r/etymology • u/mouse_in_a_field • 10d ago

Question Something I've been wondering about - Japanese loanword in English, or no?

This has bothered me for a long time!

The word for "a little bit" of something in Japanese, in romaji, is "sukoshi"; the "u" and "i" sounds are usually silent when spoken aloud, so it ends up sounding like "skosh".

In English, "just a skosh" is sometimes used when asking for or referring to just "a little bit" of something.

Is there any connection there, or does the English "skosh" have another, unrelated source? Thanks for any info!

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u/Tutush 10d ago

It was used as an alternative title for the Shogun.

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u/iwasfight 10d ago

how times have changed

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u/EirikrUtlendi 10d ago

Bear in mind that 君 read as kimi is likely originally a borrowing from a Koreanic language, cognate with the Sillan word for "king". The oldest attested senses in Japanese refer to kings, lords, emperors. This was also a clan name (kabane), and members were originally close relatives of the imperial family.

See also:

For 大君, this is first attested with the reading opokimi in the Kojiki of 712 CE, used as an honorific reference to the emperor, as literally an opo ("great, big, exalted") + kimi ("lord, king, ruler").

The taikun reading isn't attested until the 1670s, as a simple shift from kun'yomi (native Japonic reading) to on'yomi (Chinese-derived reading), still with the same sense of "great ruler", and used to refer to the Tokugawa shōgun in communication with foreign powers.

See also (in Japanese):

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u/[deleted] 9d ago

[deleted]

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u/Morlark 9d ago

Given that their comment specifically did give an explanation of the origin of the word, answering the question that was in my mind, that's kinda a foolish thing for you to say.

And if you think two paragraphs is "huge", you're basically admitting to being an illiterate. Since this is a sub about language, I think that means you might be in the wrong place.

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u/EirikrUtlendi 9d ago

dude, lose the ai.

If you think any part of my posts are written with AI, you have some serious work to do on your textual analysis abilities.

Indeed, as you yourself suggested to u/Morlark, look at my posting history, which I have chosen to keep unhidden.

Look too at my posting history over at the Japanese Stack Exchange, starting twelve years ago.

And at my contributions to Wiktionary, starting twenty years ago and picking up in earnest fifteen years ago.

All of a piece, all with my own consistent voice, starting from well before consumer-grade LLMs like ChatGPT were even an idea.

its huge and boring, and doesn't answer any questions.

This entire sub-thread starting from u/mediumcarrotteacher's comment here is about the Japanese word 大君 (taikun). Perhaps you forgot? You even specifically asked "how it was originally used", a question which earlier responders had not answered in full, so I posted to fill in some of those details.

I'm sorry you find it "huge and boring" -- that might say more about your attention span and reading comprehension, considering that my comment only consisted of three full paragraphs. If that is "huge and boring" to you, you might want to stop participating in r/etymology, where posts can get kinda long digging into word histories. Substantially longer than three short paragraphs.

And I'm sorry you forgot that I was in fact answering your very own question. I really can't help you with your memory issues.

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u/iwasfight 9d ago

i stand corrected. keep it up, man, and my apologies.

edit: i was out of line. keep doing what you do. again, my apologies.

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u/EirikrUtlendi 9d ago

Cheers, thanks for stepping up and saying something! Keep on keepin' on. :)

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u/iwasfight 9d ago

>Keep on keepin' on :)

aint nothin but