Kia Motors America

LanDi Liu strangeguitars at GMAIL.COM
Tue Apr 29 14:51:18 UTC 2008


>From their site:

The word "Kia" is derived from the Chinese characters "ki", meaning to
"arise or come up out of", and "a", referring to Asia.  So when put
together, "Kia" means to "arise or come up out of Asia".

Shit.  Another noun verbed.  I hate when people noun verbs.  On second
thought it looks like a verb nouned.  Are there other cars with verbs
as names?

["ki" is not pinyin, so I'm guessing by the meaning that "qi3" (起) and
"ya4" (亚) are the characters being referred to.]

Randy

On Tue, Apr 29, 2008 at 10:13 PM, Cohen, Gerald Leonard <gcohen at mst.edu> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
>  Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>  Poster:       "Cohen, Gerald Leonard" <gcohen at MST.EDU>
>
> Subject:      Re: Kia Motors America
>  -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>  Btw, what is the etymology of this Kia?
>
>  Gerald Cohen
>
>
>
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>  The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
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--
Randy Alexander
Jilin City, China

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