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In:Dutch and Contact Linguistics: The Dutch language outside the Low Countries
Edited by Christopher Joby and Nicoline van der Sijs
[IMPACT: Studies in Language, Culture and Society 55] 2025
► pp. 46–81

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Chapter 2
The circulation of Dutch lexical phenomena in East Asia

ORCiD logo with link | SOAS, University of London | University of East Anglia
Published online: 4 July 2025
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/impact.55.02job
Abstract
Between 1639 and 1853, the Dutch were the only Europeans permitted to trade with Japan. Japanese translated many Dutch books and thereby introduced Dutch words into Japanese in various forms known collectively as lexical contact phenomena. I begin by analysing words incorporated into Japanese and then analyse how contact between Japan and other societies in East Asia after the Meiji Restoration resulted in the re-loaning of Dutch lexical contact phenomena to other languages. These include Korean and Sinitic varieties. I also examine whether any of the loanwords coming from Dutch were adopted by other languages such as Vietnamese, Uygur, and Austronesian languages spoken in Taiwan via intermediary languages such as Mandarin Chinese. I pay special attention to changes that lexical contact phenomena underwent as they were borrowed and re-borrowed.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Methodology
  • 3.Dutch loanwords in Japanese
    • 3.1Phonemic loanwords
    • 3.2Calques
    • 3.3Periphrasis
    • 3.4Conceptual transfer
  • 4.Dutch loanwords borrowed by other languages via Japanese
    • 4.1Okinawan
    • 4.2Mandarin and Cantonese Chinese
    • 4.3Other Sinitic varieties
    • 4.4Taiwanese Austronesian languages
    • 4.5Korean
      • 4.5.1Phonemic loanwords
      • 4.5.2Graphic loanwords
    • 4.6Vietnamese
    • 4.7Other languages
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
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