タバコ

Pattern visualization

Examples

1. ここでタバコを吸わないでください。▶ —
   Please don't smoke here.
2. タバコをやめました。▶ —
   I quit smoking.

Collocations

Mnemonic

タバコ — tabako, a loanword. A word Portuguese missionaries brought to Japan in the 16th century. The etymology's journey is long ── Caribbean Arawak tabaco → Spanish → Portuguese tabaco → Japan. As sugar and cotton rode the Arab trade routes, tabaco rode the routes of the Age of Discovery ── one word, a fossil of the sea-lane from the New World to Japan. Two spellings coexist within Japanese ── タバコ: katakana, marking it as a loanword. 煙草: kanji, an 当て字 ateji ── characters laid on the meaning ('smoke + grass') with no relation to the sound. It froze in the Edo era. The Korean word 'dambae' (dambae) also comes from the same Portuguese tabaco ── via China it became 'dambago' and shrank to 'dambae'. The same Caribbean word reached two countries by its own routes.

Quick check

1. Transmission path of tabako's etymology?

   • Arawak (Caribbean) → Spanish → Portuguese → Japan 16th c.
   • Chinese kanji etymology
   • Sanskrit (India)
   • Arabic etymology