Glossary of Japanese words of Portuguese origin

Many Japanese words of Portuguese origin entered the Japanese language when Portuguese Jesuit priests introduced Christian ideas, Western science and technology, among other things to the Japanese during the Muromachi period (15-16th century).

Many of the words which entered Japanese from Portuguese and Dutch are written in kanji or hiragana rather than katakana, which is the more common way to write loanwords in Japanese. Kanji versions of the words are ateji, characters added to the words by the Japanese, based on either the pronunciation or the meaning of the word.

Look up 有り難う in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

It is often suggested that the Japanese word arigatō derives from the Portuguese obrigado, both of which mean "Thank you", but this is not true. The Japanese phrase arigatō is a shortened form of arigatō gozaimasu, meaning "Thank you". This is a form of an adjective, arigatai, for which written records exist dating back to the Man'yōshū, well before Japanese contact with Portugal.^[4]

The full derivation is arigatō < arigatau < arigataku < arigatashi < ari + katashi. The medial -k- drops out from -aku- resulting in /au/. This then becomes /oː/ via regular phonological rules. Ari is a verb meaning "to be" and katashi is an adjective meaning "difficult". The original meaning of "arigatashi" was "difficult to be", ie "rare" and thus "special".

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• Gairaigo
  • List of gairaigo and wasei-eigo terms
• Japanese words of Dutch origin
• Nippo Jisho, the first Japanese dictionary in a Western language
• false cognate about Arigatō