{"id":789,"date":"2022-04-20T10:30:40","date_gmt":"2022-04-20T09:30:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/academic-and-employability-skills\/?p=789"},"modified":"2023-01-17T11:28:35","modified_gmt":"2023-01-17T11:28:35","slug":"do-you-know-where-your-ketchup-comes-from-8-english-words-borrowed-from-chinese","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/academic-and-employability-skills\/2022\/04\/20\/do-you-know-where-your-ketchup-comes-from-8-english-words-borrowed-from-chinese\/","title":{"rendered":"Where does your ketchup come from? 8 English words borrowed from Chinese"},"content":{"rendered":"

To celebrate the UN\u2019s Chinese Language Day on 20 April, let's take a look at some words you may not realise have been borrowed from Chinese.<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Without a doubt, English has become a truly global language. Close to 18% of the world population speak it either as a first language (more than 370 million) or a second language (more than 1 billion) (Ethnologue, 2022).<\/p>\n

The success of the English language owes partly to its openness to foreign influences. Over the past 1,500 years, English has adopted words from more than 300 other languages (Philip Durkin, 2014).<\/p>\n

Lehnwort and calquer: A word on loanwords<\/h2>\n

Words with foreign origins are known as borrowed words or loanwords.<\/p>\n

English has borrowed from other Germanic languages; for example, the word loanword<\/em> itself is from the German word Lehnwort<\/em>. Another rich source of borrowing for English is Latin and its descendants such as French; for example, the type of borrowing shown by the word loanword<\/em> is known as calque<\/em>, meaning \u2018loan translation\u2019, from the French word calquer<\/em>, which means \u2018to copy\u2019 or \u2018to trace\u2019. Calque<\/em> itself is an example of borrowing known as phonetic adaption.<\/p>\n

Chinese-origin words in English<\/h2>\n

While China\u2019s neighbouring countries (notably Japan and Korea) have borrowed heavily from the Chinese language, in particular its writing system, relatively few words and expressions have been adopted into English.<\/p>\n

Those that do, like many other borrowed words, have become such an integral part of the English language that few would stop and consider their origins.<\/p>\n

Here are 8 English words which you may not realise are originally Chinese:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Cha or Tea:<\/strong> Where would the British be without their tea?! Their favourite hot drink was first cultivated in China around 1600 B.C. In the 1500s, \u8336(ch\u00e1) was enjoyed by Portuguese missionaries in China and soon this drink became known in many countries as Cha<\/em>. The word tea<\/em> is actually from Dutch. The Dutch first encountered tea in the early 1600s around the modern-day Fujian province, where \u95fd\u5357(m\u01d0nn\u00e1n) or Hokkien<\/em> was the major language. Following the pronunciation of the local people, the Dutch called the drink \u2018thee<\/em>\u2019. It is thought that the Dutch traders brought this highly valued drink to London in 1657.<\/li>\n
  2. Ketchup<\/strong>: The word for the tomato sauce you love to put on your chips is likely to have derived from another \u95fd\u5357(m\u01d0nn\u00e1n) word \u818e\u6c41(xi\u00e9 zh\u012b), meaning a fish sauce. In \u95fd\u5357(m\u01d0nn\u00e1n) this sauce is pronounced ke-tsiap<\/em>. Do you know that in Dutch they call a thick soy sauce ketjap<\/em>?<\/li>\n
  3. Gung-ho:<\/strong> What are you gung-ho about at the moment? Learning languages, I hope! This word first entered American English in the 1940s. Its meaning, \u2018overly enthusiastic\u2019, however, has no resemblance to the recognised meaning in the original Chinese: \u5de5\u5408(g\u014dngh\u00e9), short for \u4e2d\u56fd\u5de5\u4e1a\u5408\u4f5c\u793e(Zh\u014dnggu\u00f3 g\u014dngy\u00e8 h\u00e9zu\u00f2 sh\u00e8) (Chinese Industrial Cooperative Society), was created in late 1937 to support the resistance efforts against Japan\u2019s full-scale invasion of China.<\/li>\n
  4. Pidgin:<\/strong> Meaning a simplified form of a language, pidgin is used for communication between people who don\u2019t share a common language. From the early 1900s, Europeans became dominant in China as tradesmen and colonisers. The Chinese people had to quickly learn to interact with English speakers and they adopted and modified the English language in their own way. Notably, the word business<\/em> was adapted in such a way that it sounded like pidgin<\/em> by the end of the 20th century.<\/li>\n
  5. Long time no see:<\/strong> This common greeting from the Chinese expression \u597d\u4e45\u4e0d\u89c1(h\u01ceo ji\u01d4 b\u00fa ji\u00e0n) is thought to have been brought back to the UK by members of the British Navy who picked it up through the pidgin English used by the Chinese people they met.<\/li>\n
  6. Typhoon<\/strong>: The word for a tropical storm in the region of the Indian or western Pacific oceans, \u53f0\u98ce(t\u00e1if\u0113ng), literally means \u2018the wind that comes from \u53f0\u6e7e(T\u00e1iw\u0101n)\u2019.<\/li>\n
  7. Paper tiger<\/strong>: \u7eb8\u8001\u864e(zh\u01d0 l\u01ceoh\u01d4), meaning a person or thing that appears threatening but is ineffectual, is often attributed to Mao Zedong. Mao\u2019s reputation has certainly helped to make this expression known in the English-speaking world, but the expression itself can be traced back to an early Ming dynasty (1368 to 1644) novel, \u6c34\u6d52\u4f20(Shu\u01d0 h\u01d4 zhu\u00e0n) (Water Margin, or Outlaws of the Marsh).<\/li>\n
  8. Kowtow<\/strong>: Have you ever kowtowed to anyone? \u53e9\u5934(k\u00f2u t\u00f3u) is the act of kneeling and touching one's head to the ground as a salute or act of worship to a revered authority. It is a traditional China ritual, and foreign trade and diplomatic representatives were once required to kowtow before the emperor to establish relations. These days, kowtow can still be observed at funerals, weddings or temples in China. The word kowtow<\/em> came into English in the early 19th century, and its meaning shifted to describe any abject submission.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Time to reflect<\/h2>\n

    Some questions you might like to think about:<\/p>\n