This map is a great illustration of why the “ty” of typhoon is from the “Tai” of Taiwan in the original meaning of the word.
Bonus fun fact - “hurricane” is from a native Caribbean word, from the same language family as another loanword “hammock”.
This sounds interesting as heck, what do you mean this map is a great illustration of the original meaning of the word?
For some reason I thought the word typhoon popped into vernacular around the 1940s, but I think that story might be made up now that I’m older and thinking about it.
It’s from 台风 (sounds like typhon, more than it sound like typhoon tbh) and tbh the “ty” part might just be from “dai” meaning “big”, so just “big wind”, but I’ve heard it’s just as likely to be “wind from Taiwan”, the same 台 ty as in 台風, Taiwan.
And yeah, this map proves that Taiwan (and northern Philippines) is the world capital of strong typhoons.
