Japan ruled the island of Yap from 1914 to 1945, introducing many new material goods and cultural practices, which have left a rich legacy of loanwords in the Yapese language. The following list is extracted from a dictionary that uses the new Yapese orthography, which I have undone in order to make it easier for people familiar with Japanese to recognize the source words, some of which are quite archaic (or even obsolete) in contemporary Japan.
- baru ‘crowbar’
- bata ‘batter (in baseball)’
- baydok ‘syphilis’
- beni ‘lipstick’
- benikawa/binikawa ‘type of potato’
- bokdang ‘bomb’
- chikongki ‘record-player’
- chiyoseng ‘Korea; Korean’
- chiyusa ‘shot, injection, hypodermic needle’
- chiyusa nag ‘to give a shot to someone’ (nag derives verbs, like Jp. suru)
- chumong ‘order, in the sense of a requisition’
- chungayri ‘to dive head first’
- daykusang/daykisang ‘carpenter, builder’
- dempo ‘telegram; to send a telegram’
- denchi ‘battery’
- dengki ‘electricity; flashlight; xray’
- dengkibasra ‘utility pole, power pole’
- dok ‘poison’
- doma ‘checkers, chess; a game’
- futong ‘mattress’
- gengkang ‘covered, protruding entranceway to a building’
- hang ‘seal, stamp’
- hangngo ‘small Japanese pot’
- hasra ‘utility pole, power pole’
- hyakngo ‘type of potato’
- isobing/usubing ‘type of half-gallon bottle’
- jori ‘rubber sandals, slippers, zoris’
- jubong ‘pants’
- kabang ‘handbag, purse’
- kachido ‘movie, cinema’
- kama ‘sickle, scythe’
- kamoch ‘car, automobile’
- kangkiri ‘can opener’
- kayak ‘gunpowder’
- kayru ‘toad, frog’
- kech ‘stingy’
- kich ‘crazy’
- kitanay ‘dirty’
- komey ‘rice; type of yam’
- koyeng ‘rest house on a hilltop’
- kui ‘marker pole in sea’
- kyuri ‘type of vine, cucumber’
- mame ‘beans’
- mangwa ‘cartoon’ [a spelling pronunciation?]
- marutobi ‘hopscotch’
- merikengko ‘[American wheat] flour’
- mong ‘Japanese ornamental gate or archway’
- nappa ‘cabbage’
- nas ‘eggplant’
- nawa ‘jumprope; to play jumprope’
- negi ‘onion, green onion’
- nejimawas ‘screwdriver’
- nis ‘varnish’
- niso ‘gallon bottle’
- nori ‘glue, paste’
- okas ‘candy, cookies’
- okinawa ‘Okinawa; type of [sweet] potato’
- osongach/isongach ‘Christmas’
- otobay /atobay ‘motorscooter, motorcycle’
- pachingko ‘slingshot’
- panchu ‘underwear, pants’
- ping ‘pin, hairpin, safety pin’
- pistor ‘pistol, gun’
- remong ‘lemon, lime, citrus’
- rengnga ‘concrete block’
- sakura ‘type of flowering tree; pink plumeria’
- sarumata ‘underpants’
- sarukang ‘swivel used to connect leader to fishline and to fishhook’
- sasing ‘photograph, picture’
- sasmi ‘raw fish, sashimi’
- sayda ‘soda, soft drink’
- semmengki ‘small washbasin’
- seng ‘wire, line’
- sensey ‘teacher; to teach’
- sensey nag ‘to teach’ (nag derives verbs, like Jp. suru)
- sentak ‘laundry; to do laundry’
- sentaksekken ‘laundry soap’
- sigobing ‘bottle about the size of a fifth gallon, the size of a shoyu bottle’
- sikato ‘skirt’
- sikidas ‘drawer’
- sikojo/hikojo ‘airport’
- sikoki/hikoki ‘airplane’
- simeng/jimeng ‘to lay out the ground for a house foundation’
- simi ‘charcoal’
- sitangi ‘women’s underclothes’
- supido ‘fast, speedy’
- tama ‘marbles, the game of marbles; light bulb’
- tamanegi ‘round, dry onion’
- tamango ‘egg’
- tanchyobi ‘birthday party, birthday celebration’
- taray ‘large washtub’
- tech ‘steel ball’
- tempra uta ‘song in different languages mixed together’
- teng ‘score, mark’
- tesange ‘purse made of pandanus leaves’
- togang ‘ash pumpkin’
- totang ‘boat made out of folded sheet of roofing [tin]’
- udong ‘noodles’
- yakyu ‘baseball’
- yasay ‘green vegetables’
- yasmi ‘vacation, holiday, rest’
- yeng ‘dollar’ (cf. piseta ‘quarter dollar’ via Span., mag ‘half dollar’ via Ger.)
SOURCE: Yapese–English Dictionary, by John Thayer Jensen with the assistance of John Baptist Iou, Raphael Defeg, Leo David Pugram (U. Hawai‘i Press, 1977)
To the list above I can add a few more from my own fieldwork in Yap: chichibando ‘brassiere’, hanafuda ‘hanafuda card game’, kanggof ‘nurse’, and kawanguchu ‘leather shoes’.
Far Outliers 