Domo Obrigado, Rio. Image: Reuters/Yahoo www.rappler.com/technology/social-media/143810-viral-rio-2016-closing-shinzo-abe-super-marioThe 2016 Olympics wrapped last weekend, and of course, the show couldn’t be over without first shooting off a whole hell of a lot of fireworks and getting a lot of mileage out of that massive video display that had been installed on the floor of the Maracaná Stadium.
As is tradition at the Olympics, the closing also paid a hefty tribute to the next host city, Tokyo. Tokyo’s new mayor (technically a governor) Yuriko Koike, the city’s first female leader, was on stage along with Rio’s mayor Eduardo Paes. But Koike wasn’t the highest ranking Japanese politician to attend the event – that honor went to prime minister Shinzo Abe, who made his entrance out of a giant green pipe in the center of the stadium, dressed as Mario from the Super Mario Brothers. But instead of bursting in with a chipper “It’s-a-me, Shinzo!”, Abe looked remarkably underwhelmed as he entered, almost saddened, with a look on his face that seemed to say that the only reason he had bothered with the pipe and Mario getup was to rack up shares on social media (by the way, mission accomplished). Perhaps he would have felt a bit peppier if he had grabbed a giant red mushroom before taking the stage. But for language nerds like myself, the highlight of the whole ordeal was right before Abe’s Mario moment, when the massive Maracaná display lit up with a message thanking its attendees. But in honor of both Rio and Tokyo, that message was put into both Portuguese and Japanese: “Obrigado”, “Arigato”. And in doing so, it perhaps prompted viewers to ask a question that has long perplexed many Japano-Brazilian polyglots: does the word “arigato” derive from “obrigado”? The short answer is that no, it doesn't. Though this theory has been bandied about by many would-be linguistic historians, it has been dismissed pretty decisively: see this link, or this link if you’re not yet convinced. Nevertheless, the idea that “arigato” is some distant cousin of “obrigado” is not as far fetched as you might think. The connection between Portuguese and Japanese actually goes way back, long before Japan had become the land of Mario and Murakami, to the time when Portuguese explorers dropped anchor off the shores of Shogun-dominated Japan. Wikipedia has a long list of Japanese words stemming from Portuguese; particularly notable are words like “irmao”, which means simply “brother” in Portuguese, but thanks to an influx of missionaries from Portugal, became “iruman” in Japanese, referring to a “missionary next in line to become a priest”. Presumably, Portuguese missionaries in Japan would call each other “irmao”; curious Japanese onlookers, who already had a word for “brother” but lacked a good word for a missionary in that very specific situation, eagerly adopted it into their own mother tongue. This is also good news for English speakers, since several of the words the Japanese adopted from Portuguese are directly related to their English equivalents. The word “alcohol”, for instance, is “alcool” in Portuguese and “arukoru” in Japanese. Nice to know for anyone looking to take in a swig of sake. The Olympics may be coming to a close, but anyone around the world curious about the origins of “arigato” and “obrigado” can be thankful to the event for shining a light on this frequently misunderstood linguistic coincidence. That's it for our special on language-related Olympics goings-on, but you can check out our earlier pieces, Part 1 on the history of "The Girl From Ipanema", and Part 2 on how bad behavior at the Olympics knows no language barrier. Check them out! |
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