Not exactly. "riichi" comes from Mandarin, which might be related to "reach"[1] (can someone confirm?). It is an original word, although maybe a loan word, an t

Not exactly. "riichi" comes from Mandarin, which might be related to "reach"[1] (can someone confirm?). It is an original word, although maybe a loan word, an the pronunciation might just have been kept faithful to the original because for all three languages (English, Chinese, Japanese) the length of vowels are sometimes meaningful (unlike e.g. in French). [1] https://zh.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E7%AB%8B%E7%9B%B4 https://zh.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E7%AB%8B%E7%9B%B4