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Japanese words of Portuguese origin
- Decabytes 3y agoI was surprised when I found out the Japanese word for bread , Pan, is the same word in Spanish.
- jibe 3y agoIt would be nice if the page included the words of Portuguese origin, and not just the Japanese.
- Rediscover 3y agoThis is something I have often thought about - the quantity of Japanese words that are similar to Portuguese and Greek. It really bothers me.
- chasontherobot 3y ago...why would it bother you?
- nxx788 3y agoKnowing something exists but not why can be irritating
- Rediscover 3y agoExactly.
- kaycebasques 3y agoThe world's largest Japanese community outside of Japan lives in Brazil, if what my Brazilian wife tells me is correct (If it is incorrect then please take up your complaints with her but make sure not to implicate me)
- Tor3 3y agoCorrect. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_diaspora https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_diaspora And BBC has something about Brazil in particular: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-42859249 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-42859249 (Interestingly, as so many came to Brazil from Okinawa more than a hundred years ago, they have managed to keep more of the Okinawan language than Okinawa itself, and people of Japanese origin coming back to Okinawa are helping in saving an endangered language.)
- imbnwa 3y agoIf you follow Mixed Martial Arts this is much more obvious
- pushedx 3y agoThe words of German origin are here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_gairaigo_and_wasei-eigo_terms https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_gairaigo_and_wasei-eig... I’m glad to finally learn an explanation for エネルギー
- jansan 3y agoワンダーフォーゲル (Wandervogel) is missing from that list. And I just learned that it was an anti-industrialization movement.
- fenomas 3y agoThere's an interesting, vaguely related family of terms derived from ゲバルト, from Ger. Gewalt "violence", that all refer to 60s-era student political movements and protests. For example ゲバヘル, protective helmets students wore during protests, and even ゲバ字 "violence characters" - referring to an angular form of writing used on protest fliers and signs, meant to prevent authorities from identifying the author by their handwriting. Example of such characters: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:NAVI_hansen_shukai.jpg https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:NAVI_hansen_shukai.j...
- jansan 3y agoThose gebaji (ゲバ字) are really interesting stuff, would deserve their own discussion on HN.
- Prickle 3y agoアルバイト・バイト Is probably the most well known example. The german "Arbeit" is used commonly to refer to part time work.
- netsharc 3y agoWoah "power-up" (as in the mushroom Mario takes to be double-sized) is originally Japanese! Never noticed how it's not grammatically sensible English. Similar to how "long time no see" is either from Mandarin or pidgin English.
- aitchnyu 3y agoPao led to pan (fancy sandwiches if anime is right) in Japanese and pav (small buns) in Hindi, Indians use the word bread the same. Sabao led to sabun (soap) in Hindi. We have Portuguese-Indian community, of which Rodriguez is the most common name IME, and most common names in many countries. In Malayalam, mesa means table, and plataeu in English.
- rjtavares 3y agoAnother good story is "Vindaloo", which originates from the portuguese "Vinha d'alhos". As expected, the portuguese version is much less spicy :)
- anon291 3y agoThe curry you get in restaurants is not Vindaloo. Vindaloo is spicy but it's not the overwhelmingly spicy thing most restaurants sell. A lot of them just rebrand a tangy spicy curry as Vindaloo and sell it. If you have Goan or East Indian Vindaloo, it's spicy, but it also has a lot of sweetness, and it's made of pork.
- boomboomsubban 3y ago>fancy sandwiches if anime is right From my anime knowledge, it's "bread" though seemingly any meal with bread instead of rice is also called "pan." It also links to the Japanese Wikipedia page for bread.
- Tor3 3y ago"Pan" is just bread, all kinds (source: Japanese wife, and I lived in Japan for a while - I did grocery shopping daily)
- tellarin 3y agoRodrigues, with an 's', and Fernandes are the most common Portuguese influenced surnames in Goa, if I recall correctly. Such names ending in 'z' are more likely Spanish in origin.
- DoingIsLearning 3y agoFun story, Tempura was allegedly inspired by Portuguese "Peixinhos da horta" which was a poorman meal of fried green beans, that was popular during Lent. [0] Of course as with many things in japanese culture they carried Tempura to a next level. [0] https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20170808-the-truth-about-japanese-tempura https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20170808-the-truth-about-...
- user070223 3y agoRelated "Why Portuguese Food is Hiding Everywhere"[0] [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eiXtAPfMj6o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eiXtAPfMj6o
- georgeplusplus 3y agoI went to Portugal and thought the food was just awful. It seems they exported all the good stuff lol
- DoingIsLearning 3y agoI can't speak for your experience but in the last 20 odd years specially in Lisbon, Porto, and much of Algarve the number of tourist trap restaurants exploded.
- HeyLaughingBoy 3y agoReminds me of a friend's comment after he went to Greece on his honeymoon: "I've had much better Greek food in NYC."
- NoZebra120vClip 3y agoThere used to be more fasting and abstinence than Lent: "The word tempura comes from the Ember Days (quatuor tempora in Latin), the quarterly periods of fasting in Western Christian churches, where believers go meatless." (Wikipedia) "The word ember originates from the Latin quatuor tempora (literally 'four times')." (Wikipedia) See also: Rogation Days for more fasting and abstinence.
- poglet 3y agoI was always curious about why tabaco was written in hiragana but this article explains it. > Many of the first words which were introduced and entered the Japanese language from Portuguese and Dutch are written in kanji or hiragana, rather than katakana, which is the more common way to write loanwords in Japanese in modern times.
- jrockway 3y agoThis answered questions I didn't even know I had. Everyone knows pan. But I never thought to ask why the word for England didn't sound like English, or why soap bubble is a loanword. (It sounds Japanese enough to me, but I guess it's always written in katakana, so I should have wondered.)
- routerl 3y agoイギリス is also written 英吉利, which implies that it came from the Mandarin, not Portuguese.
- fluoridation 3y agoThe question is whether the Japanese got the word from the Chinese, and if so where the Chinese got it from, or whether the Japanese got the pronunciation independently and then noticed that the Chinese already had a kanji for that word and decided to use it.
- stg22 3y agoChina and Europe had been sending diplomatic and trade missions to each other for well over a millennium before there was any direct contact between the West and Japan (and also since long before England came into existence). It seems likely Japan's early knowledge of Europe, including England, came via the Chinese.
- rendaw 3y agoThis may be an Ateji, using Chinese characters phonetically to represent loan words: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ateji https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ateji
- routerl 3y agoThey're the same characters in Chinese, and pronounced differently, so I doubt your hypothesis in this case.
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- lencastre 3y agoA Berenstain moment for me to learn that arigatō isn’t derived from obrigado.
- jansan 3y agoThe eveidence presented on Wikipedia does not convice me. Even if arigatashi existed before contact with the Portugese, arigatō may have been a merger of obrigado and arigatashi.
- Tor3 3y agoOn the contrary I feel the evidence is pretty much conclusive. arigatō comes from arigataku (an adverbial form), through a well-known "u-sound" change, as also explained on the page. Influence from Portuguese was not needed for that to happen. (And according to this page: https://selftaughtjapanese.com/2015/11/02/the-real-origin-of-arigatou-%E3%81%82%E3%82%8A%E3%81%8C%E3%81%A8%E3%81%86-japanese-for-thank-you/ https://selftaughtjapanese.com/2015/11/02/the-real-origin-of... the word was used in its "ou" form before the Portuguese even arrived in Japan - 1543)
- vore 3y agoI think the Wiktionary explanation is pretty detailed about the formation of arigatou: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E3%81%82%E3%82%8A%E3%81%8C%E3%81%A8%E3%81%86#Japanese https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E3%81%82%E3%82%8A%E3%81%8C%E... Given the inflection exists for other words, e.g. o-medetaku -> omedetou and o-hayaku -> ohayou, I'm pretty sure it's derived entirely from Japanese grammar. Modern Japanese -i adjectives formerly ended in -ki for the attributive form. This medial /k/ dropped out during the Muromachi period, both for the attributive form (-ki becoming -i) and for the adverbial form (-ku becoming -u). However, the adverbial form reverted back to -ku thereafter for most words, with the -u ending persisting in certain everyday set expressions, such as arigatō, おはよう (ohayō), or おめでとう (omedetō), and in hyper-formal speech.[4]
- jansan 3y agoAlso, no evidence of aigratou being used in the -u from before the Portuguese arrived. It may be true that the similarity is purely a coincidence, but the evidence is very weak, and maybe without Portuguese influence ariɡatau would be used only in some fringe cases.
- weinzierl 3y agoBrazil is home to the largest Japanese population outside Japan. I bet they brought a couple of Japanese words to Brazilian Portuguese too.
- mixmastamyk 3y agoHashi for chopsticks I believe.
- DanielHB 3y agoIn Brazil when we play rock-paper-scissors we say "Jan Ken Po"
- glimshe 3y agoProbably more in Sao Paulo or areas with a large Japanese population. Never heard of this in Rio de Janeiro.
- closewith 3y agoPedra, papel e tesoura in Minas, anyway.
- swah 3y agoSame in Porto Alegre. If I heard "Jo-kem-po" I'd think someone from a younger generation that learned those works from some TV series.
- rodrigodlu 3y agoI can provide my anecdote. I prefer jokempo, and I miss meetings with other nerds in the CCMQ and going to Jambo bookstore. Late 90s. Then using this with colleagues at the local universities.
- forestwisp 3y agoI'm from Amapá and as a kid (~30 years ago) I remember hearing "jo-ken-pô" a lot. Not anymore as an adult (people just say "pedra-papel-tesoura") but if you said jo-ken-pô I'm sure people would understand what you meant.
- nhinck2 3y agoSurely the english translation of varanda is veranda(h).
- wtcactus 3y agoNo, a veranda is not a balcony. They are similar, but there is a clear difference – a balcony is something above ground level. In Portuguese, the word "varanda" is used to refer to that above ground level construction. https://tnthomeimprovements.com/2022/02/27/what-is-the-difference-between-a-balcony-and-a-veranda/ https://tnthomeimprovements.com/2022/02/27/what-is-the-diffe...
- Keirmot 3y agoI’ve used it referring to the ground level too. Others as well. Not common, but no one would wonder what you’d be talking about. It would be better to call it a terraço, but it would be neither here nor there.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- Vox_Leone 3y agoIn my region [Brazil] "varanda" corresponds to the en-US "porch".
- dyingkneepad 3y agoWhy would people downvote a comment like this? Varanda in Brazil means "porch" indeed.
- programmer_dude 3y agoBaranda (derived from varanda) in Bengali means porch too!
- christkv 3y agoMy favourite is Castella a type of speciality cake from Nagasaki. Castella means Castilian and it is the cake you can buy in pretty much every bar in Spain. Brought to Japan 400 years ago by the Portuguese and now a local speciality.
- miguel_rdp 3y agoIn Portugal we call it "pão-de-ló"
- christkv 3y agoYeah Biscocho here in Spain.
- dustypotato 3y agovaranda, kapitan exists in my language ( Malayalam ) as well, with same meaning and origin. Also vada pav , which is a beloved food in Mumbai also uses pav , which comes from pão, bread in Portugese. Interesting such a small small country had such a worldwide impact
- govg 3y agoThere are multiple words in Malayalam, like savala (for onions), mesa( for table ), kasera (for chair), janela(for window), all likely from Portuguese influence!
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- pilaf 3y agoI think it's safe to assume that the Portuguese "pão" (bread) was pronounced much closer to "pan" around the time they made contact with Japan, and that's what stuck in Japan while the Portuguese pronunciation kept evolving. I find it strange otherwise that the Japanese word is closer in pronunciation to the Spanish "pan", or even the French "pain", than the modern day Portuguese word.
- hsjqllzlfkf 3y agoDidn't the Japanese have bread or balconies before the Portuguese arrived? How does that work?
- hmry 3y agoHow do people survive without bread? This may be hard to believe, but it is actually possible. The trick is eating something else. :) (They did have steamed grain products, just not baked ones.) Don't know about balconies.
- account42 3y ago> Don't know about balconies. I don't suggest eating balconies.
- p3rls 3y agoUNLESS you're on a Japanese game show and it smells of chocolate
- hsjqllzlfkf 3y agoI didn't ask how people survive without bread. I asked whether the Japanese had bread before the Portuguese got there.
- resolutebat 3y agoSteamed/baked wheat buns of various kinds have been eaten in China for a long time and are known in Japan as well under the name manju (饅頭). Wiki says they were first introduced in 1341, but they're still associated with Chinese food and typically served as sweet snacks with tea, not as a meal. Savoury meat buns (肉まん nikuman) do exist, but they're nowhere near as common as bao in China. There are also many cracker-like hard "breads" made from rice flour, notably sensei, but these too are snacks, not mains.
- DrNosferatu 3y agoPortuguese "Arrufadas" -> Hawaiian "Sweet Bread Rolls" <3
- 77pt77 3y agoEverything in Hawaii is a stretch, Portuguese sausage is apparently italian and nothing like linguiça. Malasadas are kinda like fried dough eaten around Christmas or bolas de berlin, but not really. Sweet break is pao-de-leite but not quite.
- micheljansen 3y agoEven more surprising is the list of Japanese words of Dutch origin: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glossary_of_Japanese_words_of_Dutch_origin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glossary_of_Japanese_words_of_... The Dutch opportunistically arrived mostly after the Portuguese had been driven out by the Japanese, but still managed to leave the Japanese language with words like bīru, kapitan and madorosu. I'm sure these words would have come up during the Portuguese era as well.
- balder1991 3y agoFor words which are similar (captain, alcohol etc.) I wonder how they know it comes from Dutch and not Portuguese.
- lenocinor 3y agoThe linked article actually says captain more likely came from Portuguese.
- reksad 3y agoAs a Japanese native speaker, it's fun to learn our words with foreign origin.
- xrd 3y agoGosh, my favorite has to be hiryūzu. The Chinese characters mean flying dragon head. But, the word in Portuguese is filhos which means sons or a type of sweet pastry. That's an amazing journey.
- bakugo 3y agoKeep in mind that "filhos" and "filhós" are completely different words.
- zeruch 3y agoNot if you're a cannibal. :)
- xrd 3y agoAbsolutely good point. I'm sure it was the pastry version they were using. The incredible thing to me is that if I heard hiryuuzu, I would never have assumed it came from either of these Portuguese words. But, if I say it a few times, it does fit the Japanese tongue and how they would repeat it back if they heard a Portuguese speaker. Japanese does not really have a pure F or a pure H sound, it is in between, and of course, the Portuguese lh is like nothing in Japanese, but fits ryuu. Which is great, being in between L and R. I just love how these off kilter sounds resolve to that romaji. I love even more how the Kanji pronunciation fits and then the Kanji they chose to use for those sounds. It is really fun when a foreign word suddenly gets Japanese characters and there is no historical reason for that. The word just sprang into existence without a backstory at that second.
- VeninVidiaVicii 3y agoI speak Portuguese and just got back from Portugal with my anime-obsessed boss. It was endless embarrassment when I told him to say “obrigado” to thank people, but he just said “arigato” the whole week — even after dozens of corrections. I was browsing this same list this morning to see if there was any merit to his behavior.
- Vox_Leone 3y agoBrazilian here. The first Portuguese-rooted Japanese word I learned was Kuruzu [PT: Cruz; EN: Cross]. It is lacking in the Wiki page. I wonder if it still in use. EDIT: The word does not appear in search. The word don't seem to exist as a noun. I've been given wrong information, apparently. I apologize for spreading it.
- commandlinefan 3y agoI speak Japanese and Spanish - when I went to Japan with my Mexican wife, she asked how to say "bread" in Japanese and I said "pan" and she said, "honey, you're mixing up your Japanese and your Spanish, that's the Spanish word for bread".
- mdp2021 3y agoAlways loved that simple joke from Takahashi: "Pan da panda"... (Depicting the bread holding aloof panda.)
- earthboundkid 3y agoJapanese comedy excels at these very bad jokes.
- davidjytang 3y agoHaving gone through half a century of Japanese period, Taiwan also calls bread "pan".
- polynomial 3y agoThis answers questions I have long had, as I was not previously aware of the Muromachi period.
- johnatwork 3y agoAs a Korean, it's wild to see what words that we got from the Japanese come from somewhere even further. I've always wondered some like Jjokki - Jacket/vest Ppang - Bread dah-mah (I think?) - bulb/fuse mang-toh - Coat/cloak jjah-mong - pomelo like fruit
- krsdcbl 3y agojjokki could be from German "Jacke" (afaik here are also many German loanwords in japanese, specially in engineering & medical fields) ppang sounds like it came from french "pain" mang-toh also french "manteau"
- WalterBright 3y agowishatzu - shirt (from white shirt) oranju jusu - orange juice
- anthk 3y agoClose to Spanish: Chaqueta/Pan/Manto(old fashioned -centuries- cloak/coat/cape)/Limón
- 77pt77 3y agoThere are very few connections between Korea and Portugal, unlike Japan, where it is quite noticeable, especially in places like Nagasaki.
- WalterBright 3y agoEnglish, of course, takes from every language it encounters.