"Up" in Japanese and Chinese

Tong Wang told me that she just learned a new word.  It's "up主“, a term borrowed from Japanese into Chinese, and refers to those who upload audio, video, or other resources to share on certain websites.

In this expression, zhǔ / nushi 主 means "master; lord; host; owner", etc. (it has many other meanings in other realms of discourse, e.g., "Allah; Lord; advocate; main; primary; principal", etc.)

In Japanese, it appears as うp主 (rōmaji upunushi, hiragana うぷぬし, IPA [ɯ̟ᵝpɯ̟ᵝnɯ̟ᵝɕi]).

It's a compound of up (a clipping of English upload; the unconventional spelling is a result of directly typing "up" into a Japanese IME) and 主 (nushi) (source).

From Japanese, うp主 passed into Chinese as up主 (àpu-zhǔ), 阿婆主 (āpózhǔ).  There's a whole Wikipedia article on Chinese "up主" here.

Another example of creeping Romanization and ever increasing digraphia in East Asia.

 

References

• "The actuality of emerging digraphia" (3/10/19) — with links to dozens of earlier posts on this subject
• "'And the greatest Japanese export to China is…'" (8/21/12)
• "Japan: crazy over portmanteaux" (7/26/16)
• "What's in a name — Pikachu, Beikaciu, Pikaqiu?" (5/31/16)
• "Sino-Nipponica" (7/26/15)
• "Too many recent Japanese loanwords in English?" (7/17/13)
• "Two Papers on Sinolinguistics:  1. A Hypothesis Concerning the Origin of the Term fanqie ('Countertomy'); 2. East Asian Round-Trip Words," Sino-Platonic Papers, 34 (October, 1992)