Influence of Portuguese on the Japanese Language?

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?
 
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Since the Portuguese were the first Europeans to reach Japan, they arrived with a bunch of new concepts that needed words so the Japanese naturally adopted the words that the Portuguese uttered.

The impact that these words have on Japanese culture is in my opinion limited. The common folk doesn't think about the etymology of the words they're saying, it's just a curiosity. This should not apply to modern English loan words in Japanese as they're easier to spot considering these were adopted more recently...
 

elkarlo

Banned
A bit, Ball, bread, raincoat, Jesus, Karuta cards, Kasutera, Christian. Oranda(Dutch), tobacco, and the biggest of course is Tempura, which they introduced. I don't use much else outside of these words.

I suspect that many words that were used died off from the break in contact, as well as many words not being used anymore(going obsolete)
 
Since the Portuguese were the first Europeans to reach Japan, they arrived with a bunch of new concepts that needed words so the Japanese naturally adopted the words that the Portuguese uttered.
A bit, Ball, bread, raincoat, Jesus, Karuta cards, Kasutera, Christian. Oranda(Dutch), tobacco, and the biggest of course is Tempura, which they introduced. I don't use much else outside of these words.

I suspect that many words that were used died off from the break in contact, as well as many words not being used anymore(going obsolete)

Right, and I'm wondering what some of these words would be for similar concepts/items when they aren't loanwords. Is that any clearer by chance? Again, just to see if there's any sort of hint as to all that...or are we looking at a situation where, because they were introduced by the West, and these were loanwords from teh beginning, any attempt to create a wholely Japanese version (much as the Academie française did with English loanwords that came into French). I bring L'Academie française up only because I figure, when Japan does finally make contact, it will be in a similar sort of culturally superior position as the Chinese felt like they were in when making contact with the 'modern' West...and thus wouldn't want 'foreign' words, even if they express foreign concepts. They'd want to try and take the meaning and totally shape a new word for it.

As an example of what I'm looking for (mind you, this probably is silly, but bear with me):

Christians finally arrive in Japan. Upon talking with these foreign religious people, the Japanese learn of Christ. As they learn, they see the cross pendants, see the cross drawn on bibles and the like...and see too a man attached to it, in a sense bound to it in a manner not unlike a horse is bound to his harness. They then associate that with the bridle used in Mon crests (the specific design being Kutsu wa [?], according to Google Translate I believe) in place of the OTL loanword (Kurusu).

Things of that nature, and then, by using their own terms, their own understanding of these concepts is morphed and they then are able, if it is useful, to appropriate those ideas in a more thorough form instead of simply saying "It's foreign, they gave us a word for it, who cares about the rest" if you catch my meaning.


The impact that these words have on Japanese culture is in my opinion limited. The common folk doesn't think about the etymology of the words they're saying, it's just a curiosity. This should not apply to modern English loan words in Japanese as they're easier to spot considering these were adopted more recently...

Of course. I wasn't suggesting that the lack of these exchanges would drastically change anything, nor would the common person intentionally be choosing words in one way or another...

But just to have another example...at the bottom of the page I linked, it mentions the arigatō/obrigado thing, and how...while the word itself may not have been 'new', the fact that the foreigners had a similar word meant that the original Japanese word, which had a suitably similar meaning (from what I gathered), had its meaning shifted (wherein its original meaning of 'special' or 'rare' was considered sufficiently appropriate to mean that whatever was done by one person was not something just anyone would do...and thus was worthy of recognition, and thanks, by another). Without this 'foreign shift' or re-appropriation of the phrase, to ask something similar here, what possible alternative could there be to that phrase of 'Thank you' for instance? Again, for a timeline perhaps none of this really matters, but now that I've gotten a suitable answer, this one little aspect is enough of a curiosity that I might well decide I require an answer here for 'flavor' purposes in any narrative sections that may or may not arise.
 
But just to have another example...at the bottom of the page I linked, it mentions the arigatō/obrigado thing, and how...while the word itself may not have been 'new', the fact that the foreigners had a similar word meant that the original Japanese word, which had a suitably similar meaning (from what I gathered), had its meaning shifted (wherein its original meaning of 'special' or 'rare' was considered sufficiently appropriate to mean that whatever was done by one person was not something just anyone would do...and thus was worthy of recognition, and thanks, by another). Without this 'foreign shift' or re-appropriation of the phrase, to ask something similar here, what possible alternative could there be to that phrase of 'Thank you' for instance? Again, for a timeline perhaps none of this really matters, but now that I've gotten a suitable answer, this one little aspect is enough of a curiosity that I might well decide I require an answer here for 'flavor' purposes in any narrative sections that may or may not arise.
Ah. I didn't read that part of the article and albeit I knew that it was a myth that "arigatô" stemmed from "obrigado", it's the first time I read an hypothesis that I independently pondered myself:

Even considering structural Japanese origin, the current usage and appreciated meaning could originate in the phonological similarity and meaning of the Portuguese "obrigado".

I mean, both words are remarkably similar and have the same meaning, it looks like a freakish coincidence that two languages from opposite sides of the globe had independently converged on the sound of that word in particular.

I suppose Medieval Japanese would have a different word or phrase to "thank" but I don't know Japanese, be it medievel or otherwise.

EDIT on arigatô/obrigado: I later followed this intersting link that talks about these striking coincidences. Still, circumstances make arigatô/obrigado specially striking.
 
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It's a boring answer, but I suspect a lot of the loanwords that do represent specifically non-Japanese concepts would still become loanwords, just from whatever language the alt-contactors spoke.

That's especially true for terms with heavy religious content/baggage, such as "cross." The same pressures are going to be in place (and it's worth noting that many of them were adopted more or less directly in European languages as well; there's a reason English has "cross", "Christ", "mass", etc.) and they are still terms that are going to be chiefly associated with the foreign religion and its proponents. It's a lot easier to take the name and make it more Japanese in pronunciation, rather than invent a new word to use.
 
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