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JAPANESE LUSOFONIA

11/2/2019

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In 1550, the kingdom of Portugal monopolized trading rights with Japan, and that basically lasted up to the Dutch entering the region in the seventeenth century. Relations were still really close until the Tokugawa shogunate isolated Japan in the 1630s, and, as such, a lot of Portuguese words were borrowed into Japanese (especially because of new ideas and technologies being brought over by missionaries). Here are some of the most interesting borrowings:
  • The Portuguese word for "cup", copo, became kappu in Japanese
  • The Portuguese word for "button", botao, became botan in Japanese
  • The Japanese name for deep-fried seafood and vegetables, tempura, comes from a Portuguese word meaning "seasoning", tempero
  • The Portuguese word for "bread", pao, became pan in Japanese
  • The Portuguese word for "tobacco", tabaco, became tobako in Japanese
And much more! There's a rather engrossing Wikipedia glossary on this that you should check out if this fascinating topic further interest you.
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    Hello! I'm Adam Aleksic, a senior studying government and linguistics at Harvard University, where I co-founded the Harvard Undergraduate Linguistics Society. In addition to etymology, I also really enjoy trivia, politics, vexillology, geography, board games, conlanging, art history, and law. 
      If I don't cover it soon, I probably already did it
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