• Previous article: 4.3. Which Japanese words come from German?
• Next article: 4.5. Which Japanese words come from French?

4.4. Which Japanese words come from Dutch?

The Dutch, like the Portuguese (see 4.2. Which Japanese words come from Portuguese?), were one of the first nations to trade with Japan. During Japan's closed period from the 17th to 19th century, only the Dutch were allowed to come to Japan via the southern port of Nagasaki. At this time, western learning was known as rangaku (蘭学), from the 蘭 kanji used to represent Holland. During this time, many words were adopted from Dutch into Japanese. Many of these words, such as koohii (コーヒー) "coffee", and biiru (ビール), are still used in modern-day Japanese.

Here is a list of some of the more important words. Some of these words have kanji forms, but all of the kanji forms are ateji. See 1.2.6. Why do some gairaigo words have kanji?

Web links

• Search WWWJDIC for Japanese words of Dutch origin
• Japanese words originating from Dutch by Jorg Entzinger gives more details on the Dutch words.

Acknowledgements

Thanks to Ger de Groot, Gert Kok, Jim Breen, Rob Dieters, Tanaka Tomoyuki, and Jorg Entzinger for additions to this list

• Previous article: 4.3. Which Japanese words come from German?
• Next article: 4.5. Which Japanese words come from French?

Copyright © 1994-2011 Ben Bullock

If you have questions, corrections, or comments, please contact Ben Bullock or use the discussion forum / Privacy

Book reviews	Convert Japanese numbers	Handwritten kanji recognition	Stroke order diagrams	Convert Japanese units	Popup dictionary	Japanese to English dictionary