The OED thinks it’s complicated and there is also influence from Chinese:
Two different eastern words are included here: (1) the α-forms (like Portuguese tufão, †tufõe) are < Urdu (Persian and Arabic) ṭūfān a violent storm of wind and rain, a tempest, hurricane, tornado, commonly referred to Arabic ṭāfa, to turn round (nouns of action ṭauf, ṭawafān), but possibly an adoption of Greek τῡϕῶν typhon n.2; (2) the β- and γ- forms represent Chinese tai fung, common dialect forms (as in Cantonese) of ta big, and fêng wind (hence also German teifun). The spelling of the β-forms has apparently been influenced by that of the earlier-known Indian word, while that now current is due to association with typhon n.2
It thinks our modern spelling “typhoon” descends from the “γ-forms” (tay-fun, ty-foong, tyfoon), rather than the Urdu/Arabic/maybe-Greek “α-forms” (touffon, tuffon, tuffin, toufan), but the two origins are pretty well mixed together by this point.
I am aware. I had thought the humour of the post was blatant enough that I did not flag it as such. I was off on typhoon though, so I learned something new today.
Common, spoken, English-English (as opposed to aristocratic, written, technical or non-English English) is only about 30% non-native, mostly French origin, words.
That must be interesting to reengage with the language now. Great you came back!
In my conversation practice, if I prepare a script and have to search for a new word, then it feels like about half the time I’m told, you can’t say that (Japanese word), you need to use this loan word (obvious initial ones: driving, running, cycling, gardening, etc) otherwise you’ll sound like (someone 30-40 years older than me). So subjectively, to me that feels like yes, a shift happened across the last 2 generations and I wouldn’t be surprised if in the 70s you heard those words whereas now they’ve been displaced. I think that probably happens in every generation, we’re just on the receiving end of English words coming back to haunt us now through Japanese. Perhaps in another 20-40 years it will blow a different way.
That also reminds me when I first looked into Doraemon (that started in the '69), my friend commented - “the language is a bit different now” …
So after seeing your post, I decided to see what the infamous Google Translate had to say…
For “Who will be driving?” the translation was 誰が運転するの？
That was about what I would have expected. Except I’d have probably defaulted to か.
But in search of katakana, I decided to try a different sentence.
“Let’s go driving!” That was translated as “ドライブに行こう！”
Seriously, SO much harder for me to say right now, but it’s looking like I’d better get used to it!
True, but over the past 40-45 years, has English also borrowed so much from any one other language? Granted, there are a lot of global food items that are now at least recognized by most Americans. But aside from international food, and tech words, has American English changed that much?
Maybe so … and I’m just like the frog in a pot of boiling water over here, & not noticing the gradual changes, other than being out of touch with youth slang.
If you are talking about the act of operating a motor vehicle for non-recreational purposes you would sound strange if you said ドライブ.
Even if you are doing recreational driving, 運転 is still the right word to talk about the act of controlling the car.
I feel like once you move away from textbook (or textbook-like) materials, the distinctions will be clearer. The Japanese (or Chinese in the case of kango) origin words often haven’t totally disappeared.
I think [general] English’s period of great directed word theft was probably from romance languages back when England was directly interacting with the continent more (ie during times of empire).
You could think about it in terms of imperialism; politically or culturally subordinated cultures are more likely to adopt loanwords than politically/culturally dominant cultures. In that sense, like it or not, America remains the place to steal words from for the most part.
True, but I gave one example and could give many, many more. As English speakers, Americans dominate through sheer numbers the social media platforms and it is their English that gets normalised - not just for non-native English speakers (like Japanese) but for other native speakers (like Australians). This is not a criticism, but an observation.
In the Japanese podcast I was listening to this morning, the podcaster used 走って行きます to refer to driving (he was recording his podcast as he was driving). I wondered how common this usage was.
Funny! But, that would be a sad loss, indeed!