Talk:簿記
Etymology of 簿記#Japanese[edit]
@Kinos0634 --
Thank you for the lead in mentioning Nishikawa's work. Direct links for convenience:
- Library card at Keio University site:
- Direct link to the PDF:
On the page 43 that you indicated, Nishikawa does indeed argue against a direct derivation from English bookkeeping, describing that this cannot be directly from ブックキーピング (bukkukīpingu) → ブッキー (bukkī) → ブキ (buki) → ボキ (boki). I agree with this assessment -- the radical sound shifts and abbreviations required for this derivation make it extremely unlikely.
However, phono-semantic matching (PSM) does not necessarily mean that kind of direct borrowing. As we can see for instance in the Arabic examples at w:Phono-semantic_matching#Arabic, this process may consist of finding native morphemes that fit together to produce a term that has a similar meaning and sometimes only a vague resemblance to the sounds of the source term.
Nishikawa also mentions that the first appearance in Japanese is in the 1869 text 建白取扱規則 (Kenpaku Toriatsukai Kisoku, “Rules for Handling Petitions”). This is late enough that a derivation from, or influence from, English is certainly a possibility. Considering also that a number of monolingual Japanese dictionaries include at least a mention of English bookkeeping (Shinmeikai, Sekai Dai Hyakka Jiten, Yuhikaku Keizai Jiten), I believe we have grounds for including this in the etymology. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │Tala við mig 23:44, 1 February 2021 (UTC)