Re: Donjon vs. Tenshu

Ben Monroe wrote:
On Feb 23, 11:26 am, "aesthe...@xxxxxxxxxxx" <aesthe...@xxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

On Feb 22, 2:39 pm, Jim Breen <j...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:


aesthe...@xxxxxxxxxxx wrote:

Is DONJON a garaigo like TEMPURA?

Gai, certainly. Dunno about the "rai". AFAIK it's not used in
Japanese.

The following says:

- Like our own castles in Scotland, there is more to it than just the
main keep - or "donjon" as it is called in Japanese.


Now it makes sense.
"donjon" is an English word.
I do not have an English dictionary at hand, but I think it should be
listed.
You may recognize it better as "dungeon".
It was probably borrowed from (Old?) French and must have been related
to Latin dominus.

All quite correct. Actually it's cognate with "dungeon", but doesn't
have the sense of the subterranean cell.

Not really sure what relevance it has to Japanese though.

None whatsoever, except someone probably in the 19C started using
the word "donjon" in English to describe the tower part of Japanese
castles, and it caught on with guidebook writers. Plainly some people
(but not Japanese) think it is a Japanese word.

I'm reminded of a book about Australia which mentioned the Nullarbor
Plain (http://tinyurl.com/yvd63z) as being named after an Aboriginal
word meaning "no trees". One wag of a reviewer commented that this was
quite correct, provided you understood that it was the Aborigines of
central Italy a couple of thousand years ago.

--
Jim Breen http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jwb/
Clayton School of Information Technology,
Monash University, VIC 3800, Australia
ジム・ブリーン@モナシュ大学
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Donjon vs. Tenshu
    ... main keep - or "donjon" as it is called in Japanese. ... I do not have an English dictionary at hand, but I think it should be ... the word "donjon" in English to describe the tower part of Japanese ...
    (sci.lang.japan)
  • Re: Donjon vs. Tenshu
    ... Like our own castles in Scotland, there is more to it than just the ... main keep - or "donjon" as it is called in Japanese. ... "donjon" is an English word. ... Not really sure what relevance it has to Japanese though. ...
    (sci.lang.japan)
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