Language Matters | How the words ‘monsoon’ and ‘trade wind’ blew into the English language
- ‘Monsoon’ originates in the Arabic ‘mawsim’, meaning ‘time of year’ or ‘appropriate season’, transitioning into English via Portuguese and Dutch
- A ‘trade wind’ was originally unconnected with the use of ‘trade’ with reference to commerce, instead coming from a German word for ‘path’ or ‘track’
In East and Southeast Asia, it is the time of the summer monsoons, when large-scale wind systems blow in from the southwest, bringing warm, moist air from the South China Sea and the Indian Ocean. In winter, as the Asian land mass cools, the monsoon reverses and cold, dry winds blow from the northeast.
The word “monsoon” captures these seasonal changes in the prevailing winds. It originates in the Arabic mawsim, meaning “time of year; appropriate season”, as for a voyage or pilgrimage. This in turn comes from the word wasama, “to mark”.
The Portuguese encountered this Arabic word during their Indian Ocean explorations and interactions with Arab navigators, merchants and traders in the 15th and 16th centuries. Entering Portuguese in the early 1500s as monção or moução, it was used initially for anything that occurred each year, such as a festival.
It was also used for the season when the monsoon blew from the southwest (April through to October), providing the right winds for voyages to the East Indies.
The Portuguese word was subsequently incorporated into Dutch (and most major European languages) as monson, and then into English, likely from both Portuguese and Dutch – both nations had explorers in the region before the British.
