Japan and Tanzania joined by Peppers
Posted on 15. Jun, 2009 @ 4:07 pm by harvey in Culture, Language
As you may or may not know, I’m actually now in Tanzania doing an internship. I’ll be here until August. I’ve picked up a few words and phrases in Swahili (really, just a few) and recently came across something pretty interesting.
The word for a “chili” or “pepper” in Swahili is “pilipili.”
In Japanese the phrase 「ぴりぴり」is a gitaigo 擬態語 to describe that tingly feeling you get in your mouth after you have eaten something spicy, like a hot pepper.
Is this just a random coincidence? I tweeted this observation and within a few minutes @gdharbin sent me a few valuable response tweets. Explaining that it comes from the Portuguese trading ships. Check out this Wikipedia link on Piri piri.
Seems like a likely story to me. As you may know, the reason that “bread” in Japanese is パン (pan), which also means “bread” in Spanish/Portuguese is due to those Portuguese trading ships as well.
Fun huh?
On a side note, another interesting thing about Tanzania that I have noticed is that Tanzanians constantly tell foreigners about how easy their language is to learn. They’ll go out of their way to make sure that you at least know the basic greetings in Swahili, and then will use them with you whenever they get a chance. Whenever my wife or I use Swahili the locals smile and gladly respond in Swahili to keep the conversation going as long as they can until it eventually breaks down and becomes English (due to our pitiful Swahili skills). After fumbling around in Swahili I frequently am asked, “how long have you been in Tanzania? Don’t worry, just learn a few words everyday and you can speak good Swahili.”
In Japan it was pretty different. I noticed that people would frequently be amazed at my ability to speak Japanese because, 日本語って難しいでしょう？どうやって覚えたの？！ Japanese is difficult isn’t it?? How did you learn it?! Unlike the Tanzanians the Japanese seemed to think that their language was impossible for anyone other than Japanese to figure out.
Is Japanese really more difficult than Swahili? Perhaps. The writing system is more difficult for Westerners for sure – Swahili is written using the roman alphabet so there are no new characters to learn. Swahili is also very easy to pronounce, it’s read almost exactly like Japanese romaji. I have only studied Swahili for a tiny bit of time, but I can “read” anything aloud even if I don’t know what it means. It takes many years of study to be able to do that in Japanese…
But Swahili isn’t a cake walk. They have this weird thing called “noun classes” or something where the noun changes based on how many there are and the words preceding it and all this other stuff… But how they change depends on the class the noun is in… Like table is meza… and tables is meza… but person is mengi and people is wengi… but tree is mti while trees is miti… pipe is kiko but pipes is viko… And there are more variations. To me, for one, that’s crazy difficult.
I don’t know… There is something I like about the positive attitude Tanzanians have towards the capability of foreigners to learn their language. It’s very encouraging.
Any thoughts on this?
- Harvey
8 Responses to “Japan and Tanzania joined by Peppers”
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matße
Jun 18th, 2009
at 12:07
wow, your blog is awesome.
you continuously come up with interesting information just like that.
did you find out any other examples?
i mean japanese words based on the portuguese language?
i agree with you, the attitude tanzanian people obviously adopt is really the direct opposite of the attitude most of the (older) japanese people maintain.
the funny thing is, that when – from time to time – a foreigner tells a japanese person something about the japanese language what the letter didn’t know him/herself, he/she gets totally ashamed but even then – in most cases – doesn’t change his/her attitude after all.
真秀
Jun 20th, 2009
at 18:57
I always think it’s funny the looks I get in Japan when I’m standing and waiting for a subway with my backpack on…. “Tourist!” is written on their faces… and then when I start speaking Japanese on the ole cell phone their mouths drop open…. (But maybe it’s because my Japanese is soo Bad!)
My favorite thing is how surprised Japanese are that I can use chopsticks….”Why yes… I too have been using them since I was a kid……” ,….Like most people on the planet!
Personally I think learning any language is difficult. Heck, I can barely handle English.
Nice post, see ya round.
Matthew
rebecca
Jun 22nd, 2009
at 09:40
hi,may i know where you come from?
i myself learn japanese since 2004 all by myself.
But i think it is to slow to further the level so that i take a whole time school to learn my japanese last year.And i think it is so helpful that i can totally read the kanji know.And from your learning & writing japanese give me many useful and intersting things about japan.I will always go to your blog.
rebecca
Jun 22nd, 2009
at 09:44
by the way,my website as below.
welcome to my site.Tks.
http://user.qzone.qq.com/245389812
Motsamai
Jun 28th, 2009
at 04:59
“There is something I like about the positive attitude Tanzanians have towards the capability of foreigners to learn their language.”
Could it be because many, if not most, Africans live in a multilingual environment? Swahili is the lingua franca of East Africa, but Tanzania alone has approximately 30 local languages. Multilingualism is common across the continent, and mastering another language might be regarded as natural rather than difficult.
It’s been my experience that people all over Africa take great delight in sharing their language with strangers, and seem to have a natural ability to “dumb down” their communication to accommodate non-native speakers.
PS: Great blog, by the way!
Ken
Jul 6th, 2009
at 05:02
Hey Harvey,
We met at a ohanami in Osaka when my wife had a business trip there(same company as you at the time). I have a good friend from Dar es Salaam and plan on visiting there someday. You’re really moving all over the place… last I heard you were in school back in the US. I had a six month stint in Hong Kong but we’re back in Tokyo for the time being.
Naveen
Jul 15th, 2009
at 07:55
Hi Harvey
I’m from India and was in Tokyo for an year from 2007-2008 during which I tried to pick up some Japanese. Had passed JLPT3 that time and am currently trying for level2.
it was interesting to read about the natives’ difference in perception of difficulty of learning the language in Tanzania and Japan. Was surprized to know that the word for Table is meza, coz in my mothertongue Malayalam (spoken in the south of India) we use the exact same word for table ! Reason being that it’s of Portuguese origin as well and it came 2 my language from Portuguese traders too.
Nice blog . Will keep visiting this one from now on.
lin
Jul 30th, 2009
at 11:25
Wao sounds like your life is so much fun