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Sorta, English got it from Japanese, which got it from Portuguese, which got it from Latin. There are other words with similar trajectory. In this case it is a
by microcolonel 9y ago
Sorta, English got it from Japanese, which got it from Portuguese, which got it from Latin. There are other words with similar trajectory.
In this case it is a romanization of an old Chinese-style Japanese transliteration (pre-katakana, so it reads as nonsense) of a Portuguese transliteration of a Latin word.
It's not even a round trip like anime (Latin -> ???->->->??? -> English -> Japanese -> English); but even anime got a proper romanization, it just turned out closer.
- rangibaby 9y agoMy favorite are days of the week, which came to Japan via China and Rome.