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I had always assumed that the similarity between the Japanese word for "typhoon" (台風, pronounced "taifū") and the English and French versions (in French it's "typhon", pronounced "teefon") was accidental. But is it? This word turns out to have a strange, thousand-year history
French "typhon" comes from Latin "typhon" (strong wind), itself from ancient greek Τυφῶν (tuphon). It enters the French vocabulary in the 16th century via the Portuguese word "tufão", brought back to Europe by Portuguese sailors who got it from South Asian or East Asia
It turns out that the greek word had previously made its way into Persian (tūfān) and from there, to Arabic and Hindi. It may have travelled as far east as Malaysia. And that's the word the Portuguese brought back. Like genealogy, etymology isn't a tree -- it's a graph.
Meanwhile, China has the word 颱風 (táifēng) with basically the same meaning. Pronounced "taifung" in Cantonese. Which transferred to Japanese as 台風. Did the Chinese word come from the Hindi & Arabic word, which itself came from Greek? Can't say for sure, but it seems likely.
In conclusion: if you ever wonder where something comes from, the answer is usually "from 5th century BC Greece"
In India, we learned in school that the word "typhoon" was of Japanese origin. I don't recall whether we learned that our own "toofan" in Hindi/Urdu was also from the same root, but I have assumed that it was.
Well even without tracing its history, a Japanese speaker can tell 台風 (taifuu) comes from Chinese just from what it sounds like.
I'm not any kind of expert on this stuff, but seems like they actually used to call it 野分 at least in Hei-an times. Seems like maybe 台風 started from Meji times? Check thishttp://crd.ndl.go.jp/reference/modules/d3ndlcrdentry/index.php?page=ref_view&id=1000052495 …
There's also the mythical Greek monster Typhon and the diseases typhus and typhoid fever.
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