![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
prettygoodwordTheme week! It's "I Feel Like I'm Speaking Japanese" Week, or IJW for short.
tsunami - n., a very large ocean wave produced by an underwater earthquake, landslide, or volcano.
Plural is either tsunami or tsunamis, depending on how anglicized you're feeling. Sometimes misleadingly called a tidal wave, because from land they look like a violent onrushing tide more than a traditional cresting ocean wave. From Japanese 津波 (pronounced つなみ), from tsu, harbor + nami, wave. Because at sea tsunamis have low amplitude and long wavelength, they are often unnoticed until they reach shore, so fishermen would return to harbor to find their village washed out and have no clue it was coming. Have a Wikipedia link for more.
---L.
tsunami - n., a very large ocean wave produced by an underwater earthquake, landslide, or volcano.
Plural is either tsunami or tsunamis, depending on how anglicized you're feeling. Sometimes misleadingly called a tidal wave, because from land they look like a violent onrushing tide more than a traditional cresting ocean wave. From Japanese 津波 (pronounced つなみ), from tsu, harbor + nami, wave. Because at sea tsunamis have low amplitude and long wavelength, they are often unnoticed until they reach shore, so fishermen would return to harbor to find their village washed out and have no clue it was coming. Have a Wikipedia link for more.
---L.
