Etymology
Nanban (南蛮 lit. "Southern Barbarian") is a sino-Japanese word which originally designated people from South Asia and South-East Asia. It followed a Chinese usage in which surrounding "barbarian" people in the four directions had each their own designation, the southern barbarians being called Nanman. In Japan, the word took on a new meaning when it came to designate Europeans, the first of whom were Portuguese, arriving in 1543. The word later came to encompass the Spanish, the Dutch (though these were more commonly known as "Kōmō", 紅毛, meaning "Red Hair") and the English. The word Nanban was thought naturally appropriate for the new visitors, since they came in by ship from the South, and their manners were considered quite unsophisticated by the Japanese.
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Famous quotes containing the word etymology:
“The universal principle of etymology in all languages: words are carried over from bodies and from the properties of bodies to express the things of the mind and spirit. The order of ideas must follow the order of things.”
—Giambattista Vico (1688–1744)
“Semantically, taste is rich and confusing, its etymology as odd and interesting as that of “style.” But while style—deriving from the stylus or pointed rod which Roman scribes used to make marks on wax tablets—suggests activity, taste is more passive.... Etymologically, the word we use derives from the Old French, meaning touch or feel, a sense that is preserved in the current Italian word for a keyboard, tastiera.”
—Stephen Bayley, British historian, art critic. “Taste: The Story of an Idea,” Taste: The Secret Meaning of Things, Random House (1991)