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Archive 1

English words of Chinese origin

Deleted "Ni Hao", since it hasn't entered English usage. Also, for proper Chinese grammer, it's "Ni Hao Ma", since it's a question.

I agree with your edit, however "ni hao" is quite proper grammar. Yes "ni hao ma" is a question, but "ni hao" alone is used the way we use "hello". Both are used.
amRadioHed 16:35, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

even though ketchup also sounds like ketchup in amoy, I'd be more inclined to believe it comes from cantonese

Japanese words

I think the following should not be in the list;

kanji, ramen, zen, Yen, bonsai, Go, gyoza, koan.

Although most these words refer to things/concepts/ideas that originated from China, they are clearly English words of Japanese origin. LDHan 17:19, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

On the contrary, the following words are likely to be considered as Chinese, even in Japan:
kanji, ramen, zen, gyoza, koan
They are Japanese loan words of Chinese origin. Why not keep them listed here to show that?
I noticed that you didn't pick up nunchaku. Many of these words originate in Chinese and then enter English via Japanese.--Endroit 18:44, 18 February 2006 (UTC)
I think things/concepts/ideas and words for things/concepts/ideas needs to be distinguished. Eg "gyoza" is the word used in Japan to refer to a type of food which originated in China, the word "gyoza" did not originate in China. Please note I do not mean 饺子 or 餃子. I feel that to say that words such as kanji, ramen, gyoza, when used in English are of Chinese origin is wrong. In English, kanji, ramen, gyoza, are all Japanese words, and the fact that in Japan they might be considered to be Chinese, is not really relevant to this article. LDHan 19:59, 18 February 2006 (UTC)
Etymologically speaking, gyoza in English is derived from the Japanese gyoza, which in turn is derived from the Chinese 餃子 (jiaozi). I believe it's OK to list such words here as long as the etymology is explained. Please ask other editors, such as User:Kowloonese, what they think. Other editors are welcome to comment here as well. Thanks.--Endroit 20:22, 18 February 2006 (UTC)
PS: The Japanese article for gyoza uses the kanji 餃子 too. It says gyoza originated in China in 6th Century BC, and is a Chinese dish in the 華北 (Beijing area). The Japanese article goes on to say that it is still a very popular dish in the northeast region of China.--Endroit 20:31, 18 February 2006 (UTC)
I also would be interested what others think. I don't dispute the fact that gyoza is derived from 餃子 (jiaozi).
I just think that words of Chinese origin in their Japanese form or usage would be less confusing if placed in a list of English words of Japanese origin, rather than English words of Chinese origin. Eg should Chinese characters (汉字 or 漢字) be refered to as Hanzi or Kanji in English? I suggest it is clearer to say that Hanzi are Chinese characters and Kanji are Chinese charactors as used in Japan, and that it is incorrect to use Kanji to mean Chinese characters. You youself have said that "They are Japanese loan words of Chinese origin" (my italics). LDHan 16:06, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
While many of these words (ramen, etc) are considered by the Japanese to be gairaigo (foreign loan words), their use in English is still from the Japanese. We call gyoza gyoza, not jiaozi, and since there is a separate article/list for List of English words of Japanese origin, these things do not need to be included here. But I have a question: Chinese characters are called kanji in Japanese, and hanzi in Korean. What are they called in Chinese? Just ji? LordAmeth 11:57, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Chinese characters are called hanzi in Chinese, and hanja in Korean. I wonder do you use the word gyoza to refer to East Asian dumplings (饺子 or 餃子) in general? LDHan 12:46, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

"On the contrary, the following words are likely to be considered as Chinese, even in Japan:
kanji, ramen, zen, gyoza, koan"
Not true. Neither kanji nor zen nor koan are considered to be "Chinese words" in Japanese. Ramen and gyoza may be.
More importantly, we have a problem of principle here. The words we are discussing were borrowed into English from Japanese. They may have come from Chinese originally, but they were not English borrowings from Chinese. Full stop.
Let me take the example of the word 'kureyon' in Japanese. This is sometimes said to be a borrowing from French. But if you look at the meaning, this doesn't make sense. 'Crayon' in French means 'pencil'. 'Crayon' in English refers to something quite different, a kind of colouring pencil. Which meaning does 'kureyon' have in Japanese? The English meaning! Which shows that the word was borrowed from English, not from French.
The same goes for gyoza. Chinese jiaozi are not the same as Japanese gyoza. Japanese gyoza are what are known as guotie in Beijing. So the borrowing is clearly from Japanese, no matter whether the Japanese originally got it from Chinese or not.
Besides which, words like 'kanji' and 'koan' were borrowed into English in their Japanese phonetic form, not in their Chinese pronunciations. This alone is enough to demonstrate that they are borrowings from Japanese, not Chinese.
(Another fallacy here is the Chinese-character fallacy, commonly committed by people who know Chinese characters, namely, because words are written in Chinese characters, the Japanese is just a 'pronunciation variant' of the Chinese'. This makes no sense at all. 'Chan' is a Chinese word, 'Zen' is a Japanese word, simple as that. When English borrowed these words, it didn't borrow the kanji, it borrowed the pronunciation. Neither gyoza nor koan nor any of these other words is pronounced that way in Chinese. So the borrowing simply didn't take place from Chinese.)
The simple point is, words that were borrowed from Japanese should be regarded as loan words from Japanese, not from Chinese. The fact that some of these words may originally have been borrowed into Japanese from Chinese via Chinese characters is not relevant.
Bathrobe 13:19, 21 February 2006 (UTC)
Bathrobe is using the modern Chinese pronounciation to prove his point, which is a fallacy. Read the article about Sino-Japanese (or onyomi), on how Chinese words were borrowed into the Japanese language. In particular, it explains how the word hanzi in Chinese became kanji in Japanese.
Besides, the title of this article is List of English words of Chinese origin. Bathrobe has NOT demonstrated that the disputed words are not of Chinese origin.--Endroit 16:20, 21 February 2006 (UTC)
The on'yomi originated in Chinese, that is true, but that does not make 'on'yomi' ipso facto Chinese. On'yomi and kun'yomi are not about etymology, they are a formalised system of reading Chinese characters in Japanese. There are false on'yomi, and there are words that are on'yomi but are quite Japanese, for example daimyo, banto, and bakufu. As for 'kanji', it is an on'yomi, but I would not make such bold speculations as to say that the word 'kanji' came from Chinese. The article you link to says merely: 'Thus, Chinese hànzì (漢字) corresponds to Japanese kanji'. It does not say that Japanese 'kanji' was derived from Chinese 'hanzi'. There are plenty of words -- on'yomi words and kun'yomi words -- that went from Japanese to Chinese. (I am not claiming that 'kanji' went from Japanese to Chinese, merely that the use of on'yomi does not automatically imply borrowing from Chinese to Japanese.)
The use of 'etymology' altogether is rather suspect. For example, the word 'chef' in English originally came from French. This in term was derived from the Latin word 'caput' (head). So in that sense, 'chef' is an English word with a Latin origin. Despite this, it is usually regarded as an 'English word of French origin', not 'an English word of Latin origin'. Why is a different logic applied when we come to Chinese and Japanese?
As an aside, the word Chan appears to originally have been related to the Sanskrit word dhyana and the Pali word jhana. Perhaps there is even an etymological connection there -- but not one that can be casually demonstrated by a quick reference to on'yomi. If the word Chan is a borrowing from Sanskrit/Pali, then even according to your criteria it should be struck off the list.
Bathrobe 00:53, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
Click each link for citation: Zen [1], yen [2], and ramen [3] are derived from Mandarin Chinese (via Japanese) according to American Heritage Dictionary. Kanji [4], bonsai [5], koan [6], and go [7] are derived from Middle Chinese (via Japanese), according to American Heritage Dictionary. For gyoza, American Heritage Dictionary does not show the etymology beyond Japanese, perhaps because it isn't totally clear which dialect of Chinese it came from. But these words are not "false onyomi" as Bathrobe purported to claim. And American Heritage Dictionary disagrees with Bathrobe regarding the etymology of most of these words. I repeat that Bathrobe has NOT demonstrated that these words are not of Chinese origin.--Endroit 09:41, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Please don't twist my words. I did not say these were examples of false on'yomi. I said that on'yomi does not necessarily mean "Chinese". As for your examples, I don't feel they necessarily prove your point:

  • "Japanese zen, from Chinese (Mandarin) chán, meditation, from Pali jhana, from Sanskrit dhynam, from dhyati, he meditates." So it ultimately doesn't appear to be derived from Chinese at all.
  • "kanji" - "Japanese : kan, Chinese (from Middle Chinese xanh) + ji, characters (from Middle Chinese dzih)." What this is saying is that the word is from Japanese, and that the element 'kan' is from Middle Chinese and that the element 'ji' is also from Middle Chinese. It does not say that the word 'kanji' is from Middle Chinese.
  • "bonsai" - "Japanese, potted plant : bon, basin (from Middle Chinese ben) + sai, to plant (from Middle Chinese tsja, tsaj)." Ditto. Incidentally, in modern Chinese bonsai is known as penjing 盆景, not 盆栽.
  • "koan" - Japanese kan : ko, public (from Middle Chinese kewng) + an, matter." Again, this is not claiming that the word 'koan' is from Middle Chinese, it is saying that the elements 'ko' and 'an' are from Middle Chinese.
  • "go" - "Japanese, from Middle Chinese gi." Here the Japanese word is clearly stated to have been directly derived from Middle Chinese.
  • "yen" - "Japanese en, from Chinese (Mandarin) yuán, dollar." Here again the word is stated to have been derived from a Chinese word. However, with all due respect to American Heritage, I am a little doubtful that 'en' was derived from Mandarin Chinese. Just a guess, but it is possible that the word 'en' (circle), which was borrowed from an earlier stage of Chinese, was applied to mean a unit of currency in imitation the Chinese usage 'yuan'.
  • "ramen" - "Japanese ramen, from Chinese (Mandarin) la miàn, pulled noodles : la, pull + miàn, noodle". This states quite clearly that the word 'ramen' is derived from Mandarin Chinese 'lamian'. It is quite different from the words above, where only the individual elements (not the whole word) are attributed to Middle Chinese. And as I said above, the words 'ramen' and 'gyoza' are cases where the word may be perceived in Japanese as actual borrowings from Chinese.

This use of 'on'yomi' as a shorthand for 'Chinese word' leads to some rather confusing results. For instance, the word 'daimyo', which was a quintessentially Japanese feudal class, can be traced back to Chinese origins according to your criteria:

  • "Japanese daimyo : dai, great; (see daikon) + myo, name (from Middle Chinese mjiajng)." And if we check out 'daikon', we find: "Japanese : dai, big (from Middle Chinese daj, thaj)".

As for 'daikon' itself, this is also derived from Chinese according to Endroit's criteria:

  • "Japanese : dai, big (from Middle Chinese daj, thaj) + kon, root (from Middle Chinese ken)." Of course, it doesn't matter that 'daikon' is not actually used in Chinese (at least in this meaning); the Chinese have their own name for it, which is 'luobo'.

I think we need to look again at the definition at the start of the article: "Words of Chinese origin, i.e. loanwords that come from any member of the Chinese branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family". By this criterion, none of the loanwords from Japanese are 'Words of Chinese origin', because Japanese is decidedly not a 'member of the Chinese branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family'. Tracing the etymology of Japanese words back to Chinese roots does not make them into loanwords from Chinese.

Bathrobe 11:18, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Who's twisting the words here? The title of this article is NOT Chinese loanwords in the English language. The title of this article is List of English words of Chinese origin, which is clearly a different thing! Don't fool me, you have merely proved that bonsai is not of Chinese origin. The rest of them are, even kanji and koan.--Endroit 12:45, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

The definition given at the start of the article should determine what examples are included. The current definition is 'loanwords that come from the Chinese branch of the Sino-Tibetan family'. Since Japanese is not a 'member of the Chinese branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family', then English loanwords from Japanese should not be included. That is where the matter should rest.

But Endroit has come up with an 'etymological criterion' for the inclusion of Japanese on-yomi words. This criterion may be stated as follows:

  • Japanese on-yomi words are Chinese words, so they should be included as 'English words of Chinese origin'.

I have pointed out two problems with this (I will recapitulate because Endroit keeps saying that 'Bathrobe hasn't proved that these words are not of Chinese origin', which is not the point I am making):

1 Japanese on-yomi words are not considered Chinese words by the Japanese. They may be classed as 漢語 but that is not the same as 'Chinese words'. No matter what the etymology, I can't see how you can justify treating a Japanese word as a Chinese word. It makes about as much sense as saying that チェンジ in Japanese is a borrowing from French on the grounds that English 'change' is etymologically derived from French 'changer' (or the Middle French Norman form of 'changer').

2 It can't automatically be assumed that 'on-yomi' words are 'Chinese words'. Of course words like 公案 were derived from Chinese words, and there are many other words like this. But the connection between on'yomi and Chinese is not as simple as it seems and on'yomi shouldn't be taken for granted as proving that a word is borrowed from Chinese. For example:

  • Some characters that did not originate in Chinese have 'on-yomi'. For example, 働 has the on-yomi dō; 腺 has the on-yomi sen. Both were created in Japan. (These are the 'false on-yomi' that I referred to, although they are only 'false' if you make the assumption that 'on-yomi = Chinese word'.)
  • Many on-yomi words were created by the Japanese themselves. Some were created on Chinese models from Classical Chinese sources and reexported to China (words like 経済, 科学, 社会, etc.) Others have no etymological basis in Chinese at all: e.g., 出火, 立腹, 番頭, 返事. Under Endroit's criterion, these would have to be regarded as 'Chinese words' because they are on-yomi.

Rather than discuss theory, however, let's look what happens if we decide that any Japanese on-yomi word belongs in the list because it is, by definition, a 'Chinese word':

  • First, purely Japanese words like 'daimyo' and 'daikon' would have to be included as 'words of Chinese origin'. Both are derived from Middle Chinese according to Endroit's etymological authority, the American Heritage Dictionary. In fact, it is quite dubious whether these words were borrowed from Chinese. 大名 exists in Chinese but does not mean 'feudal lord'. 大根 does not mean 'Chinese radish', if it exists at all.
If you feel that the above is not conclusive enough, what about on'yomi words like waka, tanka, haiku, geisha, matcha, sencha, washi, judo, kendo, shinto, shogi and chonin? The roots of these words were all assuredly of Chinese origins. The etymology of 'geisha' given in the American Heritage Dictionary is "Japanese : gei, art (from Middle Chinese ngejh) + sha, person (from Middle Chinese tsia?)". Despite this, they are emphatically not of Chinese origin. Does the on'yomi rule mean they should be included in the list?
  • Even worse is the case of the word 'rickshaw' (which occurs in the list). Rickshaw in fact appears to be a Japanese word that was borrowed into Chinese. But presumably because it is an on-yomi word, it has been included in the list as a 'word of Chinese origin'!
  • Another problematic word is 'shogun'. This was definitely derived from Chinese (see American Heritage Dictionary: "Japanese shogun, general, from Middle Chinese tsiangkun : tsiang, general + kun, army.") Chinese still has the word 將軍 meaning 'general'. But the meaning of 'shogun' in English is specifically Japanese, referring to the military rulers of Japan during a long period of Japanese history. Is it meaningful to class this as 'an English word of Chinese origin'?
  • Although 'zen' is an on'yomi, etymologically it doesn't belong because it is clearly not of Chinese origin, it is of Indian origin. If Endroit is serious about the etymological argument, I would suggest that he should delete 'zen' from the list of 'English words of Chinese origin'.
  • To complicate things even further, we might consider the English word 'Mume (plum)'. 'Mume' is the borrowed form of the Japanese word ume (plum). Although 'ume' is a kun'yomi, in fact it was borrowed from Chinese 梅 'méi' so far back that it was never treated as an on'yomi. But etymologically it traces back to Chinese! Should it be in the list?

The point of the above is that the whole case for extending the definition of 'words of Chinese origin' to cover Japanese on-yomi words is so shot through with inconsistencies and loopholes that it should be dropped. I realise that some people feel that the borrowing of a word like 'koan' into English is a kind of 'surrogate borrowing' of the Chinese word 公案. But this concept is just too rubbery to be of use. Unless better arguments or criteria can be given, examples should be restricted to those that fit the definition at the start of the article: loanwords that come from the Chinese branch of the Sino-Tibetan family.

PS: I am not sure why you specifically decided to delete bonsai. It is true that the word is not used in modern Chinese. However, that does not definitively rule out the possibility that 盆栽 was used in Chinese at one stage and borrowed by the Japanese, but later died out in Chinese.

Bathrobe 00:51, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

I think the problem is where do you stop in tracing the origin of a word. To use another word as an example, anime, is this a English word of Japanese origin? But anime is itself derived from animation, which is derived from...and so on. LDHan 13:41, 23 February 2006 (UTC)
I urge everyone to return to the original discussion pertaining strictly to the following 8 words chosen by LDHan: kanji (漢字), ramen (拉麵), zen (禪), Yen (圓), bonsai (盆栽), Go (碁), gyoza (餃子), koan (公案). I don't think anybody can deny that the 7 words (except bonsai) were introduced from Chinese into Japanese, intact with the corresponding hanzi/kanji. Obviously, knowledge of the Traditional Chinese hanzi (or kanji) is essential in figuring that out.
And I assure you that there is no such "onyomi criterion" involved here suggested by Bathrobe. I used my onyomi (Sino-Japanese) argument just to show that the "Japanese phonetic form" (in the 8 words) was based on "Chinese pronounciation." Such phonetic information do NOT determine the etymology, but instead the semantic information within each hanzi/kanji combination do. I would add that a basic knowledge of Chinese and an advanced knowledge of hanzi/kanji would be required to understand how the semantic information within hanzi/kanji interrelates to the etymology here.
Finally, I repeatedly remind everyone that the title of this article is List of English words of Chinese origin.--Endroit 17:34, 23 February 2006 (UTC)
I agree that 経済, 科学, 社会, 大根 are Japanese words. But the 8 words listed here are obviously Chinese, though they entered the English language via Japanese hence using Japanese pronunciation. IMHO, these words should be included in both lists. The words themselves originated from China. But the pronunciation originates from Japanese. I would suggest to use the following format to indicate the path of travel.
Likewise, the word Anime is from French via Japanese, the word amah is from Portugese via Chinese. You can also find many Hebrew words via Yiddish. Since these words evolved when it passed from one language to the next, it is encyclopedic info to include the path of evolution, especially when certain traits and attributes such as pronunication can be traced to a certain language along the way. Kowloonese 20:12, 23 February 2006 (UTC)
To add to the debate, I would make parallels to Latin borrowings in English. It's well known that Latin-based words make up as much as half the words in the English language. At least some half of those Latin words in fact didn't come directly from Latin, but from French, thanks to the Norman Conquest. Yet despite this, the words are still widely recognized as being Latin in origin. Some food for thought.Yuje 22:54, 23 February 2006 (UTC)
Actually, words that entered English at the time of the Norman conquest are recognised as borrowings from French. 'Royal' is from French, 'regal' is from Latin, 'loyal' is from French, 'legal' is from Latin. 'Chef' and 'chief' are from French, 'decapitate' is Latin in origin.
I also disagree that 'amah' is Portuguese via Chinese or that 'anime' is French via Japanese. They should be regarded as Chinese and Japanese words respectively. It may be useful (even vital) to include an etymology, but they should be regarded as originating in the particular language that they were borrowed from.
In fact, the etymology game can be played to ridiculous extremes. The word 'chef' and the English word 'head' can both be traced back to the same proto-Indo-European root, so they are both of 'proto-Indo-European origin'. Similarly for 'wheel' and 'chakra'. That is why it is important to draw the line at the first source of borrowing, not the etymological ancestor at one or more removes.
I find it interesting that not a single person has responded to my point about 'zen'. I wonder why people are so eager to consider it of Chinese (not Japanese) origin, but not willing to recognise that the true origin lies even further back? Could it be that the problem is not linguistic, but rather an assertion of Chinese 'cultural and moral ownership' of Zen? Is there a sense that we are trying to say that 'these borrowings should have been direct from Chinese but somehow English borrowed them from Japanese instead'?
Bathrobe 00:33, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
The Chinese Chan is from Sanskrit channa. So along the same line as Anime and amah, the entry should say "Zen, from Sanskrit Channa via Chinese Chan and then Japanese Zen." You can clearly see how the word was phonetically translated to Chinese and then read as Japanese pronunciation before entering the English language. Zen should be listed under Japanese, Chinese and Sansktit. All three origins for different aspects of the word. If the Japanese didn't change the pronunciation of the word, the answer is very clean cut, Zen comes from Snaskrit. But since the word evolved via a phonetic->writing->phonetic transformation. Each language contribute a small part of the final word. That is why I suggest all origins of these small contributions should be listed. i.e. Zen is English (which contributed the letters Z, E and N), Japanese (which contributed the pronunciation zen), Chinese (which contributed the writing 禪) and Sanskrit (which contributed the pronunciation channa). Anime is English, Japanese, French. Amah is English, Chinese, Portugese, Medieval Latin. etc. In those etymological orders. Kowloonese 01:31, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
I can understand and relate to the feeling that "chan" should have been borrowed from Chinese. China is where the practice originated and so I find it mildly annoying that Zen is widely considered a Japanese practice. Regardless, I agree with bathrobe because even though English maybe should have adopted the Chinese word, it didn't. English adopted the word "zen", it did not adopt the word "chan" or the character 禪. Furthermore, it is clearly the uniquely Japanese flavor of zen which is associated with the word in English so it should be considered a Japanese word. To my knowledge English has never adopted any hànzì characters ever and so they are not relevant to the discussion IMHO. Yes 禪 is Chinese, but "zen" is not. QED.
amRadioHed 18:20, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

I disagree with Bathrobe's comment:

That is why it is important to draw the line at the first source of borrowing, not the etymological ancestor at one or more removes.

You are basically saying the origin is where it entered the English language. So if you travel from India to China to Japan and then to London, then your port of origin is Japan because it is the closest port of departure before you arrived at London. I have the opposite opinion, origin means the earliest etymological ancestor. The pot thickens when you are wearing a qipao from China, and a kimono from Japan. The immigration officer may not believe that you come from India. You basically have to list your path to explain why you look hybrid. The same applies to these words, they are hybrids when each language added something to them. Kowloonese 02:11, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

So you are saying that the etymological origin of 'chef' is the proto-Indo-European word -- not French or Latin?
Bathrobe
I have been saying to include all if each of these language affected the final word in any manner. I don't know the story behind the word 'chef', but it probably should be listed under French, Latin and proto-Indo-European list if these lists exist. I would bet there would be millions of words around the world with the proto-Indo-European list, hence such list would be really impractical wikipedian article. If I were to own this wikipedia, I would put chef in the French list mentioning it is from Latin. I'd also put chef in the Latin list mentioning it entered English language via French but based on proto-Indo-European. I'd not create a list for the P-I-E because it would be too big. Kowloonese 08:17, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
I agree that an etymological entry should be as full as possible. I guess that we need to check out other parts of the Wikipedia to make sure they are not committing similar errors :) (like Arabic words via Spanish and French, etc.). I guess we will need to add Zen to 'words of Sanskrit origin', if such a page exists. Since Sanskrit is Indo-European, then Zen may even have to be identified as an Indo-European word. All this gets very interesting!
As for pronunciation->writing->pronunciation, I wonder a little about the tendency to regard characters as primary and words as 'readings' of those characters. I realise the importance of characters and their role in borrowing between languages in East Asia (i.e., it is most often 'characters' that are borrowed, not 'pronunciations'), but it leads to a tendency to see words in these languages as 'variants' on a single standard (usually Chinese), whereas the reality is not so simple. There are plenty of words with slightly different connotations (a casual example of the top of my head is 工艺, which has somewhat different usage in Chinese and Japanese). Even with a word like Zen/Chan, the connotations of Japanese 'Zen' and Chinese 'Chan' are going to be somewhat different, even though everyone knows that Zen is simply the Japanese version of Chan, and that the name Zen is directly derived from the word Chan. My point is that even where characters are involved in borrowing, we should deal with 'words', not with characters. I'm not sure if I'm making myself clear.

Bathrobe

Incidentally, 'cumquat' is missing from the list. Bathrobe 00:37, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

kumquat is spelled with a k. Kowloonese 01:31, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, I forgot to look under the 'k's. In fact, the spelling 'cumquat' is also used. Bathrobe

I think it is clear that there are problems with the naive treatment of words borrowed from Japanese as 'English words of Chinese origin'. For one thing, they do not fit the definition used in the article: 'loanwords that come from any member of the Chinese branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family'. Moreover, those who feel that they should be included have a hard time justifying them as 'Chinese words'. Instead, they are claimed as Chinese words on etymological grounds, i.e. they are Japanese words that 'originated in China', or even more bizarrely, they are 'Chinese words with a Japanese pronunciation' -- as though ownership belongs to the original language even when they been assimilated into the vocabulary of the borrowing language. Discussions of etymology have now got to the stage where any word that has passed through Chinese during its history (such as 'Zen') is being claimed as a word 'of Chinese origin'.
Nevertheless, due to the close cultural and linguistic connections among East Asian languages, there are grounds for the view that these words, represented by the same Chinese characters in different languages, are part of a wider set of vocabulary that has Chinese at its centre, and that recognition needs to be given to the fact that the English borrowing of such vocabulary via Japanese in some wider sense represents a borrowing from the Chinese wordstock. This is especially the case with words like tofu, koan, and kanji, which are fully-formed words, not merely isolated characters. For instance, the meaning of the word 'koan' is incomprehensible without some reference not merely to the Chinese characters but to the story behind them, which only makes sense in a Chinese linguistic context.
In order to resolve this contradiction, I have made a tentative change to the article: I have tried splitting out the words that have come via Japanese and put them in their own sublist within the article. This makes clear the strong etymological connection without making the questionable claim that Japanese words are 'Chinese words'. I would ask those involved in the discussion to take a look and see whether the result looks reasonable. Please let me know whether you feel this is an improvement. (If people feel it is not right, it can always be reverted.)
While doing so, I have taken the liberty of deleting rickshaw, given that etymology suggests that it was a Japanese word borrowed into Chinese, not vice versa. If it can be shown that this interpretation is incorrect, it can, of course, be reinstated.
Bathrobe 13:23, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
I personally prefer having one list in alphabetical order. The note inside the entries to say "via Japanese" is more than enough. Did 'tofu' really enter English via Japanese? Wade-Giles would give the same spelling from Chinese. I always thought rickshaw is a Chinese word pronounced in Japanese. Rickshaws were everywhere in Shanghai a century ago. I bet most Westerners experienced rickshaws in Hong Kong when they were a kind of tourist attractions before the 1960s. Was rickshaw invented in Japan or China? Kowloonese 22:55, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
Rickshaw: My impression was always that rickshaws were around in Japan in the 19th century, which is borne out by a quote from the Wikipedia article on Rickshaw:
The first rickshaws appeared in Japan around 1868, with the beginning of the Meiji period. They soon became a popular mode of transportation, since they were faster than the previously used palanquins (and human labor was considerably cheaper than using horses).
The identity of the inventor (if there was one) remains uncertain. Some sources give the American blacksmith Albert Tolman, who is said to have invented the rickshaw around 1848 in Worcester, Massachusetts for a missionary; others claim that Jonathan Scobie (or W. Goble), an American missionary to Japan, invented rickshaws around 1869 to transport his invalid wife through the streets of Yokohama. Still others say the rickshaw was designed by an American Baptist minister in 1888. Japanese sources often credit Izumi Yosuke, Suzuki Tokujiro, and Takayama Kosuke, who are said to have invented rickshaws in 1868, inspired by the horse carriages that had been introduced to the steets of Tokyo shortly before. Starting in 1870, the Tokyo government issued a permission to build and sell rickshaws to these three men; the seal of one of these inventors was also required on every license to operate a rickshaw.
By 1872, some 40,000 rickshaws were operating in Tokyo; they soon became the chief form of public transportation in Japan. (Powerhouse Museum, 2005; The Jinrikisha story, 1996)
Around 1880, rickshaws appeared in India, first in Simla and then, 20 years later, in Calcutta (now Kolkata). Here they were initially used by Chinese traders to transport goods; in 1914 the Chinese applied for permission to use rickshaws to transport passengers. Soon after, rickshaws appeared in many big cities in Southeast Asia; pulling a rickshaw was often the first job for peasants migrating to these cities.
Tofu: Wade-Giles would give toufu. Japanese romanisation gives tofu. As far as I know, tofu was usually called 'bean curd' in English until it became trendy as a health food. This happened quite recently (1980s?) and my impression is that it was associated with Japan, at least initially. But since rough impressions don't seem to be particularly reliable perhaps it would be useful if someone could dig up something more concrete.
Bathrobe 01:12, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

I have checked out the List of English words of Arabic origin and the approach advocated by Kowloonese is adopted there. That is, Arabic words that entered English via Spanish are listed, and so are Arabic words that originally came from Sanskrit, Persian, or Latin. The whole list is in alphabetical order. There is, however, some debate over origins on the talk page.

I personally prefer an approach that separates out Japanese words. However, as I said, if contributors feel that an integrated list is preferable, it can be reverted.

Before any such step is taken, however, I would strongly urge that the introduction should be rewritten to remove its current Sinocentric bias. First, the definition needs to be changed to something broader, indicating that 'Chinese origin' also includes naturalised Japanese, Korean, or Vietnamese words (if the latter two exist) that have entered English. Secondly, the discussion of ways that words were carried from China into English needs to be modified to take account of borrowings via other languages. As the article stands, the impression that readers gain is that 'words of Chinese origin' means 'words that have entered English from Chinese', suggesting that Japanese and other languages are taken for granted as 'derivatives' of Chinese.

At the same time it might be useful to split the list up alphabetically like the Arabic list.

Incidentally, Confucianism and joss house are missing from the list. Websters gives the following etymology for joss house: "Joss \Joss\, noun. [Chinese, corrupt. from Portuguese deos God, from Latin expression deus.]"

Bathrobe 02:11, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

With regard to the on-yomi criterion, although this has been disavowed by Endroit above, I note that this list [8] includes quite a few words that appear to be Japanese coinages in its list of Chinese words. Bathrobe 02:28, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

OK, thanks Bathrobe. I rewrote the introduction like you suggested. Everyone, please verify if it looks OK, and correct it if necessary. If we need to include Chinese words which entered English via Malay (or other languages), we can modify the intro again. Please let me know.
Also, the section titled "Different sources of loanwords" should be renamed to something like "How Chinese words entered the English language." Please comment or give alternate suggestions for a title. Once we change the title, I can make a new addition to that section... "* via Chinese characters....".
Finally, if there are no objections, I would like to adopt the alphabetic listing method suggested by Bathrobe (see List of English words of Arabic origin). To do this I will need to combine everything back into one big list.
I would like to thank Bathrobe and others for making constructive suggestions. You are all welcome to also visit List of English words of Japanese origin, to make any suggestions/improvements there as well. Kowloonese, please check that list and see if you can find any more words to add here. The Japanese list was revamped last month, so you will find more words there. Thanks.--Endroit 16:59, 25 February 2006 (UTC)
PS:I deleted bonsai (盆栽) because I thought the Chinese word was pénjǐng (盆景), which is different. I did find an entry for 盆栽 (pénzāi) in a Traditional Chinese dictionary, but I cannot find any etymological information showing that 盆栽 (bonsai/pénzāi) originated in Chinese.
I agree with Bathrobe that joss (or joss house) and Confucianism (or Confucian) should be added to the list, because I find them in the American Heritage Dictionary and the Merriam Webster Online.--Endroit 19:42, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

I've rewritten the intro and part of the 'Different sources of loanwords' section. I think it is a little better. If we are going to be professional, we need to add 'shogun', because Japanese did borrow it from Chinese -- with a note explaining the change in meaning.

The existence of penzai in a modern Chinese dictionary is not conclusive, especially if it is a traditional Chinese dictionary. Taiwan has borrowed quite a bit of vocabulary from Japanese that was not originally from Chinese. It is very easy to borrow such words because they are already in a Chinese-friendly form.

I think joss house may be pidgin, which makes it marginal as a Chinese word.

I won't oppose the reinsertion of Japanese words into the list. I don't know of any Korean or Vietnamese words, unless you include quoc ngu, which entered Vietnamese from Japanese via Chinese.

The information that I posted earlier about onyomi has not gone to waste. I've included it in the article on Sino-Japanese, which in its original form was very poorly written and jumbled concepts like 'Sino-Japanese', 'onyomi', 'word', 'pronunciation', 'vocabulary', and 'Chinese character' together in very confused and ill-defined manner. Bathrobe 03:37, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

I went ahead and applied the alphabetic listing method, as in the article List of English words of Arabic origin. While doing so, I also merged the "Japanese" sub-list into the main list.
I also added Confucianism and shogun to the (combined) list. The shogun entry in American Heritage Dictionary shows that the etymology of shogun is derived from Middle Chinese tsiangkun, which would be 將軍 (pinyin: jiāngjūn).
As usual, please correct if necessary. Thanks.--Endroit 16:18, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
If Japanese words are to stay in the list, I would prefer them to be listed separately. I have added a few words to clarify some of the Japanese words. LDHan 18:46, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Shanghai (verb)

It's not clear from the article whether this list should include words like "shanghai", as it in "He shanghaied me into serving potatoe salad at the ladies' picnic last week." "Shanghai" is obviously of Chinese origin, but the usage of the term as a verb is not. Readin (talk) 05:08, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Anybody? Readin (talk) 23:55, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
I do not think that the Chinese would have used Shanghai as a verb at any time. It's history comes from a time when crewmen for ocean going ships were simply kidnapped off the streets of Shanghai. As far as I know, the term was invented by an English speaker, but it could have been someone of another nationality. We'll probably never know.
It is probably worth including, just as is "shantong" as the name of a raw silk fabric that must have originally been "that kind of silk from Shan Dong." Both these terms tell us much about how the English language keeps extending and renewing itself. P0M (talk) 06:37, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

The spelling "Nankeen"

Though the Han Yu Pin Yin system spells it, "Nan Jing", in my 8 years living in Taiwan and Mainland China the most common spelling that I have encountered in English texts is "Nanking". This, not "Nankeen" seems to be the most widely accepted spelling when using English to refer to the city. I suggest that the creator of this page at least add "Nanking" as an alternate spelling, as it seems to be more common than "Nankeen", and is actually closer to the proper Mandarin pronunciation. By the way, this is a REALLY COOL page! Very well done.

Rick

Nankeen or nankin is the name for the cloth. It is derived, somehow, from the Chinese language as it appeared in accounts of people who dealt commercially in textiles. (See Webster's New World Dictionary of the English Language.) Southern Chinese speakers of Mandarin frequently speak versions of the language that eliminate final "g" sounds. The Chinese sound written down as "i" is somewhere between the "ee" in "between" and the "i" in "twins," which probably explains the two spellings. The fact that someone from northern China might, at the time the word came into the English language, have pronounced it in accord with the rules for pronouncing the pinyin spelling "nanjing" is irrelevant. At the present state of evolution of the English language, if one who known textiles sees "nankeen" (or if someone looks the term up in the dictionary) the word will be identified with a certain kind of textile. But if the same person sees "nanking" or "Nanking," the first guess would be that it is the name of the city, plain and simple. Moreover, the names "nankeen" and "nankin" are locked in history, probably from as far back as the trading in this textile began.
There is a similar word, "pekin" for "a patterned silk or satin material, originating from China." Webster's is usually pretty good about indicating first uses of words, their historical background, etc., but not in these cases. My guess, based on the spellings, is that the terms go back to the 19th century or even earlier. (There is a city called "Pekin" in the USA. One could check to see when it was incorporated.) P0M (talk) 16:50, 4 August 2009 (UTC)
Maybe we should have a list of U.S. cities with Chinese names. It could include Kaolin, Delaware, Pekin,... P0M (talk) 16:50, 4 August 2009 (UTC)


I just wanted to add my agreement as well as my insight. Another extremely common spelling of this word is "Nankin". This spelling will not be going away as many people carry this as their surname. It is quite common among Jewish people as well in many countries.

The meaning of mu shoo

from Mandarin 木須 (mùxū), lit. wood shredded

Two or three years ago we had a long discussion about this word and came to the conclusion that there was no merit in this explanation and lots of evidence to show that (regardless of how it may be written on menus) it is a name for a traditional recipe involving scrambled eggs added to slivers of other items, the little flecks of yellow (or maybe it was white) from the eggs being the feature that gave the dish its traditional name. I was the one who supplied the original guess as to the source of the name, but I changed my mind, so it seems odd to see the misinformation back again. P0M (talk) 19:58, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

See the Chinese Wikipedia article on 木樨肉. It is named for the flowers (small white and yellow mixed appearance) of Osmanthus fragrans (木樨).

Suggest: from Mandarin 木樨肉 (mu4 xu1 rou4), a dish of slivered pork, vegetables, and scrambled eggs named for its resemblance to the flowers of Osmanthus fragrans.

Osmanthus fragrans can be found in the major garden shops in the U.S., but I don't know the accepted common name. P0M (talk) 20:40, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

Polo from Tibetan

From the article on polo: The name polo is said to have been derived from the Tibetan word "pulu", meaning ball.[9]

If anyone feels this is worthy of inclusion please add it.

Anotherpowersource (talk) 07:39, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

Tibetan is not Chinese.P0M (talk) 05:33, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

Dalai lama

The entry for Dalai lama 达赖喇嘛 has been commented out. That decision was correct. The entry as (mis)written applies to 班禅喇嘛 -- a lesser eminence in the Tibetan Buddhist hierarchy. "Dalai lama" is a Tibetan term. It has been transliterated into Chinese characters relatively smoothly, but that doesn't make "Dalai Lama" into a Chinese word. The entry of "Dalai Lama" into English need not have been by way of Chinese, either.

If "tea" happened to come into English by way of the German language, that would not make "tea" a German loan-word in English. The ultimate source of "tea" is Chinese. Same difference.

I think we should just eliminate this bank shot.P0M (talk) 05:36, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

From what I recall, the English name derives from the Chinese pronounciation, where the term was first seen during the early time when the Qing Dynasty was still in power, and books on China were being written by British writers who had visited China. The Tibetan word for Dalai Lama is Dalai blama; there is no "bl" consonant cluster in Chinese, so it is simplified to "La", and this is the variant that was taken in by early British visitors in the 17-19th centuries. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 09:01, 19 February 2011 (UTC)
I believe the "b" is silent. It's still a bank shot to call it a Chinese word.
See the Chinese Wikipedia entry for Dalai Lama, which notes: "藏语拼音：Dalai Lama." (Romanized Tibetan pronunciation: Dalai Lama.) P0M (talk) 13:49, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

Romanisation system

Umm...seems to me that some words are provided with romanisation of unkown Chinese dialects, i.e. the Latin spelling is given without specifying in which dialect it is pronouced that way. Wouldn't this cause some confusion, given the diversity of the Chinese spoken language110.174.12.47 (talk) 08:53, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

Delete Article

This article along with the English words of Japanese origins article should be deleted because there are very few actual English words of Chinese origin. What we have here are Chinese words that are translated into English and still refer to Chinese things. These are not words that entered into general use in English. There maybe 5 to 10 words that would fit the criteria of the title of being English words with Chinese origins and that is not worth maintaining an article for. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:558:6031:4F:31CF:4D93:100A:5802 (talk) 21:10, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

Useful references

I don't have time now, but these should help satisfy the Refimprove tag.

  • Garland Cannon (1987), "Dimensions of Chinese Borrowings in English," Journal of English Linguistics, 20.2: 200-206.
  • Garland Cannon (1988), "Chinese Borrowings in English," American Speech, 63.1: 3-33.
  • Andrew J. Moody (1996), "Transmission Languages and Source Languages of Chinese Borrowings in English", American Speech, 71.4: 405-420

Keahapana (talk) 21:13, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Ketchup

I removed this section, because it's patently false. Tomato ketchup wasn't even invented until a century after the other types. The ketchup article describes the etymology as being from Indonesian-Malay. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.238.148.8 (talk) 22:45, 25 October 2014 (UTC)

Chin chin

"southern Mandarin pronunciation is qǐn"

This is not true. Southern people tend to pronounce syllables ending in "n" and "ng" the same due to unawareness or lack of education, but the pronunciation for both is "ng". This cannot be the reason why in English it's "n". --2.245.194.8 (talk) 20:15, 5 July 2014 (UTC)

Unawareness of what? People who speak a regional version of a language speak the way they learned to speak as a child — unless prescriptive grammarians get ahold of them and correct their pronunciations to some orthodox standard. The people who picked up the "chin chin" business probably were repeating (while mis-copying the "q" as "ch"). Moreover, "chin chin" has been around in English for a long time, quite likely from before there was any official "standard Mandarin" pronunciation, i.e., some time before the 1920s. Surely you don't think it comes from some English locution such as "hair of my chiny chin chin." P0M (talk) 12:33, 7 July 2014 (UTC)

Absolutely no one has come up with any evidence whatsoever that it's from Chinese. Whereas it's been used for making toasts in Italy (spelt cin cin or cincin), which has had much more cultural contact with the Anglophone world, for centuries. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/cin_cin https://www.theinternationalkitchen.com/blogs/2014/july/wine-toasting It seems to me people are taking a superficial resemblance to Chinese phonology and retroactively inventing a Chinese origin. See False etymology. I'm going to remove "chin chin". Anyone's free to put it back of course, but unless you have a verified source, it would just seem like repeating an urban legend. 189.131.69.101 (talk) 20:30, 17 November 2015 (UTC)

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Why are these considered loan words?

Most of them are not really a part of normal usage in English. The only exceptions I see are ketchup, go, typhoon, and tea. Even brain washing isn't a loan word, because it is brain washing, and not xinao. Real loanwords like words that come from French are pretty much written the same way they are in French. Champagne is champagne. Everything is just transliteration. You can't consider Bagdad, Jakarta, Laos, or Istanbul to be loan words. You also can't expect the British to create an entirely new word for the equivalent of Shanghai, or Dimsum, just like you can't create an English word for tapas, but that doesn't make tapas a loan word, just like kebab isn't a loan word, because we aren't calling all meat on a stick kebab, just meat on a stick cooked in Arab style. — Preceding unsigned comment added by R324234324 (talk • contribs) 03:37, 23 October 2018 (UTC)

I love you 2605:8D80:681:F4C6:19BF:32D4:6BB4:EDB0 (talk) 04:07, 13 March 2023 (UTC)

Tangram

The etymology listed on this page is entirely different than on the Tangram wikipedia page. It is also very confusing. The definition links to the page for Middle Chinese, even though tangrams were invented far after that period. If it is meant to imply that the Tangram is named for the Tang Dynasty, it should instead link to that page, though I cannot find any source for that origin. I think based on a lack of evidence, the entry should instead be changed to match the etymology in the Tangram page. I also think that the description could be clarified, it just says "+ English gram" though gram can mean many things and the Tangram page refers specifically to the Greek-derived suffix "-gram" meaning "denoting something written or recorded". Most people are unfamiliar with that meaning and would instead likely think of the unit of weight with the way the description is written. Slach11 (talk) 21:26, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

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