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karaoke

Karaoke is 'empty orchestra': kara 'empty' plus oke, a clipping of English orchestra, so English got part of its own word back. The machines and the name went from Japanese bars to Hong Kong, Taiwan, Korea and Thailand, and through English to nearly every language.

Weakest linkCertain

The road to English

From Japanese to Cantonese

From Japanese to Mandarin Chinese

From Japanese to Korean

From Japanese to Thai

From English to German

From English to French

From English to Spanish

From English to Russian

From English to Modern Hebrew

From English to Arabic

1970Japanese

Hops are evenly spaced; labels show the year each form is first attested.

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