List of Japanese terms mistaken for gairaigo

This is a selected list of Japanese

Japanese language

is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...

words that appear to be foreign borrowings (known as gairaigo
Gairaigo
Gairaigo is Japanese for "loan word" or "borrowed word", and indicates a transliteration into Japanese. In particular, the word usually refers to a Japanese word of foreign origin that was not borrowed from Chinese, primarily from English. Japanese also has a large number of loan words from...

in Japanese), but are in fact words with Japanese origins. This confusion can stem from a number of causes. Katakana

Katakana

is a Japanese syllabary, one component of the Japanese writing system along with hiragana, kanji, and in some cases the Latin alphabet . The word katakana means "fragmentary kana", as the katakana scripts are derived from components of more complex kanji. Each kana represents one mora...

are typically reserved for words of foreign origin, but are sometimes used for Japanese words of modern or irregular formation. In addition, some Japanese words bear coincidental similarities to words in other languages (known as false cognate

False cognate

False cognates are pairs of words in the same or different languages that are similar in form and meaning but have different roots. That is, they appear to be, or are sometimes considered, cognates, when in fact they are not....

s).

Examples

Japanese	Romaji	Meaning	Etymology	Notes
有り難う	arigatō	thank you	combination of aru ("to be" or "to exist Exist Exist may refer to:* eXist, an open source database management system built on XML* Existence* Energetic X-ray Survey Telescope, a proposed hard X-ray imaging all-sky deep survey mission... ") combined with the verb Verb A verb, from the Latin verbum meaning word, is a word that in syntax conveys an action , or a state of being . In the usual description of English, the basic form, with or without the particle to, is the infinitive... ending gatai (implying the difficulty of performing the preceding verb), modified to gatō	Similar but no relationship, to the Portuguese word "Obrigado" (Thank you).
ばば（婆） or ばばあ	baba or babaa	old woman Old woman Old woman may refer to:* an old woman* A person who is always complaining about his or her situation.* Old Woman , a divine hag in Irish and Scottish mythology... (the latter having a derogatory sense)	regular Japanese word	similar to the term баба baba (meaning "grandmother") in Russian Russian language Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics... , and a number of other words with similar meanings in many other languages (see mama and papa Mama and papa In linguistics, mama and papa refers to the sequences of sounds , and similar ones known to correspond to the word for "mother" and "father" in many languages of the world.... )
チャック	chakku	a zipper Zipper A zipper is a commonly used device for temporarily joining two edges of fabric... , a zip-fastener (UK)	巾着 (kinchaku) (meaning 'a purse Purse A purse is a small bag that may refer to:* Coin purse, in British English* Handbag, in American English* Money bag* WalletPurse may also refer to:... ' or 'a money pouch')
ちゃり	chari	bicycle Bicycle A bicycle, also known as a bike, pushbike or cycle, is a human-powered, pedal-driven, single-track vehicle, having two wheels attached to a frame, one behind the other. A person who rides a bicycle is called a cyclist, or bicyclist....	short form of charinko (also meaning bicycle), a word whose etymology is still a matter of debate	sometimes mistakenly identified as a shortened form of the English "chariot Chariot The chariot is a type of horse carriage used in both peace and war as the chief vehicle of many ancient peoples. Ox carts, proto-chariots, were built by the Proto-Indo-Europeans and also built in Mesopotamia as early as 3000 BC. The original horse chariot was a fast, light, open, two wheeled... "
餓狼 (がろう)	garō	hungry wolf	餓 (ga - hungry) + 狼 (rō - wolf)	similar to a French word, "loup-garou", that means "werewolf Werewolf A werewolf, also known as a lycanthrope , is a mythological or folkloric human with the ability to shapeshift into a wolf or an anthropomorphic wolf-like creature, either purposely or after being placed under a curse... "; "garou" (OF "garulf") is cognate with the English.
ネタ	neta	Information Information Information in its most restricted technical sense is a message or collection of messages that consists of an ordered sequence of symbols, or it is the meaning that can be interpreted from such a message or collection of messages. Information can be recorded or transmitted. It can be recorded as... , evidence Evidence Evidence in its broadest sense includes everything that is used to determine or demonstrate the truth of an assertion. Giving or procuring evidence is the process of using those things that are either presumed to be true, or were themselves proven via evidence, to demonstrate an assertion's truth...	reversal of the Japanese tane, meaning seed Seed A seed is a small embryonic plant enclosed in a covering called the seed coat, usually with some stored food. It is the product of the ripened ovule of gymnosperm and angiosperm plants which occurs after fertilization and some growth within the mother plant... , cause, origin Origin Origin, origins, or original may refer to:- Beginning of the universe and life :* Abiogenesis, the study of how life on Earth arose from inanimate matter* Cosmogony, any theory concerning the origin of the universe...

Examples

See also