Thursday, August 4, 2016

loanwords from Japan

I'm idly reading Wikileaks, Hillary emails search [nuclear] and so far seeing only normal day to day ordinary things that are not damaging. Six years ago discussions about Iran, Turkish PM visiting Iran, WSJ article, H. Clinton remarks on nonproliferation conference, Netanyahu cancelling a trip to Obama's summit, Brown missing the summit, India, S.Korea, three untitled but ordinary emails, then a Japan nuclear update, Iran again, Pakistan, US shelving nuclear shield, Russia helping Ecuador, more North Korea, Iran and Syria, redirecting nuclear weapons budget by US general, Israel, Bulgaria, Israel calculations re Iran, and now a "must read" on Japan from Hillary Clinton to Lauren Jiloty citing an article in the Economist.

In another window, looking up Lauren Jiloty a row of photos show an attractive smiling woman who could be mistaken for model. The first entries are about Hillary's email. The very first link to the Guardian "Hillary Clinton: the best of her emails"

That article lists.

* Hillary having trouble hanging up a fax machine
* A coat Hillary bought in Kabul and wore when visiting later
* Twittering in the Secretary's name
* Call Sarah and ask if she can get me some iced tea.
* Decoding diplomatic Jargon P5+1 and E3+3 (E=Europe, +US, China, Russia same as P5+1
* Apples for personal use.
* White House standing up Hillary. She was told there would be a meeting, she shows up but no meeting. She frets that Kissinger met with Nixon every day but she meets with O only once a week
* Surreal message from senator Barbara Mikulski (all about being a woman)

So then, all ordinary things, nothing damaging, nothing juicy, just ordinary inconsequential emails. Presumably these were all to Lauren Jiloty although that's not stated, presumed because it is first result under her name, she is never mentioned in this Guardian article.

So apparently this is who Jiloty  is and by Guardian standards the most interesting among Hillary's emails.

Back to Wikileaks and the email I'm looking at, the article in the Economist that Hillary sent to Jiloty, It is a good article, but hardly a "must read."

I'm always disappointed in those. Now, someone says, "must read" is fair assurance I can do fine without reading it. This is such because we know all this already.

The article is about the tsunami that wiped out the nuclear facility and the effect it had on Japanese society and their response to it, and what might come of that.  The article compliments Japanese civility, their observed habits, the awe this inspired in the rest of the world. It reviews their history in social terms stating that large events do have long lasting effects that change their society, a 1923 earthquake turned the country to militarism, the US dropping the atomic bomb on them turned their society to peaceful growth. The nuclear disaster may restore confidence while demanding corrections to secretive systems of governance, it may lead to political reform, and so on.

The thing that caught my attention though is the opening sentence. This is a small thing, sorry, nothing damaging to Hillary to report, just a matter of my own picayune interest, the author, Burns Strider begins, Japan's hydra-headed disaster, the fallout (see what he did there?) Some natural disasters change history, Japan's tsunami may be one.
That "tsunami" is one of the few Japanese words in global use points to the country's familiarity with natural disaster.
Oh really?  See? I told you it cannot be an actual "must read." The author doesn't know what he's talking about.

Seems there are a lot more loanwords from Japan than that at least in English. I can list several off the top of my head.

[loanwords from Japan] The search must be worded just so or else you get words adapted by Japan from other languages, those words are called gairaigo in Japanese.

I think we know all of these.

under arts

bokeh (attractive camera blur)
bonsai
haiku
ikebana (flower arrangement)
imari (porcelin)
kabuki
karaoke
manga (comics)
noh
origami
wabi-sabi (sesthetic of acceptance of transience and imperfection, muddy little arrangements of weeds)

under business

kanban (efficient flow of materials)
tycoon

under clothing

kimono
obi

under food

adzuki (bean)
bento
daikon (radish shredded for sushi)
dashi
edamame
fugu
ginko
gyoza
hibachi
katsuobushi (smoked skipjack flakes, bonito, for seafood soup)
koji (fungus used in miso)
kombu (dry kelp)
matsutake (mushroom)
mirin (sweet rice wine for cooking)
miso
nappa
nori
panko
ramen
sake
sashimi
shabu shabu (each diner cooks their own from raw ingredient)
shitake
shoyu
soba
soy
sukiyaki
surimi (fake crab from whitefish)
sushi
tamari (stronger soy sauce)
tempura
teriyaki
tofu
udo
udon
umami
wakame (another type of edible kelp)
wasabi
yakitori

under govt

daimyo (feudal rulers, great names)
mikado (emperor)
shogun (practical ruler during Meji era)

under martial arts

aikado
dojo
judo
jujutsu
karate
kendo
sumo

under religion

koan
shinto
zen

under other

akita
bukkake
emoji
futon
geisha
hentai
honcho
kamikaze
katana (sword)
koi
kudzu
ninja
rickshaw
sayonara
samurai
sensei (master)
sudoku

There are a lot more at Wikipedia, but I don't know those. I picked out the common ones. The others don't seem so common to me as these.

7 comments:

edutcher said...

Anybody who invented Karaoke and emojis should be nuked.

The Dude said...

I met a guy whose last name is Bento. I asked him what's for lunch.

We got on the subject of how his name became synonymous with a Japanese lunch box and he said his family was originally from Portugal, and that since the Portuguese were the first europeans to trade with Japan that must have been how that happened. Like biru. Seemed plausible, right up until I looked it up on Wikipedia. So much for that theory.

rhhardin said...

It's a bukkake wave.

I think that's in Bataille. yes

The simplest image of organic life united with rotation is the tide. From the movement of the sea, uniform coitus of the earth with the moon, comes the polymorphous and organic coitus of the earth with the sun.

But the first form of solar love is a cloud raised up over the liquid element. The erotic cloud sometimes becomes a storm and falls back to earth in the form of rain, while lightning staves in the layers of the atmosphere.

The rain is soon raised up again in the form of an immobile plant.

Animal life comes entirely from the movement of the seas and, inside bodies, life continues to come from salt water.

The sea, then, has played the role of the female organ that liquefies under the excitation of the penis.

The sea continuously jerks off.


Bataille

Mumpsimus said...

"Skosh" (as in "just a skosh") has been in common use in America since the 1950s, at least among servicemen and veterans. Comes from Japanese sukoshi, meaning "little."

Chip Ahoy said...

Karaoke is cool. Especially in Japan. Drinking together at bars after work is a big deal in Japan and singing is natural in those small places. My dad love it. Get looped and sing. Work long hours, drink together afterwords and sing. It's important socially. Karaoke abets this.

But it turns out differently in the U.S.. It became more a competitive thing, more show off your talent sort of thing, a once-a-week thing, a weekend thing, an entirely different thing socially, absent the social cohesion element.

But still neat-o because now you can do this at home. Practice singing at home. Practice being a star. It's cool. It's nice. It's harmless. It's child's play. (one of my portable stereos came with a microphone so you can sing along (amplified) with the music and pretend to be a performer.

Once a friend came over who cannot sing a note, cannot hold a tune, and kept putting on his favorite female singers far out of his range. He could not harmonize. He couldn't even start. He wanted so badly to sing but stayed frozen unable to squeak out a single note. But he wouldn't put the microphone down and he wouldn't pick a cd with music in his range. He hadn't a clue how to start so he just stood there confused. This went on for a good half hour. It was hilarious. But that feature never did get any use. Eventually I gave away the whole stereo system. It was basically a toy.

Synova said...

I think that Tycoon is the only word really in the same "adopted" category as Tsunami. Skosh is a good one. And Karaoke is almost there. The rest might be really common and I recognize most, but they are all Japanese words for Japanese things. Like kimono. Or ninja.

I had no idea at all that Tycoon was Japanese. To me it's just the word for what it is.

William said...

Did bukkake exist before the Japanese invented it? Does it exist at all outside of porn?