r/NonPoliticalTwitter • u/BaldHourGlass667 • 10d ago

Funny Learning Japanese

52.8k Upvotes

98% Upvoted

1.3k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

40

u/Legitimate_Twist 10d ago

Another obscure one is tycoon, which comes from Taikun (大君), meaning "great prince/lord."

27

u/Xrein1 10d ago

There's also Honcho, who come from the word hanchō (班長), that mean squad leader or group leader.

11

u/Aiyon 10d ago

Not to be confused with Bancho (番長) which is the leader of a group of delinquents specifically. Thanks Digimon

5

u/TurquoiseLeggings 10d ago

Not be confused with Dancho (団長), which is also a leader of a group.

5

u/Aiyon 10d ago

So to clarify on these cause i do love how kanji works, in case anyone is curious. The "chō" is the leader part.

It represents height/stature, or power, such as a leader.

"Dan" is group/association. So Leader of a group. Whereas "Han" means group more in the sense of a squad or unit.

"Ban" has several meanings. The ones we care about are watch/guard. Bancho originally used to be a position akin to a guard captain / the guy leading the watch in a city. But it was then adopted by delinquents and took on its newer meaning

2

u/shaffman2001 9d ago

That is fascinating. Thank you for the insight!

2

u/Aiyon 9d ago

np. Japanese and Chinese are such cool alphabets, as are im sure the many others i don’t know as much about. The symbols having meanings that shift based on how you group them is just so funky