• Phoenix3875@lemmy.world
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    18 hours ago

    Tsunami つなみ 津波 is composed of

    • tsu つ 津, wharf, a place to park boats
    • nami なみ 波, tide, wave

    So it’s high waves from a wharf. It’s not a tide since having a tsunami every month would be devastating…

    See https://gogen-yurai.jp/tsunami/

    • thevoidzero@lemmy.world
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      8 hours ago

      Thank you. I should have just said tsu is in the tsunami similarly but in English we learn t is silent because we can’t pronounce it.