Vol. 09 · Loanwords ·Chinese ·1920s
Mahjong
from má-jiàng
- Meaning
- A four-player tile game.
- Source word
- má-jiàng
- Route into English
- Mandarin *má-jiàng* (sparrow) → American English via a 1920s fad. Joseph Babcock, an American oil-company employee in Shanghai, standardised rules and exported sets to the US; a national craze followed.
- Arrived
- 1920s
From Chinese
Trade English from the South China Sea ports (especially Hokkien-speaking Xiamen and Canton) seeded the early borrowings; 20th-century diplomacy and military contact added the rest.
English borrows.
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