American English terms derived from Cantonese

[Ian_Lee]

There are quite a few American English terms like "Long Time No See", "Wok", "Kung Fu"....etc that are derived from Cantonese.

And even the American slang "Gung Ho" is derived from Cantonese (HK).

[TSkillet]

ketchup

[Claw]

Yep... ketchup = 茄汁 (kezap in Cantonese; the z is pronounced like ts)

But actually gung ho is not derived from Cantonese, it's from 工合, the abbreviation of 中國工業合作社 (Chinese Industrial Cooperative Society). 工合 is pronounced gonghe in Mandarin, which is closer to gung ho than the Cantonese pronunciation, gung hap.

[geraldc]

typhoon

[Ian_Lee]

中國工業合作社 was based in HK between 1937-1941 under the directorship of Mme Sun Yat Sen.

[Yuchi]

typhoon

Really? It sounds really similar to the mandarin version "Tai Feng", so I assumed it was from that, but I don't know

[liuzhou]

I'm curious as to why you cite these as examples of "American" English. The are examples of English derived from Chinese, most entering the language through contacts with the British. And all are used in British English.

Also, I agree that they are not all derived from Cantonese, although many are. Typhoon, Gong Fu and Gung Ho are all more likely to have come from Mandarin dialects.

[TSkillet]

Typhoon, Gong Fu and Gung Ho are all more likely to have come from Mandarin dialects.

I doubt that, as the majority of contact between both American and English foreigners has been via Cantonese speakers - whether that's immigrants from Guangdong to the US for the gold rush or Hong Kong.

Gong Fu in Cantonese is pronouced 'gong fu'

Typhoon in Cantonese is pronouced 'dai fung"

I'll tycoon.

[Quest]

Typhoon in Cantonese is pronouced 'dai fung"

toi fung

[liuzhou]

I agree that many, perhaps most English words from Chinese are from Cantonese, but not all.

功夫 Gong fu is pronounced gong fu in Mandarin too, so that is not going to help. It could be from either.

台风 is pronounced tai fung in Mandarin which sounds a lot closer to typhoon to me!

A point to consider is when did these words enter the language? Remember that at the time the British were established in many places other than Hong Kong.

Tea, for example comes from the Xiamen (Amoy) dialect.

I suspect that typhoon came from Shanghai, but I can't prove it.

[To Whom It May Concern]

Hi Ian_Lee...I was reading this statistic that less than 10% of English is derived from Chinese...so therefore we would have words such as 'Kung Fu' "Wok', et cetera!

[liuzhou]

less than 10% of English is derived from Chinese

I'm not sure that I understand your post, but considerably less than 10% of English comes from Chinese. More like around 0.004%

The Oxford Dictionary lists only 230 words (most of which are highly obscure). List here.

[roddy]

pampelmouse . . . Sharawaggi . . . what are these things in English, never mind Chinese.

Nice to see splittism in there though. And why is suan-pan there? Isn't abacus good enough?

Roddy

[Claw]

I think that list was generated by retrieving any entry in the dictionary that mentions the word Chinese, even if the origin is not Chinese. For instance, "cash" is on the list, and it definitely isn't Chinese in origin.

I googled for Sharawaggi and found the following link:

http://www.apl.ncl.ac.uk/coursework/IThompson/Informal_2.htm

As we have seen, the dominant 17th century tradition in the West was still based on symmetry, order and mathematical proportion.

But Sir William Temple, a diplomat by profession, wrote Upon the Gardens of Epicurus: or of Gardening in the Year 1685, which hinted at a different way of doing things, and referred to the Chinese approach to composition.

Temple introduced the word sharawaggi into English to describe the asymmetrical approach of the Chinese - but note that Chinese scholars repudiate this attribution completely. (the origins of the word seem obscure)

Pampelmouse appears to be a grapefruit like citrus fruit:

http://www.ventanasvoyage.com/Marquesas.htm

[889]

Not hard to see how sharawaggi got on this list. Here's what the OED says about it:

Of unknown origin; Chinese scholars agree that it cannot belong to that language.

[liuzhou]

I think that list was generated by retrieving any entry in the dictionary that mentions the word Chinese

Not quite. It was retrieved by searching for any entry which mentioned Chinese in the etymology section. So, yes, there are a few spurious entries. But that only makes my point about the relative paucity of Chinese in English more valid.

[Alhazred]

As to pampelmousse, it is I think what you call grapefruit. I checked the etymology for the equivalent french word pamplemousse and it says: "from the dutch word pompelmoes, which means big lemon."

[madizi]

The Oxford Dictionary lists only 230 words (most of which are highly obscure). List here.

On the list is also word "daimio" which comes from Japanese. And "Tanka" is Tibetan word etc.

[ala]

I suspect that typhoon came from Shanghai, but I can't prove it.

Probably not, although Shanghai sure gets a lot of typhoons! Typhoon in Shanghainese is "Deifon" [dE fo~] (with English d, not pinyin d).

Mandarin is Taifeng or Taifong (Taiwan)

Cantonese is Toifung.

Minnan Taiwanese is Hongtai.

Most Mandarin -ai and Cantonese -oi diphthongs are pronounced like the monophthong "ei" [E] in Shanghainese. Older generations had huge problems pronouncing the Mandarin ai, as there is no "ai" diphthong in Shanghainese (nor any other non-medial diphthong). So speakers in Shanghai would often approximate "ai" as "a" and "i" ("阿以"). They also had huge problems pronouncing the Mandarin "ao" ("阿奥"), "uo", "ou" etc.

[xianhua]

An old post I know, but there's an interesting list of Chinese Pidgin English terms on Wikipedia, including 'where-to' and 'no-go'. The more I think of these terms, the more they do sound out of place.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Pidgin_English

You'll note that many of these arose from interaction between the British and Chinese, hence usage in British English.