Dear Wubai, Thanks a lot. Spanish, Portuguese, French and Italian are of the same language family, the Latin family. So the pronuciation and spelling bear much similarity among these languages. Babuza

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "wubai" 
To: "Lamar Za Litz" ; 
Sent: Wednesday, March 02, 2005 10:44 PM
Subject: RE: [TGB] Re: bread


>I think this explanation is right. We learn this in scool in Japan.
> 
> When I went to Spain last year my Spanish friend told me that they call bread as phang. He also told me that Spanish and Portuguese are similar. Maybe he wanted to surprise me but it is well-known in Japan. So I explained a bit of the history to him. Phang is completely in the Japanese vocablary and we don't even feel it is a 外來語 unless we think of the history.
> 
> When I started to learn Taiwanese, I was surprised to find many words have thier origin in Japanese. Phang is only one of them.
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From:  [[mailto:]On](<https://web.archive.org/web/20060117112735/mailto:\]On>) Behalf
> Of Lamar Za Litz
> Sent: Monday, February 28, 2005 1:22 PM
> To: 
> Subject: Re: [TGB] Re: bread
> 
> 
> This is also what I've heard, that Taigi 'phang' comes from Portuguese
> through Japanese.
> 
> As for the differences between 'phang' and Portuguese 'pa̍o,' here are
> some possible explanations:
> 
> (1) (as Babuza said) The Japanese do not distinguish between -n and
> -ng...what they have is an /-ng/ ending that is a syllable in itself. 
> And when they heard 'pa̍o,' /pa-ng/ was as close as they could get.
> 
> (2) The loanword might not have come from standard Portuguese. It
> might even have come from a Spanish or Provencal dialect, etc., either
> through Spanish-Japanese contact or because Portuguese ships hired
> Spanish or Provencal sailors.
> 
> Just a guess.
> 
> TBT
> 
> On Mon, 28 Feb 2005 10:47:49 +0800,   wrote:
>>  
>> To be frank, I'm afraid no one can give you a definite answer.
>> I usually say 
>> phang comes from Europe, possibly from  Portuguese.
>> It was assumed that the Japanese briught the term to Taiwan after 1895.
>> And the Japanese got it from Europe, probably during the Meji Restoration.
>> Japanese seemed unable to ditinguish between 'ng' and 'n' quite well.
>> For example, sir/MR is written as sang & san.
>> Those speaking Mandarin have same problems.
>> Frequently 興趣/性趣; 禁止/靜止; alwaus sounds the same on TV/Radio.
>> Any comment from TGB will be highly appreciated.
>>                                 Babuza
> 
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