champon

[Daniel Long]

There is a word _champon_ in Japanese which means 'mixed'.  It is used
for mixed foods, mixing languages, etc.
The Okinawan form is _champuruu_.  The words are said to be from
Chinese.  But the same thing is said for several other words which may
in fact be Malay words brought to Japanese ports by Chinese speakers as
part of a trade language (pidgin?).

I find the words such as _tjampur-aduk_, _tjampur-baur_ and _tjampuran_
in Indonesian dictionaries.  Does anyone know if these words are of
Chinese origin (which would mean that my theory is shot) or whether it
is the other way around and these words may have been used in contact
varieties of Malay used in trade?

Danny Long
--
Daniel Long, Associate Professor     tel  +81-426-77-2184
Japanese Language and Literature Dept.    fax  +81-426-77-2140
Tokyo Metropolitan University
1-1 Minami Osawa, Hachioji-shi, Tokyo  192-0397 Japan
mailto:dlong at bcomp.metro-u.ac.jp
http://nihongo.human.metro-u.ac.jp/long/