Japanese Loanwords in Yapese

Japan ruled the island of Yap from 1914 to 1945, introducing many new material goods and cultural practices, which have left a rich legacy of loanwords in the Yapese language. The following list is extracted from a dictionary that uses the new Yapese orthography, which I have undone in order to make it easier for people familiar with Japanese to recognize the source words, some of which are quite archaic (or even obsolete) in contemporary Japan.

• baru ‘crowbar’
• bata ‘batter (in baseball)’
• baydok ‘syphilis’
• beni ‘lipstick’
• benikawa/binikawa ‘type of potato’
• bokdang ‘bomb’
• chikongki ‘record-player’
• chiyoseng ‘Korea; Korean’
• chiyusa ‘shot, injection, hypodermic needle’
• chiyusa nag ‘to give a shot to someone’ (nag derives verbs, like Jp. suru)
• chumong ‘order, in the sense of a requisition’
• chungayri ‘to dive head first’
• daykusang/daykisang ‘carpenter, builder’
• dempo ‘telegram; to send a telegram’
• denchi ‘battery’
• dengki ‘electricity; flashlight; xray’
• dengkibasra ‘utility pole, power pole’
• dok ‘poison’
• doma ‘checkers, chess; a game’
• futong ‘mattress’
• gengkang ‘covered, protruding entranceway to a building’
• hang ‘seal, stamp’
• hangngo ‘small Japanese pot’
• hasra ‘utility pole, power pole’
• hyakngo ‘type of potato’
• isobing/usubing ‘type of half-gallon bottle’
• jori ‘rubber sandals, slippers, zoris’
• jubong ‘pants’
• kabang ‘handbag, purse’
• kachido ‘movie, cinema’
• kama ‘sickle, scythe’
• kamoch ‘car, automobile’
• kangkiri ‘can opener’
• kayak ‘gunpowder’
• kayru ‘toad, frog’
• kech ‘stingy’
• kich ‘crazy’
• kitanay ‘dirty’
• komey ‘rice; type of yam’
• koyeng ‘rest house on a hilltop’
• kui ‘marker pole in sea’
• kyuri ‘type of vine, cucumber’
• mame ‘beans’
• mangwa ‘cartoon’ [a spelling pronunciation?]
  
• marutobi ‘hopscotch’
• merikengko ‘[American wheat] flour’
• mong ‘Japanese ornamental gate or archway’
• nappa ‘cabbage’
• nas ‘eggplant’
• nawa ‘jumprope; to play jumprope’
• negi ‘onion, green onion’
• nejimawas ‘screwdriver’
• nis ‘varnish’
• niso ‘gallon bottle’
• nori ‘glue, paste’
• okas ‘candy, cookies’
• okinawa ‘Okinawa; type of [sweet] potato’
• osongach/isongach ‘Christmas’
• otobay /atobay ‘motorscooter, motorcycle’
• pachingko ‘slingshot’
• panchu ‘underwear, pants’
• ping ‘pin, hairpin, safety pin’
• pistor ‘pistol, gun’
• remong ‘lemon, lime, citrus’
• rengnga ‘concrete block’
• sakura ‘type of flowering tree; pink plumeria’
• sarumata ‘underpants’
• sarukang ‘swivel used to connect leader to fishline and to fishhook’
• sasing ‘photograph, picture’
• sasmi ‘raw fish, sashimi’
• sayda ‘soda, soft drink’
• semmengki ‘small washbasin’
• seng ‘wire, line’
• sensey ‘teacher; to teach’
• sensey nag ‘to teach’ (nag derives verbs, like Jp. suru)
• sentak ‘laundry; to do laundry’
• sentaksekken ‘laundry soap’
• sigobing ‘bottle about the size of a fifth gallon, the size of a shoyu bottle’
• sikato ‘skirt’
• sikidas ‘drawer’
• sikojo/hikojo ‘airport’
• sikoki/hikoki ‘airplane’
• simeng/jimeng ‘to lay out the ground for a house foundation’
• simi ‘charcoal’
• sitangi ‘women’s underclothes’
• supido ‘fast, speedy’
• tama ‘marbles, the game of marbles; light bulb’
• tamanegi ‘round, dry onion’
• tamango ‘egg’
• tanchyobi ‘birthday party, birthday celebration’
• taray ‘large washtub’
• tech ‘steel ball’
• tempra uta ‘song in different languages mixed together’
• teng ‘score, mark’
• tesange ‘purse made of pandanus leaves’
• togang ‘ash pumpkin’
• totang ‘boat made out of folded sheet of roofing [tin]’
• udong ‘noodles’
• yakyu ‘baseball’
• yasay ‘green vegetables’
• yasmi ‘vacation, holiday, rest’
• yeng ‘dollar’ (cf. piseta ‘quarter dollar’ via Span., mag ‘half dollar’ via Ger.)

SOURCE: Yapese–English Dictionary, by John Thayer Jensen with the assistance of John Baptist Iou, Raphael Defeg, Leo David Pugram (U. Hawai‘i Press, 1977)

To the list above I can add a few more from my own fieldwork in Yap: chichibando ‘brassiere’, hanafuda ‘hanafuda card game’, kanggof ‘nurse’, and kawanguchu ‘leather shoes’.