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Loanwords have entered written and spokenChinese from many sources, including ancient peoples whose descendants now speak Chinese. In addition to phonetic differences, varieties of Chinese such as Cantonese and Shanghainese often have distinct words and phrases left from their original languages which they continue to use in daily life and sometimes even in Mandarin. As a result of long-term direct relationships with northern peoples, starting from the Qin-Han period, there have been many exchanges of words. In addition, there were times when northern tribes dominated China. As a result, there are also a number of loanwords from nearby languages such as various Turkic languages, Mongolian, and Manchu (Tungusic).
Since Hong Kong was under British control until 1997, Hong Kong Cantonese borrowed many words from English such as 巴士 (from the word "bus", pinyin:bāshì; Jyutping:baa1 si6-2), 的士 (from "taxi", dīshì; dik1 si6-2), 芝士 (from "cheese", zhīshì; zi1 si6-2), and 麥當勞/麦当劳 (from "McDonald's", Màidāngláo; mak6 dong1 lou4), and such loanwords have been adopted into Mandarin, despite them sounding much less similar to the English words than the Cantonese versions.[2]
Foreign businesses and products are usually free to choose their own transliterations and typically select ones with positive connotations and phonetic similarity to their products: for example, 宜家(IKEA) is "proper home". Owing to antonomasia and genericization, these can then enter general Chinese usage: for example Coca-Cola's 可口可乐; 可口可樂; kěkǒu kělè; "delicious fun" has led to 可乐; 可樂kělè becoming the common Chinese noun for all colas.
Since the Kuomintang retreated to Taiwan after the Chinese Civil War, relations between the ROC and PRC had been hostile, thus communication between Taiwan and mainland China became limited. For that reason, many loanwords and proper names became quite different from each other. For example, "cheese" in mainland China is 芝士; zhīshì, while cheese in Taiwan is 起司; qǐsī.
Sanskrit
The majority of Sanskrit loanwords entered Chinese in and before the Tang dyansty. As such, Baxter's transcription for Middle Chinese is provided for all terms. Many of the following, such as 尸陀林 and 舍利子, are hybrids between a loaned element and a native element (with both above examples having the first two syllables loaned and last one native), and some terms may have irregular pronunciations to better match the original Sanskrit pronunciation. This is most famous in the conclusion mantra of the Heart Sutra:
गते गते पारगते पारसंगते बोधि स्वाहा
gate gate pāragate pārasaṃgate bodhi svāhā
Gone, gone, gone to the other shore, landed at the other shore, "O Wisdom Svaha!"
Chinese words of English origin have become more common in mainland China during its reform and opening and resultant increased contact with the West. Note that some of the words below originated in other languages but may have arrived in Chinese via English (for example "pizza/披萨" from Italian). English acronyms are sometimes borrowed into Chinese without any transcription into Chinese characters; for example "IT" (information technology), "PPT" (PowerPoint), "GDP" (Gross domestic product), "APP" (mobile app), "KTV" (karaoke), or "DVD". A rarer occurrence is the blending of the Latin alphabet with Chinese characters, as in "卡拉OK" ("karaoke"), “T恤” ("T-shirt"), "IP卡" ("internet protocol card").[3] In some instances, the loanwords exists side by side with neologisms that translate the meaning of the concept into existing Chinese morphemes. For instance, while the loanword for 'penicillin' is 盘尼西林 (pánníxīlín), a neologism that 'translates' the word was later coined, 青霉素 (qīngméisù), which means 'blue/green mold extract/essence'. In contemporary Chinese, neologisms using native Chinese morphemes tend to be favored over loanwords that are transliterations. In the case of penicillin, the term 青霉素 is used almost exclusively, while 盘尼西林 is viewed as an early 20th century relic. Similarly, 'science' is now known as 科学 (kēxué) 'subject/specialty study' rather than 赛因斯 (sàiyīnsī), though it should be pointed out that the characters 科学 were actually coined in the late 19th century by the Japanese as a kanji compound.
From various sources. Loaned via American English in Shanghainese (cf. kha-fi), French in Cantonese and Mandarin (cf. gaa3 fe1), Russian in Dungan (cf. кофе), and Malay-Indonesian or Tagalog in migrant communities in Southeast Asia.
↑Zuo, X. (2005). Language planning with respect to English into China. Terminology, 11(2), 283-292.
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