Is 人孔 from English?


I was discussing with a friend about the word `人孔`, and I know I read (or was
told) that it's taken from the English "manhole", literally juxtaposing the
kanji for "man" with that for "hole", since for a while that's what Japanese
did, giving a kanji writing to new concept/words instead of just taking them
(like with `ミス`); I was unable to find where I read/was told that, though, and
searching on Google was unhelpful. I was just able to find that in Chinese the
word is different, so it's not a loan from there.

Can someone confirm or deny this etymology? Is `人孔` a native word, or does it
derive from English?

Edit: in the comments Leebo stresses that Chinese is listed in the Wikitionary
entry for `人孔`, which I misread in my research.




This is a linguistic phenomenon called " **calque** " or "loan translation".
In Japanese, it is called 「翻訳借用{ほんやくしゃくよう}」.

A calque is a word that has been borrowed from another language by the method
of literally translating the foreign word "component-by-component".

This is, therefore, a completely different method from homophonic translation
(aka 'katakanization'), which takes the form of, for instance, "manhole" to
「マンホール」.

The more 'famous' calques used in Japanese include:

・「鉄道{てつどう}」 from "Eisenbahn" in German (literally, "iron" + "road")

・「脚注{きゃくちゅう}」 from "footnote" in English

・「鍵盤{けんばん}」 from "keyboard" in English

Whether 「人孔{じんこう}」 was calqued directly from English into Japanese or it came
via Chinese, it would be safe to label the word as a calque.

By the way, 「人孔」 is not a common word **_at all_** in Japanese. It sounds
terribly technical. Wonder why you were discussing it.




This is a linguistic phenomenon called " **calque** " or "loan translation".
In Japanese, it is called 「翻訳借用{ほんやくしゃくよう}」.

A calque is a word that has been borrowed from another language by the method
of literally translating the foreign word "component-by-component".

This is, therefore, a completely different method from homophonic translation
(aka 'katakanization'), which takes the form of, for instance, "manhole" to
「マンホール」.

The more 'famous' calques used in Japanese include:

・「鉄道{てつどう}」 from "Eisenbahn" in German (literally, "iron" + "road")

・「脚注{きゃくちゅう}」 from "footnote" in English

・「鍵盤{けんばん}」 from "keyboard" in English

Whether 「人孔{じんこう}」 was calqued directly from English into Japanese or it came
via Chinese, it would be safe to label the word as a calque.

By the way, 「人孔」 is not a common word **_at all_** in Japanese. It sounds
terribly technical. Wonder why you were discussing it.

