12.1906, Sum: "Arigato" and "Tempura"

[The LINGUIST List]

LINGUIST List:  Vol-12-1906. Thu Jul 26 2001. ISSN: 1068-4875.

Subject: 12.1906, Sum: "Arigato" and "Tempura"

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=================================Directory=================================

1)
Date:  Thu, 26 Jul 2001 09:27:48 +0800
From:  "Karen S. Chung" <karchung at ccms.ntu.edu.tw>
Subject:  Sum: _arigatoo_ and _tempura_

-------------------------------- Message 1 -------------------------------

Date:  Thu, 26 Jul 2001 09:27:48 +0800
From:  "Karen S. Chung" <karchung at ccms.ntu.edu.tw>
Subject:  Sum: _arigatoo_ and _tempura_

    Many thanks to the following people - hope I didn't miss anybody -
who responded to the inquiries on Japanese _arigatoo_ and _tempura_. I
got lots of information on cooking in addition to etymology! And it was
really nice to hear from so many Japanese and Portuguese speakers!

     Maria Carlota Rosa      <carlota at centroin.com.br>
     Chris Cléirigh             <chris_cleirigh at hotmail.com>
     Nicolaas Hart               <nic at kwassui.ac.jp>
     Junji Kawai                  <j.kawai at asia.canterbury.ac.nz>
     Bart Mathias                 <mathias at hawaii.edu>
     Victor Petrucci              <vicpetru at hotmail.com>
     Marc Picard                  <picard at vax2.concordia.ca>
     Eduardo Rivail Ribeiro <erribeir at midway.uchicago.edu>
     Helena Sampaio            <Helena.Sampaio at uv.es>
     Karl Teeter                    <kvt at fas.harvard.edu>
     Douglas G. Wilson        <douglas at nb.net>
     Watanabe Yasuhisa       <yasu_watanabe at hotmail.com>

     and of course

     Jonathan Lewis              <jrl_ms at ga2.so-net.ne.jp>

     who got the ball rolling with his sum on the origin of _arigatoo_.


    (1) _Arigatoo_:

    It is clear that the story that Japanese _arigatoo_ 'thank you'
comes from Portuguese _obrigado_ is *wrong*. There are records of the
use of _arigatoo_ long before the arrival of the Portuguese, and it is
unlikely also on phonological grounds. The following is from Bart
Mathias:

>     Hi.  I'm the one who wrote the very truncated response quoted as
beginning
> "Aaaarrrggghhh" to Jonathon Lewis' question.

> You are certainly right that the fact that a word is written with
kanji is
> no real evidence of the word's origin.  I didn't think the response to
the
> question that brought up the kanji was really relevant.

> What counts is that the word "ar-" = "be (there); be (so)" and the
adjective
> "kata-" = "hard, tough; difficult" have been around since the first
written
> records of Japanese, several centuries before contact with the
Portuguese.

> "Ar-" was written with the hanzi for "yeou" (sorry about my
old-fashioned
> spelling--that's as in "woo mei yeou kwaytzu") and "tzay" ("Nii tzay
> naal?") from the beginning.  When used as the deverbal
adjective-forming
> suffix "-gata-" = "difficult to ..." as well as otherwise when meaning

> "difficult," "kata-" was written with the hanzi "nann." Of course,
they
> were also often written with kana.

> The sentential form of "arigatoo" (the form "arigatoo" itself results
from a
> completely regular loss of "k" in adverbial "arigataku" followed by an

> equally regular mutual assimilation of the "a" and "u"), namely
"arigatasi"
> = "unlikely to be; rare; welcome" shows up written in kana in the
> Man'yôsh? an 8th century poetry collection.  It shows up, e.g., in the

> form "arigataku" in _Genjimonogatari_, an early 11th century novel.
It
> shows up already as "arigatau" in _Heikemonogatari_, a 13th (? 14th?)
> century epic.  There is no question of the pure Japanese pedigree of
the
> word.

> But one shouldn't need to know that!  The hypothesis is absurd on
purely
> phonological grounds.  Why on earth would Japanese hear "obrigado" and
say
> "arigatoo" instead of "oburigado"?

    I will certainly remove the reference to _arigatoo_/_obrigado_  if
there is a second printing of _Language Change in East Asia_. It's not
the first fish story I've heard and believed, and it certainly won't be
the last. I am again indebted to the Internet and enthusiastic linguists
for efficient and on-target feedback.


    (2) _Tempura_:

    Apparently Kenkyusha had the right source word, _tempero_, but wrong
source language. _Tempero_ is Portuguese for 'spice, seasoning'. This
etymology is also given in several English-English dictionaries (e.g.
the _Shorter Oxford_, _Webster's_, though Webster's puts in a question
mark) and has been confirmed by many respondents; one (Maria Carlota
Rosa <carlota at centroin.com.br>) included this reference:

> KIM, Tai Whan. 1979. Etymological and semantic notes on Ibero-romance
words
> in Japanese. Arquivos  do Centro Cultural Portugues. Paris: Fundação
Calouste > Gulbenkian. vol. xiv. 697pp. p.579-621.

    Again, from Bart Mathias:

> It's usually identified as /Portuguese/ "tempero."  (On the grounds of
my
> phonological argument against "arigatoo" replacing *"oburigado" I have
to
> wonder why the Japanese didn't keep "tempErO," well within Japanese
> phonotactics.  But it's a much smaller change.)

    Hope that wraps things up on these two words for a while!

    With grateful regards,


                                        Karen Steffen Chung
                                        National Taiwan University
                                        karchung at ccms.ntu.edu.tw




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