Foreign language assimilated into Japanese Language
02/03/09 09:53 Filed in: Education
Its common
knowledge that Japanese use quite a lot of words
derived from the English language into their daily
lives. For example:
Frying pan = Furainggu panTaiya = Tyre
and others.
But English words are not the only ones that have been “Japanised” if I may say that.
Take for example the word for bread in Japanese is パン pronounced ”Pahn”.
Only today did I realize this word is a foreign word. Well I should have picked up the clue because it’s written in katakana and not hiragana like so: ぱん
Anything that’s written using the Katakana meant the word is foreign based.
Well I thought it was an original Japanese word because it doesn’t even sound like bread to me!
Well guess what, I remembered that the French word for bread is pain, pronounced as “pahn” (something closer to that)!
Well here’s another:
Clown = ピエロ pronounced “pi-e-ro”
Well pi-e-ro sounds like Pierrot, a french clown!
Alamak! (a supposedly malay exclamation word) = あらまあ！(This is could actually be a Japanese word being assimilated into the Malay language or the other way around. read my theories here.)
I’ll update this post as and when I come across or remember more words.
Frying pan = Furainggu panTaiya = Tyre
and others.
But English words are not the only ones that have been “Japanised” if I may say that.
Take for example the word for bread in Japanese is パン pronounced ”Pahn”.
Only today did I realize this word is a foreign word. Well I should have picked up the clue because it’s written in katakana and not hiragana like so: ぱん
Anything that’s written using the Katakana meant the word is foreign based.
Well I thought it was an original Japanese word because it doesn’t even sound like bread to me!
Well guess what, I remembered that the French word for bread is pain, pronounced as “pahn” (something closer to that)!
Well here’s another:
Clown = ピエロ pronounced “pi-e-ro”
Well pi-e-ro sounds like Pierrot, a french clown!
Alamak! (a supposedly malay exclamation word) = あらまあ！(This is could actually be a Japanese word being assimilated into the Malay language or the other way around. read my theories here.)
I’ll update this post as and when I come across or remember more words.
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