送交者: 方舟子 于 2006-6-02, 10:56:47:
回答: Typhoon is possibly a word borrowed from Persians word. 由 steven 于 2006-6-02, 08:44:49:
Perhaps few words better illustrate the polyglot background of English than typhoon, with its Chinese, Arabic, East Indian, and Greek background. The Greek word typhon, both the name of the father of the winds and a common noun meaning “whirlwind, typhoon,” was borrowed into Arabic (as was many a Greek word during the Middle Ages, when Arabic learning both preserved the classical heritage and expanded upon it, passing it on to Europe). Ù¿f³n, the Arabic version of the Greek word, passed into languages spoken in India, where Arabic-speaking Moslem invaders had settled in the 11th century. Thus the descendant of the Arabic word, passing into English (first recorded in 1588) through an Indian language and appearing in English in forms such as touffon and tufan, originally referred specifically to a severe storm in India. China, another great empire, gave us yet another word for a storm, in this case the hurricane that occurred in the waters around China. This Chinese word in its Cantonese form, toi fung, was similar to our Arabic borrowing and is first recorded in English guise as tuffoon in 1699. The various forms coalesced and finally became typhoon.