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You must have seen a ninja movie, finished a magazine sudoku, or eaten sushi, even if you might not have liked it.
The truth is that ninja, sudoku, and sushi are words that come from Japanese and that the Spanish language has adopted.
They are not the only ones. According to a recent count by the Fundación del Español Urgente (Fundeu), the Dictionary of the Spanish Language of the Royal Spanish Academy (RAE) has 59 words of Japanese origin.
Other research argues that Spanish has 92 Japonisms, as this set of words is called.
And if we put the magnifying glass on Latin America, more precisely in Peru, where there is a large community of Japanese descendants, the words are more than 100.
However, the influence of Japanese on the Spanish language “cannot be compared to another language, such as English or French”, Rafael Fernández Mata, professor of Spanish at the University of Cordoba, Spain, and author tells BBC Mundo about various studies on Japanese. in Spanish.
According to his research, there are Japanese words that have entered the Spanish language since the 16th century. The first were catania and bonzo.
Catana in Spanish can be a knife, a saber, and in Cuba also a dilapidated old car. Its origin is the Japanese word katana which means sword.
Yes bonzo It originates from the Japanese word bonsa, which designates a Buddhist monk.
Hence also the expression “bonzo“That is to say, spray yourself with flammable liquid and immolate yourself in public as a sign of protest or solidarity in reference to the first monks who committed such acts in the 1960s.
But there are other words incorporated into the Spanish language that you may not even know of Japanese origin. Here we leave it to you.
1. Display
In case you didn’t know, it’s a screen made up of several frames, which closes, opens and unfolds. It is often used to separate environments.
The word comes from the Japanese byómbu, a variant of byób; byó means protection and drunk means wind.
2. Emoji ??
It is one of the words of Japanese origin recently incorporated into the Dictionary of the Spanish Language of the RAE.
In Japanese, e means drawing and moji is character, sign of writing.
Its definition says that it is a small image or digital icon that is used in electronic communications to represent an emotion, an object, an idea.
And it should not be confused with an emoticon, a word that comes from English and refers to the symbols formed by the signs of the keyboard, which represents a facial expression in e-mail messages.
Don’t say I didn’t warn you;)
3. Futon
It is a cotton rug that serves as a seat or bed, typical of Japan.
It comes from the same word in Japanese futon.
4. Karaoke
Karaoke can be the activity of performing a song against a recorded musical background, while following the lyrics that appear on a screen; technical equipment consisting of sound amplifier, microphone, etc., used for karaoke; or the public square with karaoke facilities.
One of the three comes from the Japanese word karaoke: kara means void and oke is a shortening of okesutora which is orchestra.
5. Soybeans
In sauce, milk, cheese, etc., many foods are made from soybeans, which is the highly nutritious fruit of the Asian legume that has the same name.
It comes from Japanese shoyu and according to the research of Fernández Mata, it is Japonism the most used in the Spanish language.
6. Tsunami
A woman walks through the rubble of the Japanese town of Minamisanriku in northern Japan after the 2011 tsunami.
In the past 20 years, there have been two major natural disasters that have claimed hundreds of thousands of lives.
We are talking about the tsunami in the Indian Ocean in 2004 and in Japan in 2011.
It is the gigantic wave produced by a tidal wave or volcanic eruption at the bottom of the sea. These tragedies began to be known around the world as the Japanese tsunami.
Although it is not a new word, “with the tsunami of 2004 and then in 2011, we see that the number of times it is used has increased”, details Fernández Mata.
Along with soybeans, tsunami is the most widely used word of Japanese origin in the Spanish language.
It should be noted that the writing of the Japanese language does not have an alphabet like Spanish, but has syllabaries. However, the sounds of Japanese are very similar to those of Spanish.
“Japanese has five vowels like we do, and maybe the sound t, which is a and an s, or the r may have differences,” says Fernández Mata, who is a doctor’s assistant in the language sciences department of university. from Cordoba. .
More Japonisms
In the Spanish language, the Japonisms related to martial arts and sports What ninja, samurai, judo, sumo, karate, aikido, to only cite a few.
Also in the gastronomy What sushi, sake, ajinomoto (seasoning), surimi (pasta made from white fish flesh), tempura (fried vegetables or fish, previously coated in flour) or Tofu, collects the Dictionary of the Spanish language of the RAE.
And then there are terms related to the dress and traditions What kimono, geisha, bonsai and origami.
“The large number of words began to enter (in the Spanish language) in the second half of the 19th century, and at the beginning of the 20th, when the Meiji Restoration began in Japan in 1868”, details Fernández Mata.
This is the reign of the Japanese Emperor Meiji (1852-1912), during which the country entered a period of modernization and Westernization.
“And later in the decade of the 1980s until the first decade of the 2000s we observe that there is a lot of movement of words related to technology and food,” says.
“Words matter”
Peru is the Spanish speaking country in Latin America with the largest community of Japanese descendants. The largest community in the region is in Brazil.
The Nikkei, a term for Japanese immigrants and their descendants, are estimated to number over 100,000 in Peru.
According to the Peruvian-Japanese Association, up to five generations of descendants of the first Japanese to arrive currently live in the country and according to data from the National Institute of Statistics and Informatics (INEI), some 22,000 people s ‘identify as Nikkei.
Ceremony celebrating 120 years of Japanese immigration to Peru.
This is why Japanese culture is very important in Peru and the use of words of Japanese origin goes beyond the community.
“Japanese is present in daily discourse in Peru because we Japanese descendants are still here and interacting with each other, ”Claudia Kazuko Almeida Goshi, professor of linguistics at the Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos, Peru, told BBC Mundo.
But Almeida Goshi points out that the arrival of investments through Japanese restaurants after the severe economic crisis of 2009 meant that terms related to food began to be used and recognized outside the Nikkei colony.
“Words like sake, sushi, mochi (dulce), tofu, haschi (chopsticks), the ingredients I have been using since I was little have earned their place and people beyond the community use the terms or recognize them, ”describes Almeida Goshi, who is a fourth generation of Japanese descendants.
But the sounds of these Japanese words have been heard long before on Peruvian soil.
“The Japanese words have been used by members of the colony since 122 years ago the first ship with Japanese arrived to work on the sugar cane plantations,” explains the teacher.
However, “the children of these first migrants did not inherit the language for a political stake, think of the Second World War and all that it involved. And there was also a need to adapt”, he said.
Mochi is a typical Japanese sweet.
The late Peruvian writer José Watanabe, also of Japanese origin, was responsible for compiling a large number of terms in his “Glossary of Japanese Words Used in Peru”.
Among them are those related to courtesy such as arigato (very much thanked), ohayo (Hello), sayonara (goodbye, see you later, goodbye greeting), irasshaimase (welcome in a restaurant), etc.
The list also includes words related to family relationships such as obachan (grandmother or any elderly person), ojichan (Grandfather), okasan (mother), otosan (father, father) and tomodachi (friend, partner, comrade), to name a few.
And those who are linked to tradition like Photo shoot, an altar in a house where ancestors are venerated, made up of a photo of the deceased and small plates containing food as an offering, underlines the linguist.
“Words matter. Through them, links are created and maintained to preserve and update a community that has been part of Peru for 122 years ”, explains Almeida Goshi.
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