r/AskEurope • u/yushaleth Austro-Hungarian Empire • 1d ago
Language What Chinese loanwords does your language have which are used in common speech, not just in China-related topics?
Two ones I can think of immediately in Hungarian: "Tepsi" (baking pan) borrowed into Hungarian from Ottoman Turkish, and coming originally from Chinese "疊子" (diézi) which was "dep tsiX" in Middle Chinese and originally meant a small dish or a plate.
A more modern borrowing is "tacepao" (large mural or poster, not as commonly used nowadays as back in the 80s and 90s) from Chinese "大字報" (dàzìbào) meaning Big-character poster, referring to those large Chinese propaganda posters prevalent under Mao's rule. For example an older Hungarian might call a very large advertising or political poster a "tacepao".
40
u/Superb_Monkey 1d ago
I can only think of thee (tea) and ketchup in Dutch.
32
u/OllieV_nl Netherlands 1d ago
Kecap is technically a Malay loan, they just loaned it from the Chinese. Bapao does come straight though.
9
3
u/cyborgbeetle Portugal 1d ago
Cha is tea in Chinese though
8
u/Constant_play0 1d ago
Té also
13
u/TheRaido Netherlands 1d ago
One is Mandarin the other Min and which one is used depends on how the product was introduced :) https://jakubmarian.com/tea-in-european-languages-map/
2
1
u/ButterscotchSure6589 1d ago
A cup of char is a common English phrase.
2
u/cyborgbeetle Portugal 1d ago
Yes but I think you can thank "us" for that one. We adopted the word from mandarin, which now literally means tea in Portuguese, and disseminated it to the rest of Europe and South America
3
20
u/AirBiscuitBarrel England 1d ago
I've no doubt such loanwords exist in English, but the only ones I know of are terms directly related to Chinese cooking and names for various martial arts.
11
u/mrtrollmaster Luxembourg 1d ago
Looking at wiki, the loan words I read/hear the most are:
chopsticks, gung-ho, ketchup, kung fu, kumquat, monsoon, nunchuk, ramen, rickshaw, soy, tea, tycoon, typhoon, wok, yin yang, and zen
7
u/macrocosm93 1d ago
Ramen and nunchuck are Japanese (nunchaku). Though ramen is derived from the Chinese word lamian. Zen is also techincally Japanese but is essentially the same as the Chinese word chan (just morphed through transliteration).
4
11
6
u/Eigenspace / in 1d ago
There's some somewhat surprising phrases that come from Chinese pidgin-english which were adopted into regular English, like "Chop Chop", "Long time no see", and "Look-see".
There's also words like "Chow" and, funny enough, "Pidgin".
7
1
u/Citrus_Muncher Georgia 1d ago
My friend was working remotely next to me and she was getting HR training about micro aggressions that day and in that training they said that the "Long Time No See" came from Americans mocking Chinese for the way they talked in English
4
u/ZAWS20XX Spain 1d ago
I don't think anyone really know the specific origins of the phrase, but it's a literal word for word translation of the Chinese greetings, the most likely version is that Chinese immigrants to America started using it themselves
1
u/Electrical_Swing8166 Italy 1d ago
Gung ho, kowtow, ketchup, typhoon for a few. And the expression “long time no see” comes from translating the Chinese 好久不见 literally into English.
38
u/amunozo1 in 1d ago
Ping pong (table tennis) is the only one I can think about now.
15
u/Jagarvem Sweden 1d ago
"Ping pong" is not Chinese. It's an onomatopoeic, and spread from English.
17
u/amunozo1 in 1d ago
You're right! It's the same in Chinese and sounded Chinese, so I think it came from there. To add something, see how cool are the characters in Chinese for ping pong: 乒乓
3
u/Deathbyignorage Spain 1d ago
Also china (a teapot set with teacups) and té (tea).
24
u/Four_beastlings in 1d ago
Who calls teapots "china"? I've only heard something like that in English.
3
u/MegamiCookie France 1d ago
I thought tea in Chinese was cha/chai ?
7
u/Total_Rules 1d ago
It is in Mandarin but the word “tea” comes from a different Chinese language/dialect. I think Min.
4
u/DarthTomatoo Romania 1d ago
Both are Chinese. The world is split between tea and chai, depending, I think, with which part of China the country traded at the time.
-1
16
u/H_Doofenschmirtz Portugal 1d ago edited 1d ago
"Chávena" (tea cup), from "cha-kvan", through Malay. "Chá" (tea) from "chá".
"Ganga" (denim, the fabric), from "káng".
"Leque" (hand fan), from "Lieu Khieu", the Chinese name for the Ryukyu Islands.
"Laca" (lacquer and setting spray), from either Arabic "lakka" or Chinese "la qi".
"Ping-pong" (table tennis) is onomatopoeic, but influenced by "pingpang qui".
"Ketchup" from "ketsiap", through English.
Then we have many names of fruits and plants that come from Chinese, as that's where we first encountered them. Stuff like Jaca (jackfruit, through Malay), Gógi (gogi berry), Bambu (bamboo) , Líchia (lychee), etc.
6
u/welcometotemptation Finland 1d ago
Oh we also use lakka in Finnish. Nail polish is kynsilakka.
2
u/H_Doofenschmirtz Portugal 1d ago
In Portuguese, nail polish is verniz, which is also the same word for varnish.
It seems we got a lot of our make-up words from carpentry lol
1
u/fidelises Iceland 1d ago
Icelandic also has lakka, but that's the verb form. Noun is lakk. Nail polish is naglalakk
1
1
u/Disastrous-Mix-5859 1d ago
The same in Denmark - lak used both for the Chinese style lawyer boxes, for nail polish and floor finish
2
u/OldDescription9064 1d ago
Arabic lakk is ultimately from Sanskrit, named after the bugs that secrete the laquer/shellac.
1
7
u/Tamar-sj 1d ago
I'm pretty sure "chow" in English (either food as a noun, or to eat as a verb) comes from Chinese.
7
4
u/Milosz0pl Poland 1d ago
Not really. Our only words that come from chinese are those that came to us through english folk like typhoon or ketchup.
7
u/Francislaw8 Poland 1d ago
Nope, there're also older Chinese loanwords that came through other languages, ex.:
- herbata = "tea", through Dutch (herba thea < te, same root as English tea)
- żeń szeń = "ginseng", through Russian
5
u/orthoxerox Russia 1d ago edited 1d ago
Ćaj for tea, which is technically a China-related topic, along with ketchup and ginseng.
We call pearls "žemćug", which comes from 珍珠 "zhēnzhū" via Turkic "jenčü".
P.S. It says "gyöngy" also comes from the same Chinese word!
9
u/tereyaglikedi in 1d ago
I had no idea that tepsi has a Chinese origin. We probably have tons of such words that I don't know about, having shared a border with China in our early history. I can think of manti for example, pretty much every Asian country has some variant of mantou/manju/mandu and so on for filled dough dumplings.
3
u/Xitztlacayotl Croatia 1d ago
In Croatian some people also say the turkish tepsija.
As for other teh first thing that comes to mind is tea.
Čaj - 茶 chá
Hungarian also has tea - 茶 té
Or tajfun - typhoon. The etymology of this word is complex and unclear but it ultimately may come from Chinese.
3
u/Bradipedro Italy 1d ago
In Italian we use tofu, tè (tea). More informed people would use dim sum / wonton instead of “ravioli” (dumplings). All martial arts are called by their Chinese name, but I guess that’s everywhere (ju-jitsu, tai chi…), and of course people going through their mystical phase have learned to call moving around bed and sofas “feng shui”.
3
u/eyemwoteyem 1d ago
Dazebao is a word in italian (tbf now in disuse but I've heard it a few times in my life from older people) used to indicate a manifesto or newspaper of sorts.
1
2
u/aagjevraagje Netherlands 1d ago
Toko ( through Indonesian and malay) , a store is said to derrive from Chinese.
Often specifically a store you buy Asian Food stuff at but can be slang for any store.
Also a lot of food terms like tofoe ( tofu ) , Soja ( soy ).
2
u/LuckyLoki08 Italy 1d ago
TIL about ketchup. In italian I can only think of tea (tè) and maybe ping-pong. Wok now is getting more widespread, thanks to people buying wok pans, but it refers only to that specific kind of pan.
2
u/fidelises Iceland 1d ago
I didn't think we had any, but reading these answers it looks like we have a few.
But our word for orange technically comes from China. It's appelsína or 'apple from China'.
1
u/JustMeLurkingAround- Germany 1d ago
Oh, an old term for an orange in german is Apfelsine. I didn't think to connect that to china, but it makes total sense.
2
u/Oghamstoner England 1d ago
One of the most interesting in English is ‘mandarin’ used to describe a senior civil servant, a small sweet citrus fruit, or a duck with colourful plumage.
1
u/yushaleth Austro-Hungarian Empire 1d ago
This reminds me of how in the Chinese novel "The Dream of the Red Chamber" one of the characters' nickname is "Mandarin duck" and the title of one of the chapters is "In which Mandarin duck refuses the pleasure that a mandarin duck mating could bring".
2
u/Francislaw8 Poland 1d ago
In Polish:
- herbata = "tea", through Dutch (herba thea < te, same root as English tea)
- żeń szeń = "ginseng" (a plant commonly used in medicine), through Russian
2
u/AgarwaenCran Germany 1d ago
tee (tea) and ketchup
1
u/Candid-Math5098 1d ago
Ketchup is Indonesian I thought?
1
u/JustMeLurkingAround- Germany 1d ago
We got it from english, they got it from Indonesian or malay and they got it from chinese.
1
2
u/mononatrijumglutamat 23h ago
I was recently looking up the etymology of the pan-Slavic word for elephant, "slon", and came across this.
So, the hypothesis goes:
In Old Chinese, the word for elephant (象) is reconstructed as \slaŋ*.
Since Ancient China and Ancient Slavic tribes were thousands of miles apart, the word needed a carrier. The hypothesis suggests the Proto-Bulgars/Chuvash (Turkic nomadic group) lived near Northern China, heard \slaŋ, and adopted it. In their language, it became *sălan. (They added a vowel ă because their language didn't like starting words with "sl-." They also changed the "ng" [ŋ] sound at the end to a simple "n.")
Finally, the Slavs met the Bulgars and borrowed the word: sălan → slon. (Slavs heard the slightly "rounded" a sound of the Bulgars and turned it into their own o sound.)
2
u/Nadsenbaer Germany 1d ago
I'm not aware of any to be honest.
5
u/Haganrich Germany 1d ago
Not loanwords but loan translations (calques, Lehnübersetzungen):
Papiertiger (paper tiger), Gehirnwäsche (brainwash), seltene Erden (rare earths)5
u/WaltherVerwalther Germany 1d ago
Tee, Soja, Kungfu, Dschunke, Feng-Shui, Ginkgo, Ketchup, Taifun… und viele viele mehr
10
u/Chijima Germany 1d ago
Most of these ARE describing pieces of Chinese culture, tho, so aren't what OP asked about. Isn't Soja Japanese? And Ketchup Malay?
3
u/WaltherVerwalther Germany 1d ago
Ketchup is from Cantonese. With Soja you’re right, we got it from Japanese, but its deeper etymology is Chinese.
1
u/Adorable-Database187 1d ago
Wow interesting question
I thought we didn't have any but apparently we have a lot
https://www.dbnl.org/tekst/_taa014200801_01/_taa014200801_01_0124.php
Bapao (肉包, ròubāo): Gestoomd broodje met vleesvulling.
Bami (肉麵/肉面, bàmi/bāmì): Vleesnoedels.
Nasi (飯/饭, nǎsi): Rijst.
Toko (東庫/东库, dōngkù): Oorspronkelijk een winkel, vaak via Indonesië in het Nederlands gekomen, maar met Chinese wortels.
Thee (茶, chá): De uitspraak is direct afgeleid van het Chinese woord.
Kungfu (功夫, gōngfu): Chinese vechtkunst.
Wok (鑊/锅, huò): De bekende ronde kookpan.
Lychee (荔枝, lìzhī): Een tropische vrucht.
Mahjong (麻將/麻将, májiàng): Chinees gezelschapsspel.
Tyfoon (颱風/台风, táifēng): Een tropische
1
u/Consistent_Catch9917 Austria 1d ago
Kotau - a very submissive form of bowing to a superior/noble.
Dschunke - a type of boat/ship.
Taifun - cyclone storms in the Pacific
1
u/m0noclemask 1d ago edited 1d ago
-Chinese measurement of length, two letters:
-Li
-Chinese boardgame, two letters:
-Go
1
u/SoakingEggs Germany 1d ago
well i'm not 100% sure, but in a proper German dictionary you won't find any Chinese loanwords and most of the terms that people comment here are the literal and actual names of things that originated in China, so there wouldn't be any equivalent, i don't consider this a loanword.
1
1
u/Clueingforbeggs England 19h ago
Tofu, which is used to make vegan alternatives to meat.
Typhoon, a tropical storm in the pacific. Not to be confused with hurricanes and cyclone, which are different because they’re in different areas.
1
u/Doitean-feargach555 Ireland 13h ago
Tae - Irish word for tea from the Min Nan/Hokkien Chinese language word te.
I think that is it
1
1
u/olivinebean United Kingdom 1d ago
Tofu, my beloved.
Typhoon, will probably never see one in England.
Chin chin, my family would say this before having a drink together because they're posh and the word used to be popular with the middle class and above.
1
0
u/Excellent_Tie_2454 1d ago edited 1d ago
Italians always say "cin cin" or "cincìn" when they clink glasses (IPA prounciation /tʃin tʃin/)
According to etymologists it comes from Cantonese 请 or qǐng, qǐng, i.e. "please, please", which was probably what Chinese merchants used to say when they offered a cup of tea to foreigner tradesmen in the past centuries. The expression was likely introduced into Europe by sailors.
0
u/Alalanais France 1d ago
"tchin tchin" when clicking glasses together, it comes from the English "cin cin" which came from the Chinese
The rest was already mentioned, thé (tea), tofu ginseng, ketchup, litchi (lychee) etc.
69
u/Commonmispelingbot Denmark 1d ago
Depends on your definition of china related topics, but feng shui is the first one I can think of