Monday, October 27, 2008

[did you know?] typhoon

The word "typhoon" (the East Asian / Western Pacific equivalent of
Hurricanes in the Pacific Northeast / Western Atlantic and Cyclones in
the Indian ocean and in Australia) came from a Chinese word that sounds
like... typhoon! It's chai fung, I think. Or something like that.
Look it up yourself! :-P

From Wikipedia: "The word typhoon, used today in the Northwest Pacific, may be derived from Urdu, Persian and Arabic ţūfān (طوفان), which in turn originates from Greek tuphōn (Τυφών), a monster in Greek mythology responsible for hot winds.[93] The related Portuguese word tufão, used in Portuguese for typhoons, is also derived from Greek tuphōn.[94]

Another theory is that it may have come from the Chinese word "dafeng" (大風 - literally huge winds)."

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