‘Rickshaw’ has its roots in Japanese, and ‘hinterland’, in German: Shashi Tharoor writes about words

The remarkable capacity of the English language to borrow and absorb, in regular usage, words from other languages – with words that originated in French and German before coming into common use in English – is rather widely known. But an even more unlikely contender for loaning words to the English is Japanese.

A word many book lovers have learned is tsundoku, which refers to the growing pile of unread books one acquires or buys, without finding the time to read them. Most people know tycoon, to refer to an opulently wealthy business magnate, and honcho, for chief, are derived from Japanese, as (of course) is karaoke. Kids will tell you about the Japanese terms manga (comic books and graphic novels) and anime (a reverse usage from the English “animation”); elegant homemakers will know bonsai, ikebana, and origami from their décor. Even more people speak of ramen noodles and sleep on a futon without realising these words came from Japanese too. But there are several other Japanese words which – though not as widely understood as “rendezvous” (from French) or zeitgeist (from German) – are nonetheless finding increasing acceptance in English, as words that describe something better than any existing words...

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