# Was there another word for "tsunami", in English and other languages, before 2004 **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 18, 2013, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-there-another-word-for-tsunami-in-english-and-other-languages-before-2004/666578 "2013-08-18T18:02:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![TokyoBayer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tokyobayer/32/13989_2.png) [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2013, 2:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-there-another-word-for-tsunami-in-english-and-other-languages-before-2004/666578/41 "2013-08-19T02:15:22Z")
> [@obfusciatrist](#): > > But I’d be curious if there was something specific that causes the surge by tsunami in the late '70s. There is, but it actually comes a couple of decades earlier and from Hawaii. The [1946 Aleutian Islands earthquake](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1946_Aleutian_Islands_earthquake) which prompted the creation of the [Pacific Tsunami Warning Center](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Tsunami_Warning_Center) in 1949. Japanese sources claim that the word was adopted in English because of the widespread usage by Japanese speakers in Hawaii in the 1946 tsunami. > [@pulykamell](#): > > I personally say it with an initial “ts.” As I do, which is to be expected. At least it’s not as badly mangled as “harakiri” is. > [@brazil84](#): > > For what it’s worth, I’ve come to believe that “tidal wave” is just as correct as “tsunami,” which literally means “harbor wave” from what I understand. It comes from a wave large enough to cause destruction even in a harbor. ---
**Author:** ![Balthisar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/balthisar/32/2825_2.png) [@Balthisar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balthisar)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2013, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-there-another-word-for-tsunami-in-english-and-other-languages-before-2004/666578/42 "2013-08-19T02:40:53Z")
> [@clairobscur](#): > > ETA : According to spanish wikipedia : maremoto This is the word I hear used in Mexico, on the Pacific coast. Cite: [http://www.cronica.com.mx/notas/2005/162283.html](http://www.cronica.com.mx/notas/2005/162283.html) Although as also mention in the article, “tsunami” is also used. That’s the first time I’ve seen it spelt in Spanish. Usually they tend to Spanish-ize words, like “escanner” for “scanner.” On the other hand, Roman spelling of Japanese is very much like Spanish. ---
**Author:** ![jovan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/0ea827/32.png) [@jovan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jovan)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2013, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-there-another-word-for-tsunami-in-english-and-other-languages-before-2004/666578/43 "2013-08-19T03:58:50Z")
> [@Balthisar](#): > > This is the word I hear used in Mexico, on the Pacific coast. Cite: [http://www.cronica.com.mx/notas/2005/162283.html](http://www.cronica.com.mx/notas/2005/162283.html) > > Although as also mention in the article, “tsunami” is also used. That’s the first time I’ve seen it spelt in Spanish. Usually they tend to Spanish-ize words, like “escanner” for “scanner.” On the other hand, Roman spelling of Japanese is very much like Spanish. Funnily “maremoto” could very well be a Japanese surname. (Stupid Mexican joke: how do you say “he goes for a ride” in Japanese? _Sakasumoto_.) ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2013, 3:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-there-another-word-for-tsunami-in-english-and-other-languages-before-2004/666578/44 "2013-08-19T03:59:35Z")
> [@clairobscur](#): > > That’s weird since (small) Tsunamis aren’t unheard of around the Mediterranean sea (that’s why I read about them as a kid). So, I suspect there used to be a word for them before “Tsunami” was borrowed from Japanese. > ETA : According to spanish wikipedia : maremoto _Maremoto_ is what I translated as “seaquake”: an earthquake whose epicenter is at sea. It doesn’t refer exclusively to the wave, like tsunami does. We nabbed the Japanese word for the specific meaning. ---
**Author:** ![the\_diego](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7bcc69/32.png) [@the\_diego](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/the_diego)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2013, 4:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-there-another-word-for-tsunami-in-english-and-other-languages-before-2004/666578/45 "2013-08-19T04:03:29Z")
Doesn’t ‘deluge’ or ‘diluvio’ apply to tidal waves as well? ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2013, 4:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-there-another-word-for-tsunami-in-english-and-other-languages-before-2004/666578/46 "2013-08-19T04:07:53Z")
Not last I checked, it’s heavy rains. RAE agrees. One cultural item which may have made tsunami more popular in Spanish is the enormous interest of early-20-century artists for “exotic” art. The first hit I find for THE [tsunami](https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-Xdnd3oaW4vo/TXpGd4fHeMI/AAAAAAAAJHE/WTYLIkB-mfw/s320/Tsunami+-+Olas+enormes+y+grandes+7.jpg) drawing is from a Peruvian webpage, but then, there’s a relatively high Japanese-ancestry population there. ---
**Author:** ![Mangosteen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Mangosteen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangosteen)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2013, 4:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-there-another-word-for-tsunami-in-english-and-other-languages-before-2004/666578/47 "2013-08-19T04:31:13Z")
> [@Son\_of\_a\_Rich](#): > > Maybe I’ve been inattentive, but I’ve never heard it pronounced other than “sue nahmy”, at least in the US. It only really matters if you want to pronounce the word “correctly”. That is, how the Japanese say it. Japanese pronounce it with a “t” like sound before the s. English doesn’t have any words that begin with “ts” so most English speakers just drop the “t”. Its like most English speakers pronounce Tokyo using 3 syllables. “Toe key oh” is not the correct pronunciation. There are only 2 syllables. “Toe keyoh”. One has to combine the second and third syllables. Try it: “Key oh, Keyoh”. “Toe keyoh”. ---
**Author:** ![obfusciatrist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/4af34b/32.png) [@obfusciatrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/obfusciatrist)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2013, 5:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-there-another-word-for-tsunami-in-english-and-other-languages-before-2004/666578/48 "2013-08-19T05:42:09Z")
Conversation I just had with my wife: Me: Say “tsunami” like you would in Japanese. Her: Tsunami Me: Now say it like you would in English. Her: Tsunami Me: Did you say them the same? Her: No. Me: Did one have a ts at the beginning and the other just an s? Her: No. Me: So what was different? Her: The syllables were stressed differently. At this point when I say “tsunami” I naturally pronounce it with the “ts.” But I am able to so easily slip into saying with just a leasing s that I suspect that is how I grew up saying it but 20 years of first living in Hawaii and then living with a lot of exposure to Japanese has converted me. She didn’t really believe me that anybody pronounces it without the “ts” but I convinced her. “You mean, like the su in sushi?” and then rolling her eyes like we’re all idiots. (Whenever she gets annoyed at us perverting Japanese words I just ask her “and how did you grow up pronouncing McDonald’s?”) ---
**Author:** ![j\_sum1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/8baadc/32.png) [@j\_sum1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/j_sum1)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2013, 6:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-there-another-word-for-tsunami-in-english-and-other-languages-before-2004/666578/49 "2013-08-19T06:00:38Z")
I had assumed that tsunami/harbour wave was an apt description for Japanese because the wave tended to be amplified by the sub-sea geometry of a harbour thus leading to greater destructive potential. Tidal wave has an implied connection to the lunar/solar tidal cycle and I would venture that it is not an accurate descriptor. I wish there was an alternative to tsunami though. There is a need for a word that specified seismic origin and one that is not confused with seismic waves. To my mind, tsunami is more of a description of the effect or location than the cause. [pet peeve] In Australia, any incidence of flash-flooding or even riverine flooding is referred to in the news media as an “inland tsunami”. And the only word used to describe the effect of floodwaters is “inundated”. After a fairly significant freak weather event in January 2011 the news has been full of people whose homes were “inundated by the inland tsunami.” I can think of fewer worse ways to butcher the language. [/pp] ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2013, 6:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-there-another-word-for-tsunami-in-english-and-other-languages-before-2004/666578/50 "2013-08-19T06:14:34Z")
> [@clairobscur](#): > > I found on google that there used to be an English word too for Tsunami : “harbour wawe”. Was it commonly used before 2004 and was it replaced by “tsunami” after that year, as it happened in French? Ah, the pitfalls of Google… “Harbor wave” is the English translation of the Japanese word “tsunami”. The English term is “tidal wave”, as noted by previous posters. 40 years ago “tidal wave” was the dominant term in most of the US, Hawaii and the west coast would have been the areas most likely to use the Japanese word. Over the ensuing decades “tsunami” became more common until, as you noticed, after the Boxing Day tsunami the Japanese term became much, much more common world wide. In some of the abundant video of the recent Japanese earthquake/tsunami there are instances of local Japanese approaching foreigners in cars and such and yelling “Tsunami!”, which everyone seems to understand just fine. Granted, tourists in Japan probably have some familiarity with the Japanese language, but it was likely that the widely broadcast events of the Boxing Day event assisted in ease of understanding the term even under highly stressful circumstances. It’s definitely a Japanese term understood by many who aren’t Japanese, and there’s something to be said for having a global, or at least a very common cross-language term to concisely describe a potentially dire situation that requires you to immediately seek higher ground. ---
**Author:** ![Noel\_Prosequi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/b19c9b/32.png) [@Noel\_Prosequi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Noel_Prosequi)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2013, 6:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-there-another-word-for-tsunami-in-english-and-other-languages-before-2004/666578/51 "2013-08-19T06:48:32Z")
The forms of Japanese writing that most closely mirror the alphabetical mapping of sounds onto symbols are hiragana and katakana. With some exceptions (including vowels) the pattern is that a symbol represents a sound made by a consonant followed by a vowel (“ka”, “no”, etc.); the vowels are by default short unless marked otherwise. For English speakers, the Japanese “alphabet” can be organised by listing the symbols for “a”, “e”, “i”, “o”, and “u”. One can then list the next group of 5 symbols, a consonant followed by the 5 vowels, thus “ka”, “ki”, “ku”, “ke”, “ko”. One proceeds then through the various consonants in like manner, although not all English consonants are represented. “S” proceeds regularly, and so there is a symbol and sound for “su”. “T” however proceeds irregularly, and the group associated with “t” is commonly transposed into English as “ta”, “chi”, “tsu”, “te”, “to”. Thus, “su” and “tsu” are different things in Japanese. ---
**Author:** ![brazil84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8491ac/32.png) [@brazil84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brazil84)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2013, 8:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-there-another-word-for-tsunami-in-english-and-other-languages-before-2004/666578/52 "2013-08-19T08:14:32Z")
> [@obfusciatrist](#): > > But I’d be curious if there was something specific that causes the surge by tsunami in the late '70s. Well at some point it started to become more and more hip and cool to demonstrate one’s hipness and coolness through foreign pronunciations. Wasn’t it around then that a lot of people started to say “chee-lay” for Chile and “nee-ka-rah-wah” for Nicaragua? Wasn’t it around then that people started to say “Beijing” instead of “Peking”? I suspect that “tsunami” is part of the same trend. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2013, 11:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-there-another-word-for-tsunami-in-english-and-other-languages-before-2004/666578/53 "2013-08-19T11:48:54Z")
I don’t know if it’s so much a matter of being “hip” as trying to match their term to the term the people of those places used. Another example I’ve recently heard is in the pronunciation of Quebec as “keh-bec” instead of “kwa-bec”. I suppose some see it as an affectation, but others see it as more correct. ---
**Author:** ![brazil84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8491ac/32.png) [@brazil84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brazil84)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2013, 12:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-there-another-word-for-tsunami-in-english-and-other-languages-before-2004/666578/54 "2013-08-19T12:02:43Z")
> [@Broomstick](#): > > I don’t know if it’s so much a matter of being “hip” as trying to match their term to the term the people of those places used. The thing is, if it’s viewed as simply an attempt to be more correct, there doesn’t seem to be a lot of rhyme or reason to it. At the moment, I don’t hear people saying “Deutchland” for Germany or “Nippon” for Japan. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2013, 12:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-there-another-word-for-tsunami-in-english-and-other-languages-before-2004/666578/55 "2013-08-19T12:16:35Z")
But until you did, nobody spoke of “using foreign words to refer to foreign places”, only of “keeping the foreign pronunciation of words that the speaker knows to be foreign in origin.” ---
**Author:** ![Isilder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/cc9497/32.png) [@Isilder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isilder)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2013, 12:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-there-another-word-for-tsunami-in-english-and-other-languages-before-2004/666578/56 "2013-08-19T12:55:18Z")
> [@brazil84](#): > > I suspect that “tsunami” is part of the same trend. No . 1965 Hawaii … _International Tsunami Information Centre_ Opens. Its been called that ever since ! Actually scientists wanted to educate the world to help reduce casualties such as 2004 Indian Ocean … where people went down to the water’s edge to look at it receding away. (I mean, in the 1900’s they wanted to educate people… but 2004 is an example of the failure to educate people… ) So scientists decided to call it a unique name, so as to separate it from more innocuous occurrences such as tidal bores, rogue waves , storm surge, dam releases/bursts, and so on. ---
**Author:** ![brazil84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8491ac/32.png) [@brazil84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brazil84)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2013, 12:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-there-another-word-for-tsunami-in-english-and-other-languages-before-2004/666578/57 "2013-08-19T12:56:10Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > But until you did, nobody spoke of “using foreign words to refer to foreign places”, only of “keeping the foreign pronunciation of words that the speaker knows to be foreign in origin.” I’m not sure that’s such a clear distinction. Would you agree that the word “Japan” is foreign in origin? What about “Jerusalem”? Actually, I would guess that the English names of most places outside of the English-speaking world are foreign in origin. ---
**Author:** ![brazil84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8491ac/32.png) [@brazil84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brazil84)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2013, 12:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-there-another-word-for-tsunami-in-english-and-other-languages-before-2004/666578/58 "2013-08-19T12:57:59Z")
> [@Isilder](#): > > No . > Actually scientists wanted to educate the world to help reduce casualties such as 2004 Indian Ocean Do you have a cite for this? My understanding is that the scientific term is “seismic sea wave.” ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2013, 1:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-there-another-word-for-tsunami-in-english-and-other-languages-before-2004/666578/59 "2013-08-19T13:00:36Z")
> [@Mangosteen](#): > > Its like most English speakers pronounce Tokyo using 3 syllables. “Toe key oh” is not the correct pronunciation. There are only 2 syllables. “Toe keyoh”. One has to combine the second and third syllables. Try it: “Key oh, Keyoh”. “Toe keyoh”. “Toe keyoh” still suggests three syllables. The actual name is a better phonetic representation. It’s not a matter of combining syllables, it’s a matter of pronouncing the single consonant sound of the second syllable. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2013, 1:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-there-another-word-for-tsunami-in-english-and-other-languages-before-2004/666578/60 "2013-08-19T13:17:49Z")
> [@brazil84](#): > > I’m not sure that’s such a clear distinction. > > Would you agree that the word “Japan” is foreign in origin? > > What about “Jerusalem”? > > Actually, I would guess that the English names of most places outside of the English-speaking world are foreign in origin. Japan, Japón or Cipango aren’t distortions of Nippon (they’re distortions of a _Chinese_ name for Japan); Germany or Alemania aren’t distortions of Deutschland (they’re derived from the words people other than the Germans called that area). I do think there is a difference between recognizing jalapeño as a word that’s foreign in origin and trying to keep its original pronunciation, vs. insisting that streets should be called calles. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-there-another-word-for-tsunami-in-english-and-other-languages-before-2004/666578.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-there-another-word-for-tsunami-in-english-and-other-languages-before-2004/666578.md?page=4)