What ever happened to "Moslem?"

[Corry_El]

@Hail_Ants

Up until sometime in the early 20[sup]th[/sup] century the nation of Japan was transliterated by the West as ‘Nippon’. I believe that the Japanese still spell it this way when using the Latin alphabet in their country. This is why along with the derogatory term ‘Jap’ there is also the older derogatory term ‘Nip’…

That one is kind of the other way around from most of the others mentioned. ‘Japan’ is based on the long ago pronunciation in a Chinese dialect as heard by Europeans, perhaps through non-Chinese speaking intermediaries (it’s different now in Mandarin, Rìběn). Nippon or Nihon is how it’s actually pronounced in Japanese. And that pronunciation, especially Nippon, was introduced to English use in modern times. But then it fell into disuse again in favor of the older garbled version (except for the names of Japanese companies like Nippon Steel etc).

[Guinastasia]

@NeonMadman

I thought those were the guys at the gym.

I thought it was a brand of apple sauce?

[Derleth]

@Nelson_Pike

How about Infidels?

The ones who worship Termagant? It’ll never catch on; everyone will think she’s a kind of bird.

[Nava]

@mascaroni

I didn’t know about those. A.C. Milan and Juventus were two other British formed clubs. It was British railway workers that, at about the same time as soccer had formalised its rules in the 1860’s that took the game around the world as they were (at the time) the world leaders in the railway industry. I probably associate it more with more with South American teams, particularly Argentinian ones: River Plate, Newell’s Old Boys, Racing Club, and the lesser known Douglas Haig.

You know, I’m still trying to figure out what’s this got to do with the rest of the thread, unless it’s an example of English influence on Spanish. Was that it?

[Hector_St_Clare]

@Kobal2

One thing I never could grok was the “q” situation, i.e. why, how and wherefor any Westerner could think “Hmm, that “tch/tj” sound doesn’t really have an equivalent in my language, how should I write it down… I know ! Q ! Perfect”

To this day it sticks in pinyin (the official way to write Chinese using Roman characters) and it’s annoying because speakers who don’t speak Chinese nor know that about pinyin invariably pronounce those errant Qs as hard Ks. So you always hear about the “King” dynasty…

IIRC some Russian linguists were working with the Chinese to develop the Pinyin script, and the Cyrillic letter for the “TCH” sound looks vaguely like a Q.

[elfkin477]

@kayaker

I hear people talk about “Moslems” all the time.

Really? Obama is the only person I’ve ever heard pronounce Muslims as Moslems.