[KS] A Question about the term hanbando

Owen Miller owenmiller at octafish.net
Tue May 9 06:57:49 EDT 2006


Dear List / Christopher Liao,

As I'm sure others will not be slow to point out, the word pando appears to
be a straightforward calque created from the Latinate word peninsula,
presumably by a Japanese linguist of the late 19th century. If you look at
the etymology of the word
peninsula<http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=peninsula>you will
find that it is made up of a word meaning 'almost' (paene) and a
word meaning 'island' (insula), much like the word pando. So if we follow
this to its logical conclusion it would seem that the idea of a peninsula
being a 'semi-island' is of European origin - unless we are looking at a
rather unlikely coincidence.

Owen Miller
(SOAS)
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