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Language borrowing
Why so little Chinese in English?
ON TWITTER, a friend asked "Twenty years from now, how many Chinese words will be common parlance in English?" I replied that we've already had 35 years since Deng Xiaoping began opening China's economy, resulting in its stratospheric rise?but almost no recent Chinese borrowings in English.

Many purported experts are willing to explain China to curious (and anxious) westerners. And yet I can't think of even one Chinese word or phrase that has become "common parlance in English" recently. The only word that comes close might be guanxi, mcm bags personal connections and relationships critical to getting things done in China. Plenty of articles can be found discussing mcm handbags importance of guanxi, but mcm backpack word isn't "common in English" by any stretch.

Most Chinese words now part of English show, in their spelling and meaning, to have been borrowed a long time ago, often from non-Mandarin Chinese varieties like Cantonese. Kowtow, gung ho and to shanghai are now impeccably English words we use with no reference to China itself. Kung fu, tai chi, feng shui and mcm outlet like are Chinese concepts and practices westerners are aware of. And of course bok choy, chow mein and others are merely Chinese foods that westerners eat; I would say we borrowed mcm bags foods, and their Chinese names merely hitched a ride into English.

Given China's rocket-ride to prominence, why so little borrowing?  We import words from other languages that are hard for English-speakers to pronounce.  We borrow from languages with other writing systems (Yiddish, Russian, Arabic). We borrow from culturally distant places (India, Japan).  We borrow verbs (kowtow) and nouns (tsunami) and exclamations (banzai!, oy!). We borrow concrete things (sushi) and abstract ones (Schadenfreude, ennui). We borrow not only from friends, but from rivals and enemies (flak from German in mcm handbags second world war, samizdat from Russian during mcm backpack cold war, too many words to count from French during mcm outlet long Anglo-French rivalry).