English is a relatively young language that sports—on top of a base of 20-30% "native" words derived from Old English—a well-deserved reputation for frequent and liberal borrowing from other languages, most obviously French, Latin, Old Norse, Dutch and Greek. But while borrowings from many thousands of other languages large and small—from Chinese, Arabic and Hindi to the over 800 languages spoken in Papua New Guinea alone—may account for a small percentage of English words, they comprise a practically endlessly diverse and fascinating group.
Consider Japanese, which, counting by native speakers, sits just inside the top 10 most common languages worldwide.
Many of the Japanese words we have tucked into our English pockets are obviously of Japanese origin—would you like some sushi or tofu with that emoji?—but even some of the obvious terms have less obvious etymologies that add richness to our linguistic tapestry.
Karaoke, for example, doesn’t mean "terrible drunken singing of nostalgic songs" as I might have guessed based on my own experiences, but is a combination of the kanji (the symbol) for "empty" and—in one of those etymological twists that make words so much fun—the katakana (the syllabic rendering) of the English word "orchestra" … making our borrowing of karaoke, the empty orchestra, partially a borrowing back of a loan given.
Yakuza, both the blanket term for Japanese organized crime and the criminals members of those organizations, is the combination of the Japanese numbers ya eight + ku nine + za three, or the worst hand possible in Oicho-Kabu, a baccarat-like gambling game. Thus the word yakuza simultaneously invokes both the bad luck of one who finds themselves in opposition to them as well as the immense skill it takes for a player to draw this hand in the famous game and still win.
Kamikaze, for many synonymous with "suicide pilot," literally means "divine wind," and originally referred to a typhoon that, according to Japanese legend, rose up and saved Japan from Kubla Khan’s Mongol invasion in 1281.
And that brings us to some surprising—at least to me—borrowings.
That word "typhoon" is ultimately derived from the Chinese tai fung (from dà big + fēng wind) and forms of it are found in Portuguese, Urdu and Arabic, but its Japanese rendering as taifuu is likely the most influential on our English word.
The similar sounding, but (thanks to F. Scott Fitzgerald’s unfinished novel) oh-so-American to my ears word, tycoon comes to us from the Japanese taikun (great prince), though it has a similar Chinese origin combining dà + jūn prince).
Perhaps it’s just my ears and experiences, but some other words that sounded quintessentially American—or English—to my ears turn out to be direct borrowings from the Japanese:
Honcho, as in the proverbial Head Honcho, the Big Kahuna, the boss, is the Japanese word hanchō (group leader).
And skosh, which I associate with the best of the recipes passed down by word of mouth that always seem to need a pinch of this or a skosh of that comes from the Japanese sukoshi (a little bit).
Finally, mostly in the oft-mislabeled "untranslatable" category, there are some Japanese words that we should be borrowing for their succinct expression of actions and feelings familiar to us all.
Tsundoku is the act of accumulating piles of unread books—a term I much prefer to the possibly more clinically accurate term for my own bookish obsession: hoarding. A combination of tsumu (to pile up) and doku (to read), tsundoku is also apparently a pun, because the phrase tsunde oku means to ‘pile up and leave.’
As Spring springs and Summer hastens in, even Alaskans have an opportunity to experience komorebi, or sunlight coming through the leaves of trees. A combination of words for tree, sun/sunlight, and leaking or coming through, komorebi is a form of what you might call in English "crepuscular rays" or "God’s Rays."
Closely related is shinrin-yoku, or walking through a forest and enjoying the green light, which in Japanese is literally "forest bathing."
When I’m not lucky enough to be out enjoying the forest for the trees and I get caught at home by the dreaded drop-in, even the insulation of my piles of unread books might not be enough. That’s when isuru comes in handy. A combination of residence and absence, isuru is the act of pretending not to be at home when someone is at the door, a time-honored activity of introverts everywhere.
As one who is prone to nostalgia, of both the brightening and wallowing kinds, the Japanese notion of natsukashii is appealing. Another of those so-called untranslatables, natsukashii is literally defined as desired, beloved, or missed, but it’s both more specific and deeper than those. Natsukashii is the feeling of the past being happily evoked through a specific experience, place, or object.
Natsukashii is being suddenly immersed in a memory, the feeling of "oh yes! I remember that!" when tasting a favorite childhood candy or time-traveling upon hearing that song you once played on repeat for days or weeks but haven’t heard again since. Natsukashii is a happy feeling, the kind of nostalgia to be cherished when it washes over and through you…and it necessarily happens fleetingly and unexpectedly.
Lastly, a related phrase and concept I (along with so many!) have thought about and explored for a long time, is mono no aware. Literally a combination of mono (thing) and aware (a an expression of surprise, an "ah!" or an "oh!", that can be translated as a deep feeling, a pathos, and an awareness), and a staple concept in Buddhist thought, mono no aware is the sudden, bittersweet awareness of the transience of things. In Japan—and on many streets around me in the Pacific Northwest right now—one can see the prototypical object (or trigger) of mono no aware: the suddenly emergent, all-too-quick to fall, cherry blossoms. Every year that I am fortunate enough to be in the right place at the right time, seeing those beautiful blossoms appear as if by magic, knowing they will soon be carpet beneath my feet and then gone altogether, I am hit with the full force of mono no aware. In that moment I experience sudden clarity in understanding one of the common, less formal definitions of that exhilarating, simultaneous rise and fall of feeling of mono no aware as experiencing "the ah-ness of things."
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