Similar Systems
In East Asia, a similar role to Latin and Greek has been played by Chinese, with non-Chinese languages both borrowing significant number of words from Chinese, and using morphemes borrowed from Chinese to coin words, particularly formal or technical language. See Sino-Japanese vocabulary, Sino-Korean vocabulary, and Sino-Vietnamese vocabulary for discussion.
The coinage of new native terms on Chinese roots is most notable in Japanese, where it is referred to as wasei kango (和製漢語?, Japanese-made Chinese-words). Many of these have been subsequently borrowed into Chinese, Korean, and Vietnamese, with the same (or corresponding) characters being pronounced differently according to language, just as happens in European languages – compare English biology and French biologie.
For example, 自動車 (Japanese jidōsha, Korean jadongcha) is a Japanese-coined word meaning “automobile”, literally self-move-car; compare to auto (self) + mobile (moving).
Read more about this topic: Classical Compound
Famous quotes containing the words similar and/or systems:
“Thus was my first year’s life in the woods completed; and the second year was similar to it. I finally left Walden September 6th, 1847.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Our little systems have their day;
They have their day and cease to be:
They are but broken lights of thee,
And thou, O Lord, art more than they.”
—Alfred Tennyson (1809–1892)