speaking of Chinese or Japanese culture. Coolie is a great one, EH. So whether Tae Kwon do is practiced in the West or not, the same is true. We'd never say "my math sensei at school" but we would say "never kowtow to loudmothed english teachers".
I don't know why you feel so obligated to write such long postings that represent your thoughts and the validity of the answers given by others, when you offer no answers to the original question.
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Duncan Powrie
- Posts: 525
- Joined: Sun Jan 11, 2004 3:33 pm
Dear Wjserson,
Sorry about my long waffle - perhaps I just do not understand what loanwords are or how they function!
Anyway, thank you for replying, and I hope you don't mind if I ask you a few questions (this is perhaps what I should've done in the first place, but I sometimes prefer being provocative by exposing my ignorance, because I find it helps me formulate my questions better).
So: I still do not quite understand (and would sincerely like you to explain) how "sensei" cannot be a loanword, but "typhoon" is, when both seem so "semantically associated" with the Orient/things oriental, and both have "competing" words ("teacher" and "cyclone" etc). My confusion is compounded when I consider how many more sensei there must be (both Japanese and non-Japanese) in the west, being talked about, than there are typhoons only be talked about (re. the news from Asia).
Sorry about my long waffle - perhaps I just do not understand what loanwords are or how they function!
Anyway, thank you for replying, and I hope you don't mind if I ask you a few questions (this is perhaps what I should've done in the first place, but I sometimes prefer being provocative by exposing my ignorance, because I find it helps me formulate my questions better).
So: I still do not quite understand (and would sincerely like you to explain) how "sensei" cannot be a loanword, but "typhoon" is, when both seem so "semantically associated" with the Orient/things oriental, and both have "competing" words ("teacher" and "cyclone" etc). My confusion is compounded when I consider how many more sensei there must be (both Japanese and non-Japanese) in the west, being talked about, than there are typhoons only be talked about (re. the news from Asia).
Last edited by Duncan Powrie on Thu Jan 15, 2004 6:59 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Believe me Duncan, I'm not trying to say that "sensei" ins't a loan word. 
I'm referring to what greatdismalswamp was asking for in the beginning, thats all.
Certainly "sensei" and "sushi" are words that we use in the West. Sushi restaurants exist in the UK and in N.Am, as do karate schools with sensei to teach in them. These are loan words from Japanese. But they are loan words that represent Japanese concepts exclusively. A sensei only teaches Japanese martial arts (in English), and sushi is a food that goes back to Japanese culture as well. A "sampan" as far as I know is always a Chinese boat. It doesn't mean "generally small boat of any kind".
It's kind of like comparing loanwords like "croissant" and "savant" from French. A croissant is always a pastry invented byt he French. There are so many examples of French terms we use for cuisine. A savant (idiot or not) however is a person who doesn't necessarily have any traces to France or the French.
What greatdismalswamp asked for was loanword examples that are used with no attachment to Chinese or Japanese culture. 'Kowtow' is one. In English, people use this word without even knowing it's origin. Anyone can 'kowtow' to anybody in English. The traces of Chinese concepts does not exist semantically in the English use of this word. The word 'tea' is used in English to represent beverages from all over the world, not just China. In English, a typhoon can happen in many parts of the world, not just China. We anglohones adopted these words to use with ideas and objects that are not solely attached to those of China, Korea, and Japan.
"I'm not kowtowing to you and getting your damn tea, Mr. Smith!" Where's the presence of any representation of Chinese culture in this sentence?
Just trying to clarify that these are the examples greatdismalswamp made clear he wanted. They're all loanwords, but for greatdismalswamp's purpose, he wanted examples that had little or no atachment to the cultures of these countries.
I'm referring to what greatdismalswamp was asking for in the beginning, thats all.Certainly "sensei" and "sushi" are words that we use in the West. Sushi restaurants exist in the UK and in N.Am, as do karate schools with sensei to teach in them. These are loan words from Japanese. But they are loan words that represent Japanese concepts exclusively. A sensei only teaches Japanese martial arts (in English), and sushi is a food that goes back to Japanese culture as well. A "sampan" as far as I know is always a Chinese boat. It doesn't mean "generally small boat of any kind".
It's kind of like comparing loanwords like "croissant" and "savant" from French. A croissant is always a pastry invented byt he French. There are so many examples of French terms we use for cuisine. A savant (idiot or not) however is a person who doesn't necessarily have any traces to France or the French.
What greatdismalswamp asked for was loanword examples that are used with no attachment to Chinese or Japanese culture. 'Kowtow' is one. In English, people use this word without even knowing it's origin. Anyone can 'kowtow' to anybody in English. The traces of Chinese concepts does not exist semantically in the English use of this word. The word 'tea' is used in English to represent beverages from all over the world, not just China. In English, a typhoon can happen in many parts of the world, not just China. We anglohones adopted these words to use with ideas and objects that are not solely attached to those of China, Korea, and Japan.
"I'm not kowtowing to you and getting your damn tea, Mr. Smith!" Where's the presence of any representation of Chinese culture in this sentence?
Just trying to clarify that these are the examples greatdismalswamp made clear he wanted. They're all loanwords, but for greatdismalswamp's purpose, he wanted examples that had little or no atachment to the cultures of these countries.
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Duncan Powrie
- Posts: 525
- Joined: Sun Jan 11, 2004 3:33 pm
Hey, Wjserson, thanks for the very clear reply! I knew you were a nice guy! 
Maybe I can now start thinking of words that would be appropriate to GDS's purposes...but my "expertise" in Chinese is maybe not high enough! 
YEAH I can now see that it will be harder for "sensei" to lose its cultural connotations compared to "savant" (good example) - the French were just the first people to notice and give a name to a phenomenon that existed elsewhere (but had yet to be named elsewhere).
I think I've finally got it, yeah, thanks, can I have a merit sticker, sensei?! No, I was only joking, give yourself five!!
Maybe I can now start thinking of words that would be appropriate to GDS's purposes...but my "expertise" in Chinese is maybe not high enough! YEAH I can now see that it will be harder for "sensei" to lose its cultural connotations compared to "savant" (good example) - the French were just the first people to notice and give a name to a phenomenon that existed elsewhere (but had yet to be named elsewhere).
I think I've finally got it, yeah, thanks, can I have a merit sticker, sensei?!
No, I was only joking, give yourself five!!-
Stephen Jones
- Posts: 1421
- Joined: Sun May 18, 2003 5:25 pm
Actually no! The croissant was first made in 1683 during the siege of Vienna by the Turks. The Turks it seems were attempting to tunnel under the walls, but were heard by bakers who had got up early to make bread for breakfast. They warned the troops and Vienna, and Western Europe was saved for Dhristendom. To commemorate the event bakers made their pastries in the shape of the Islamic half moon.. A croissant is always a pastry invented byt he French
Forgive me Stephen,
Although what you're stating may be correct (and I can't be bothered to check my sources right now to verify it), my point was that the word is always attached to the people we got the word from.
Maybe "Cafe au lait" or "merlot" would be better examples to satisfy you with. The point remains the same, with or without your correction.
Although what you're stating may be correct (and I can't be bothered to check my sources right now to verify it), my point was that the word is always attached to the people we got the word from.
Maybe "Cafe au lait" or "merlot" would be better examples to satisfy you with. The point remains the same, with or without your correction.