Early Mandarin loanwords in contemporary English | English Today | Cambridge Core Search Institution Login Search Hostname: page-component-66d9dcfd78-hxhx9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-08-08T07:18:09.661Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false Home > Journals > English Today > Volume 36 Issue 1 > Early Mandarin loanwords in contemporary English English Français English Today Article contents Extract Footnotes References Early Mandarin loanwords in contemporary English The influence of transcription systems on orthography Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 June 2019 Zhen Wu Article Metrics Article contents Extract Footnotes References Get access Share Cite Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window] Extract English vocabulary has expanded over centuries by ‘borrowing’ lexical items from other languages (Katamba, 2005; Durkin, 2014). Compared with European languages, non-European languages are never major sources of word borrowing in English, with Chinese staying even more peripheral. Scholars have recorded no more than a few hundred English words of Chinese origin. This, however, does not make it easier to study the etymology and semantics of Chinese loanwords. The complication arises from the various source dialects from which Chinese words were borrowed (Mandarin, Cantonese, Amoy, Hokkien, etc.) and also from transcription processes, in which Chinese logograms are ‘romanised’ into phonetic representations so as to be readable for English speakers. It is a procedure easily affected by the transcribers' own cognition and the transcription systems employed, and the arbitrariness of the above variables contributes much to the fact that the orthography of Chinese loanwords, especially those entering the English language early, are prone to changes. This article aims to shed some light on how the ways of transcription may affect the spelling of Chinese loanwords. Information Type Research Article Information English Today , Volume 36 , Issue 1 , March 2020 , pp. Borrowed Words: A History of Loanwords in English . Oxford : Oxford University Press . CrossRef Google Scholar Hayes–Harb , R. & Cheng , H. 2016 . ‘ The influence of the Pinyin and Zhuyin writing systems on the acquisition of Mandarin word forms by native English speakers .’ Frontiers in Psychology , 7 , 1 – 15 . CrossRef Google Scholar PubMed Huang , X. & Xu , F. 2016 . ‘ The Romanisation of Chinese language .’ Review of Asian and Pacific Studies , 41 , 99 – 111 . Google Scholar Giles , H. A. 1892 . A Chinese-English Dictionary . London; Shanghai : B. Quaritch . Google Scholar Katamba , F. 2005 . English Words (2 nd edn.) London : Routledge . Google Scholar Lü , C. 2017 . ‘ A psycholinguistic theory of loanword adaptations .’ Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society , 30 ( 1 ), 351 –62. Google Scholar Simon , W. 1942 . The New Official Chinese Latin Script Gwoyeu Romatzyh: Tables, Rules, Illustrative Examples . London : Arthur Probsthain . Google Scholar Wade , T.F. 1867 . Yü-yen Tzu-erh Chi . London : Trübner & Co . Google Scholar Wang , M. , Perfetti , C. A. & Liu , Y. 2005 . ‘ Chinese-English biliteracy acquisition: Cross-language and writing system transfer .’ Cognition , 97 , 67 – 88 . CrossRef Google Scholar PubMed Xu , M. & Tian , C. 2017 . ‘ Is “NBA” Chinese or English? ’ English Today , 33 ( 4 ), 33 – 39 . CrossRef Google Scholar Yang , J. 2009 . ‘ Chinese borrowings in English .’ World Englishes , 28 ( 1 ), 90 – 106 . CrossRef Google Scholar Young , J. 1992 . ‘ Chinese romanization change: A study on user preference .’ Cataloging & Classification Quarterly , 15 ( 2 ), 15 – 35 . CrossRef Google Scholar Zhou , C. & Jiang , Y. 2004 . ‘ Wailaici and English borrowings in Chinese .’ English Today , 20 ( 3 ), 45 – 52 . Google Scholar Zhu , K. 2011 . On Chinese-English contact through loanwords . English Language and Literature Studies , 1 ( 2 ), 100 – 105 . CrossRef Google Scholar Cited by Loading... Cited by 0 No CrossRef data available. Google Scholar Citations View all Google Scholar citations for this article. Cancel Save × Save article to Dropbox To save this article to your Dropbox account, please select one or more formats and confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you used Early Mandarin loanwords in contemporary English Volume 36, Issue 1 Zhen Wu DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0266078419000208 Available formats PDF Please select a format to save. By using this service, you agree that you will only keep content for personal use, and will not openly distribute them via Dropbox, Google Drive or other file sharing services Please confirm that you accept the terms of use. Cancel Save × × Reply to: Submit a response Title * Please enter a title for your response.