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"Pan", in both Japanese and Spanish means bread. Is this purely coincidental, or do they have the same origin?

Earthliŋ
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Pablo
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4 Answers4

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According to jisho.org パン has its origins from the Portuguese word “pão”, and was originally written as 麺麭 or 麪包 before being written as パン like it is today.

Is this pure coincidence or do they have the same origins?

Seeing as how both Spanish and Portuguese are Latin-based languages, I think it's not a stretch of the imagination to say that the origins are related.

EDIT:

Using the information from the comments below, I have an updated etymology for you.

1) Panis is the Latin word for bread. The Spanish pan, the Portuguese pão and French pain derive from this Latin root. (@ToddWilcox)

2) パン was introduced to Japan by Portuguese Missionaries. (see answer below, as well as this Wikipedia article compliments of @leoboiko)

ajsmart
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    both words come from latin but the word is from Portugal portuguese, just like カップ which comes from "Copo" – Felipe Chaves de Oliveira Jul 10 '17 at 17:21
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    *Panis* is Latin for "bread", and it is the origin for *pan* in Spanish, *pão* in Portuguese, *pain* in French, and words in several other languages. The origin of the Latin is uncertain but may be from Proto-Indo-European *peh*, meaning "to graze". See: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/panis – Todd Wilcox Jul 10 '17 at 19:12
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    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glossary_of_Japanese_words_of_Portuguese_origin – melissa_boiko Jul 11 '17 at 10:21
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    @ToddWilcox may be you should post that as an answer too since nobody mentioned the latin root "panis" for spanish pan and portuguese pao. – Pablo Jul 11 '17 at 10:26
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    Out of interest, the Portuguese word for soap 'sabão' got transferred into Japanese as '[shabon](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E3%82%B7%E3%83%A3%E3%83%9C%E3%83%B3#Japanese)', so it seems that the '-ão' to '-on' transition is a common one. – Pharap Jul 11 '17 at 12:49
  • An answer that outright admits that it *doesn’t actually know the answer to the question* should not be upvoted, much less accepted. If you want the points and/or prestige, do the research. This answer is fundamentally incomplete. – KRyan Jul 11 '17 at 15:56
  • @KRyan I'm not a linguist, so I felt that it was okay to not know etymology of words in languages I have not studied. I was reluctant to compile information gleaned from the comments as I did not want to take credit for their work. I have updated my answer to include information from the comments above, and hope that this version of the answer is acceptable. – ajsmart Jul 11 '17 at 16:19
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    @Pharap, "soap" appears to have come from Spanish instead -- historically, the Portuguese _sabão_ has always had the `/s/` on front, whereas the modern Spanish _jabón_ came from older _xabon_, which had `/ʃ/` as the initial consonant, which better matches the Japanese borrowing. – Eiríkr Útlendi Jul 11 '17 at 19:24
  • This does not explain why it is in fact pronounced like "pan" in Japanese, and not like the modern Portuguese "pão". In my opinion, it is more likely that it originates from Old Portuguese, where it in fact was spelt and pronounced "pan" originally (and then slowly changed into "pão" in what came to be known as "modern" Portuguese, but kept as "pan" in Galician parts), and that the Japanese パン is a **cognate** to Portuguese pão. Does anyone know when the spelling "pão" became widespread in Old Portuguese, and whether or not this followed with the change in pronounciation? – a20 Jul 23 '18 at 07:43
  • @bjorn I would posit that the question is truly answered from this post. The OP asked, is this a coincidence? Is the origin similar? The answer is yes. The Japanese word originally came from the Portuguese, which derived from Latin just as Spanish derived from Latin. The OP did not ask about the development of the language, but rather the origins behind the similarity. – ajsmart Jul 23 '18 at 14:00
  • @ajsmart it is clear that the word is of Latin origin yes, but if it truly is of *Portuguese* origin, this inconsistency with the pronunciation need be clarified and that is why I put a bounty on the question, hoping that someone can provide more details. It is true that every dictionary states that it comes from Portuguese, but this might very well be simple copying from some original source. I have not been able to find any source giving more details to support this claim. – a20 Jul 24 '18 at 07:21
  • @bjorn I see what you're going for now. That makes sense. I wish I knew the answer for that, but my experience with Portuguese is limited. I'll do some research on it when I have the chance, but that might be a while. – ajsmart Jul 24 '18 at 14:53
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This is not pure coincidence, but the Japanese did not get the word パン from Spanish, but rather Portuguese. The coincidence part is that Spanish and Portuguese are very closely related languages and share a huge volume of cognates.

It's not happenstance that things worked out this way, and I think it's interesting to understand a bit of the historical background that led to why certain words were imported as opposed to others.

First, remember a bit of interesting history of how the Catholic Church divided the entire world between Spain and Portugal. Japan fell within the domain of Portugal and I believe that the Portuguese were the first Europeans to wash up on Japan's shore during the Age of Exploration in the 1550's. The Dutch also came along shortly there after (about half a century later).

Japan had a long period of isolation following fears of what might happen if too many Christians started coming into the country: remember this was also a time of religious wars being waged between nations and forms of Protestantism and Catholic Church in Europe.

Then beginning in Meiji, the Japanese began to import many more foreign words. From German, an extensive vocabulary related to the sciences (particularly medicine); from English vocabulary related to business (and I think politics). Though, these were hardly hard and fast rules, after all, バイト <- アルバイト has its origins in the German Arbeit (though I believe that word was borrowed when both Japan and Germany were Axis nations.

A.Ellett
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  • I think some of your explanations of the Japanese concerns of the time don't really line up with history. Remember that Japan was not a unified nation when the first missionaries landed. Domestic political concerns were FAR more important than rumored wars on the other side of the planet. – jkerian Jul 10 '17 at 17:07
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    @jkerian Certainly by Tokugawa, the country was unified. I didn't mean to imply that things took place overnight. But also, Tokugawa unified the country within a century of the Portuguese arrival in Japan and it's not *ahistorical* that some in the Tokugawa shogunate were worried that Christianity was a belligerent import. I guess I just find this interesting given more recent political goings-on in Washington and the current pandering to fears of what might happen if too many Muslims come into the west. – A.Ellett Jul 10 '17 at 17:11
  • Perhaps, but that's not actually what you said. This answer could be massively improved by removing all but the first paragraph, as it currently reads like a partially accurate treatise on religion, rather than an answer to an etymology question. – jkerian Jul 10 '17 at 17:12
  • @jkerian Perhaps you could point out a specific that I've gotten wrong? The Catholic church dividing the world (and thus a major reason for why the Portuguese were sailing off of Japan's shores and not the Spanish)? That during this time there was great warfare and political struggle around religion in Europe? That shortly after the arrival of missionaries in Japan (I think 100 years, given the slow speed of travel in that time is a short period)? – A.Ellett Jul 10 '17 at 17:15
  • Literally nothing after the first paragraph bears on the question. In the comments you explain that you mostly forced the rest of it in to try to make a statement on modern politics. – jkerian Jul 10 '17 at 17:33
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    @jkerian I'm sorry to hear you feel that way. Actually, I wasn't trying to make a political point. I actually added what I did because I think historical context is relevant and interesting. Parallels to the current political climate are merely superficially interesting. – A.Ellett Jul 10 '17 at 18:13
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    Just to add some facts around the side discussion on the Catholic Church dividing the world between Portugal and Spain, thus rationalizing the reason the portuguese were sailing up the coast of Japan and not the spanish. The name of that treaty was the Treaty of Tordesillas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Tordesillas. It was agreed to and signed in the latter parts of the 1400s between the kingdoms of Portugal and Castile (now Spain). The fact that the spanish were in the Philipines which on the map is clearly in the portuguese sphere of influence suggests the treaty was not adhered to – Antonio de Sousa Jul 10 '17 at 20:48
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    at least in that part of the world. So its was probably historical luck that the portuguese were there before the spanish. In any case it would hot have had any effect on the resulting japanese word for bread. – Antonio de Sousa Jul 10 '17 at 20:48
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    Arbeit is from meiji era. https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%82%A2%E3%83%AB%E3%83%90%E3%82%A4%E3%83%88#.E8.AA.9E.E6.BA.90.E3.83.BB.E6.97.A5.E6.9C.AC.E8.AA.9E.E4.BB.A5.E5.A4.96.E3.81.AE.E8.A1.A8.E7.8F.BE – Takahiro Waki Jul 11 '17 at 18:46
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Pan comes from the Portuguese word pão for wheat bread specifically and bread in general. The coincidence part is due to the fact the portuguese traders and then Jesuit and Franciscan missionaries were the first europeans to contact Japan in the 16th century. I don't have the time to confirm but I believe the portuguese had a trade monopoly with Japan for about 100 years and in that time their must have been cultural and knowledge exchange including the adoption of new vocabulary.

Antonio de Sousa
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The most common theory is that パン originated from the Portuguese pão because Portugal traded with Japan in the 16th century. But, as somebody else already pointed out, this does not explain the パン pronunciation because pão (with a nasal sound) is closer to パウ than パン. Macao, which also traded with the Portuguese around the same time, call bread 包 (pronounced "pao"). What if パン may have actually originated from the Spanish pan, which has the exact same pronunciation? This is actually possible as the Spanish also regularly visited Japan from the Philippines. History tells us that bread was first called 波牟 (pronounced "pan" not "pamu") during the Azuchi-Momoyama period (1573-1603). This was decades after the Spanish missionary Francis Xavier visited Japan in 1549. Both Portuguese and Spanish Christian missionaries helped spread the consumption of bread through the ritual of the Eucharist, so I guess we're never going to know the correct answer to the question. Note that this was before Christianity was prohibited by Hideyoshi in 1612. (Reference: Feeding Japan: The Cultural and Political Issues of Dependency and Risk, edited by Andreas Niehaus and Tine Walravens)

DXV
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  • 波牟 is pronounced hamo in japanese. not pan or pamu. even 牟 on its own would be bo. – japanese guy Feb 05 '19 at 04:06
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    I didn't say it "IS" pronounced pan, I said it "WAS". Not sure if this was my source when I made this post, but this site also supports this theory. Quote: "安土桃山時代には「波牟」と書いてパンと読んでました" from http://www.uraken.net/language/gogen07.html – DXV Feb 05 '19 at 04:34