The absortion of foreigner words into one's language has been an inexorable fact through all times, this not meaning that one culture is therefore dominating the other, but only a question of utility, to put it that way. It is indeed a strong example when a certain product is introduced in a country, the nationals having a tendence to call it by its original name and often end up adopting it in the local official language, eventually with alterations caused by the local phonetic way to sound such term.
It is amazing how the Japanese have adopted several portuguese words that corresponded mainly to products introduced there in the XVI century, some of them sounding so peculiar due to a Japanese phonetic touch.
It is also interesting that Japan is not how the nationals call their country, but a term comenced by other Asian peoples ( Malay ) and brought to Europe by Portuguese at the same period.
Quite an interesting theme, this of languages.
Fernando
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