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Whenever you encounter another culture, each culture takes something from the other. So it is with English and Japanese. Each language has borrowed from the other. In the case of English, there’s a long list of borrowings. Some of these have no direct English equivalent and describe inherently Japanese concepts. Others come from Japanese via Chinese. Here are a few examples:
Adzuki – a type of bean
Anime – Japanese animation (interestingly, this word originated from the English/French word animation)
Bonsai – tray gardening
Dojo – a martial arts training ground
Futon – a type of mattress
Geisha – female entertainers
Haiku – a form of Japanese poetry consisting of three lines, with 5, 7 and 5 syllables respectively.
Hara Kiri – ritual suicide
Honcho – squadron leader
Jujitsu – martial art – meaning ’soft skill’
Kabuki – Japanese theatre
Kamikaze – strong wind (refers to suicide pilots)
Kanji – A Japanese writing system; refers to the Chinese characters used
Karate – martial art – meaning ‘empty hand’
Kimono – a full length robe
Ninja – a stealthy warrior
Origami – folding paper
Rickshaw – a human powered vehicle
Sake – rice wine
Samurai – a warrior
Satsuma – a type of orange
Seppuku – ritual suicide by cutting the abdomen
Soy – a bean
Sumo – a type of wrestling
Sushi – rice combined with other ingredients
Tofu – bean curd; this word is of Chinese origin
Tsunami – a huge wave (incorrectly called a tidal wave).
Zen – a branch of Buddhism
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Hi Sharon, I’m a native Japanese speaker, who enjoys reading your blog. I found this entry interesting.
Though I knew the word rickshaw, I didn’t know it originated from a Japanese word. What’s even surprising (to me anyway) is the word soy. Until reading this entry, I never thought that this word came from Japan.
Many other words with the Japanese origin seem to have been transcribed just as the Japanese people would actually write; yet, those words seem to have been transcribed in a more English way. Rickshaw, for example, is rikisha in Japanese, and ‘rikisha’ is how the Japanese people would transcribe rikisha in English alphabets.
I believe ’soy’ came from shouyu (meaning soy sauce, and pronounced like ’show you’). But if that were the case, I would wonder why it was shouyu but not daizu (soy beans) that served as the origin of the word ’soy’.
Hi Masafumi
I’m not an expert, but it might depend on when a particular term entered the language and who brought it. Rickshaw might have been as close as a native English speaker could get to the original.
Love your blog. How could you have possibly not included “karaoke”?
Yes, from the words for empty orchestra – good addition, Tom
great post, very informative ^_^
I am an English-Japanese translator, and I agree with Masafumi about the word “soy”. How could that possibly have come from “shoyu”? I’ve wondered that since well before this blog, of course
. I’ve also wondered about the word “ken” as in “outside of my ken”. It means “prefecture” in Japanese, but I think its similar use in English may just be a coincidence…
Great post, thanks!
Thanks, Jaimpanese
Dawn, I speak subject to correction, but I believe that the word ‘ken’ for know is used in Scotland and originates from the German ‘kennen’ to know, hence outside of my ken = beyond my knowledge. Maybe someone who knows more about it will weigh in with a better explanation.
Thanks Sharon, that confirms my suspicions. While I’m here too, the word “salaryman” also popped into my head as one of those re-imported Japanese phrases from English like “anime”. I’ve lived in Japan too long to know, but I believe that one has also picked up use among native English speakers…?
Yes, definitely another re-importation, Dawn. I’m not sure how widely it’s used, but then as a freelancer I’m not often in corporate circles
I never knew “rickshaw” is a Japanese word. Thanks for improving my language history.
Wow. I didn’t know that Honcho is Japanese. And is it not unnecessary to say head Honcho, then?
Oh, I can’t help but keep coming back to this post! Here are some others:
aikido (martial art)
judo (martial art)
hibachi (charcoal grill or heater)
kendo (martial art)
koto (musical instrument)
Noh (theatre)
pachinko (pinball game)
s(h)amisen (musical instrument)
shiatsu (massage)
shogun (military general)
tatami (straw mats/flooring)
ukiyo-e (woodblock prints)
zaibatsu (corporate conglomorates)
Great additions, Dawn.
don’t forget:
surimi (fake crab meat)
banzai (desperate charge)
sashimi (thinly sliced, raw meat)
ronin (rogue warrior)
mimikaki (ear wax cleaner)
Are you sure you mean “from Japanese via Chinese”, instead of “from Chinese via Japanese”? Japanese has taken many words from Chinese, but I’m not so sure it is the other way around.
Thanks for the additions, Peter.
Georg, I guess it’s all in the way you think about it. I’m talking about their route into English. In some cases the English language borrowed a word from Japanese, which was borrowed by Japanese from Chinese. Hope that makes it clearer.
Thanks for the post!!!
What about skosh? I’ve always wondered why Americans say, “just a skosh bigger”. Isn’t this the same exact meaning is the Japanese sukoshi?
Tenpura, Saki (sake), Ramen, Sukiyaki, and many other food names come from Japan, obviously.
We eschew the Japanese term “Yaki Soba” here (sounds like yucky soba), so Japanese merchants have begun calling it “chow mein” instead.
Ikebana?
Sumi-e?
Interesting that Kimono is unchanged, Happi has been rendered as “Happy Coat”, but zori were once known here as thongs, and now as flip flops. What’s so hard about saying zori or geta?
I dissagree with your explanation of Geisha” it is more like “a person of culture”
and Hara kiri mean “cut the belly”.
The rest is pretty cool.
thank you for sharing.
“oruka” (オルカ) is a word for killer whale in Japanese (though more common is “shachi” [シャチ]). The word for dolphin is “iruka” (イルカ). Doesn’t it seem like “iruka” and “oruka” should be somehow related, and that orca is of Japanese origin? Well, it turns out that “orca” is of Latin origin.
Maybe the Japanese “oruka” and the English “orca” are both loaned from Latin. If that’s the case, then why are the Japanese “oruka” and “iruka” so similar?! I don’t think that “iruka” is from Latin. Maybe it’s just a coincidence, but it’s a head-scratcher to me.
I’ve also always wondered about “honky-dory”. It really sounds like it could be Japanese. “Honki” (本気) means “truth” or “seriousness”. “Dori” (道理) means “way” or “street”. It seems like things that are “honky-dory” could be going in a “truthful way” (or something like that.)
I haven’t looked into it, but it seems possible. Nothing like “honkidori” is in current use in Japanese, as far as I know, but it could have been loaned in the distant past. Japanese seems to “evolve” pretty fast. I’ve met plenty of native speakers who say they have a hard time reading a newspaper or understanding some speech from just a few decades ago (e.g., as recent as WWII.)
Oh…and kudzu (the plant that grows all over the south US), is from “kuzu” (葛).