04 Gairaigo origins (Japanese)
Description
This article is from the Japanese FAQ, by TANAKA Tomoyuki tanaka@cs.indiana.edu and Olaf Meeuwissen olaf@IMSL.shinshu-u.ac.jp with numerous contributions by others.
04 Gairaigo origins (Japanese)
i've always been interested in the various interesting
etymologies of Japanese gairaigo (loan words).
"chongaa" is from Korean.
"rootoru" is from Chinese.
i thought about writing a book about them, until i
realized there are many good books on the subject
published in Japan.
http://www.cs.indiana.edu/hyplan/tanaka/ot/gairaigo.txt
http://www.cs.indiana.edu/hyplan/tanaka/other_tanaka/gairaigo.txt
--- abekku (a (heterosexual) couple out on a date)
from the French "avec" (a preposition meaning "with")
--- bakku-shan (a girl who appears pretty when seen from behind)
(this word is pretty outdated now.)
bakku: from English "back"
shan: from German "scho:n" (meaning "beautiful")
(from the 1930s to the 1950s or 1960s (?) "shan" was
commonly used to mean "a beautiful girl".)
Together "bakku-shan" means "a girl who appears pretty when
seen from behind (but not when seen from the front)."
(It's kind of like "shunkan-bijin" --- "a momentary beauty".)
[...]
-?- batten (a conjunction meaning "but"; used in the Kyuushuu area)
from English "but then".
this is not from the dictionary. i read and heard about it on
several separate occasions. [do you have any references?]
Continue to:
My Books
