Yep. It’s called an ‘idiom,’ and I think most languages have them.
I’m one of these as well. I’ve known tsunami was the right word since the 80’s.
But I had no idea was a tsunami was until the 2004 video. I thought it was like in the old Japanese prints…
Why does “tsunami” begin with a “t” rather than an “s”?
Because it’s spelt the way it’s pronounced.
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
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.
If your aim is to use the most accurate word you can, probably it’s best to say “seismic sea wave.”
But even that is arguably inaccurate since the word “wave” apparently comes from “Old English wafian to wave the hands” And a seismic sea wave does not involve hands.
::sigh::
Using Google Books—1905
In the Star Trek episode Deja’ Q, first aired on February 5, 1990, the typical latex-masked alien worries that a moon impacting their planet would cause serious tsunamis. At the time, I thought it was odd that the distinctly Asian term for tidal wave would be the word of choice that the show’s producers and writers decided the universal translator would use. But at least, that shows the word has an older provenance than 2004.
Listen, this is a cheesy pop-culture reference. I’d be more inclined to believe the scholarly references above. But this pop-culture reference makes it even more likely that the word had become more common in English at that point.
Just because, the ngram for tidal wave vs. tsunami.
The usage of tidal wave has been pretty consistent since about the 1870s (though looking at early isntances it appears that most really were talking about tide-related waves, not earthquake related). And the 2004 tsunami really have given that dominance since.
But I’d be curious if there was something specific that causes the surge by tsunami in the late '70s.
For the record, in elementary school in the Pacific Northwest (1980s) I was taught that “tidal wave” was wrong and tsunami was right.
Total WAG but maybe it was part of the general enthusiasm for south-pacific culture which followed when Hawaii became a state in 1959?
Thanks, I didn’t know this great tool. I used it for French books, using two possible spellings of “raz de marée” and discovered I was wrong. “Raz de marée” is used about as much now as it was before. But Tsunami, that was almost never used began a massive surge in 2004. It seems that in fact plenty of people began to write about “tsunamis” after 2004, not instead of but besides “raz de maree”.
I did the same with Spanish. It seems the situation is the same. People wrote and kept writing “maremoto” but since, weirdly enough not 2004 but rather 2001, the previously uncommon word “tsunami” began a massive (apparently independent) surge.
And something is striking in the Spanish diagram. Between maybe 1908 and 1920, “maremoto” is used maybe 5 times as much as before and after. So, I guess a tsunami hit a Spanish-speaking country around 1908. Does anybody know about such an event? Interesting tool.
Maybe I’ve been inattentive, but I’ve never heard it pronounced other than “sue nahmy”, at least in the US.
I think I found it : 1908 earthquake and tsunami of Messina, according to wikipedia “the deadliest natural disaster in the history of Europe”. However, it doesn’t seem it hit Spain, and there’s no similar surge of the use of “raz-de-marée” at the same time in French, although the event should logically have had about the same impact in both countries. Weird.
I’m impressed that the Ngram made be discover indirectly an apparently very important event I had never heard about.
That’s the way it’s transliterated from the Japanese syllabary. Once a foreign word becomes part of the English lexicon, we can pronounce it any darn way we please.
My candidate: the 1906 Ecuador-Columbia earthquake and tsunami:
Apologies if someone has already mentioned this (if they did I missed it). Growing up in Chicago, Seiche warnings would occasionally be sounded. I always thought the terms Seiche and Tsunami are synonymous. The Chicago lakefront is dotted with small piers. Running the length of the piers, about 4’ high are metal cables called Seiche Lines. More on Seiche:
There’s four English pronunciations here, two Canadian, one American, one UK. All are with an initial “ts” sound. I do agree with you that the “t-less” pronunciation is common, though, as the ts initial sound is odd to most English speakers. Oddly enough, of the online dictionaries I checked (Dictionary.com has Random House, Collins, and American Heritage, plus I checked m-w.com) only Merriam-Webster has a pronunciation without the “t.” I personally say it with an initial “ts.”
Same deal in the UK and Australia though. At least, I was at school in both those countries in the '70s and '80s and IIRC “tidal wave is the same as tsunami but tsunami is more correct” is what I was taught both places
I think the Anglosphere was becoming more receptive to Asian cultures at that time, but I’d trace it more to the growing importance of Japan economically, and just the fact that people’s horizons were generally broadening after about the 60s and 70s
Fuck, not that old saw again. That is not true. Not in the least. French speakers borrow words with just as much abandon as English speakers. This very thread being evidence. There is no “language police” that watches over the way people speak. There is an institution where old, conservative writers are parked that makes recommendations about usage, but mostly they just sleep and argue. There are various government branches that may or may not listen to them and they publish style guides for their employees, just like almost every large organisation on the planet. The guy on the street just speaks the way he wants and has zero issues with using foreign words.
Apologies for the slight highjack.