Date: Wed, 25 Feb 1998 03:03:11 -0600
From: Mike Salovesh t20mxs1[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]CORN.CSO.NIU.EDU
Subject: hurache? Huarache!
Jim Rader wrote:
If Japanese gets chic enough, and enough people
in the Western Hemisphere learn some, maybe English and Spanish will
start borrowing Japanese words for things we already have. But I
wouldn't hold my breath waiting.
Of course, we already had sandals . . . but the Japanese word "zori" has
become so accepted that it now takes a regular English plural, as in
"zoris". (Japanese would have "one zori", "two zori", or "many zori".)
Of course, zori (flat rubber or plastic soles held to the foot with a
Y-shaped thong designed to pass through the space between the big toe
and the next one) have latterly been acquiring another label, "thong
sandals", perhaps capitalizing on the minimal titillation that might
carry over from "thong bikinis".
Do Japanese words also carry over into Spanish? OK, one block from the
first Internet Cafe in Guatemala City there is a place called "Sushi",
which is a sushi bar, of course. Not to mention zori themselves, sold
under that name in such places as the Pais stores that sort of resemble
supermarkets.
So you don't have to hold your breath: Japanese loans are already making
it here.
Loan words, that is. Never mind the current currency crises in Asia.
-- mike salovesh salovesh[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]niu.edu
anthropology department
northern illinois university PEACE !!!