About 6 months back, I was in Portugal, and one thing that really struck me was how the tour guide, on more than a few occasions, while discussing the Portuguese colonial empire, she brought up something I hadn't known.
When the Portuguese went to Japan, apparently, aside from bringing guns and God to the Japanese, they also brought language. Rather, they left a very strong impact (according to her) on the Japanese language through numerous loanwords coming in from Portuguese. Some of them are here.
I wonder, just how widespread and deep is this effect upon Japanese in actuality, and what sort of differences might their be in Japanese today were it not the case (linguistically I mean)? Mind you, I'm asking this mostly out of curiosity, though I am also considering, vaguely, a No Interest in European Contact timeline, and this may well come in use for that... Further, how much also comes from Dutch, Spanish, or (Middle/Early Modern) English; or any of the other tongues of the Western trading parties that got their foot in the door?
And on a related note, just how...influenced, I suppose...is the (modern) Romanization in the West of the Japanese language affected by that initial series of contacts (and thus the phonology and ear of those speakers of those listed European tongues), or has most of that been 'cleared up' by time, exchange, and a much more thorough and academic approach to the art of transliteration and linguistics in general?
When the Portuguese went to Japan, apparently, aside from bringing guns and God to the Japanese, they also brought language. Rather, they left a very strong impact (according to her) on the Japanese language through numerous loanwords coming in from Portuguese. Some of them are here.
I wonder, just how widespread and deep is this effect upon Japanese in actuality, and what sort of differences might their be in Japanese today were it not the case (linguistically I mean)? Mind you, I'm asking this mostly out of curiosity, though I am also considering, vaguely, a No Interest in European Contact timeline, and this may well come in use for that... Further, how much also comes from Dutch, Spanish, or (Middle/Early Modern) English; or any of the other tongues of the Western trading parties that got their foot in the door?
And on a related note, just how...influenced, I suppose...is the (modern) Romanization in the West of the Japanese language affected by that initial series of contacts (and thus the phonology and ear of those speakers of those listed European tongues), or has most of that been 'cleared up' by time, exchange, and a much more thorough and academic approach to the art of transliteration and linguistics in general?
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