{"id":22134,"date":"2022-04-28T16:01:21","date_gmt":"2022-04-28T16:01:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/?p=22134"},"modified":"2022-04-28T16:03:12","modified_gmt":"2022-04-28T16:03:12","slug":"long-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/?p=22134","title":{"rendered":"Long Time"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>If you haven\u2019t seen someone for a while, you might greet them by saying \u201clong time no see\u201d. Have you ever wondered where that phrase comes from?<\/p>\n<p><a data-flickr-embed=\"true\" href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/prosto\/136820943\/in\/photolist-d6f6M-dDFEsB-eZ1sdL-mxZVs4-SqqSAj-3HX6zT-2kZbmY6-n8ELqv-LTsvd-AtT8T2-US1Du6-78Ynxx-2gEAqoM-iEjxeQ-7rjV4X-bmzt2L-2kZ7NEL-2fg3MC4-7Kbmcu-sTDPAh-2n44pA3-Du3xLd-csuKNb-dSu4Xt-5Xbgm2-61Wwcx-2iSaYmn-YobmbX-5C6oVt-o8u8gH-83cCYd-83cDMq-2iw3e1o-Mp8Pxj-9NuVwv-9NEwpU-pHkmjJ-2ebTr8h-a3eVY8-2e7Gnvr-pVCjgF-TAdgqb-nqegmH-2m8VP5p-e5Bq2g-8gQU1J-839ujM-7U9YpL-2kyApWp-e9SdfF\" title=\"Long time no see\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/54\/136820943_842f32ede8_z.jpg\" alt=\"Long time no see\" width=\"640\" height=\"426\"><\/a><script async=\"\" src=\"\/\/embedr.flickr.com\/assets\/client-code.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>According to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.npr.org\/sections\/codeswitch\/2014\/03\/09\/288300303\/who-first-said-long-time-no-see-and-in-which-language\">NPR<\/a>, if was first used in print in 1900 in a book by William F. Drannan called <em>Thirty-One Years on the Plains and in the Mountains, Or, the Last Voice from the Plains An Authentic Record of a Life Time of Hunting, Trapping, Scouting and Indian Fighting in the Far West<\/em> &#8211; a nice snappy title. In the book the phrase is used in the following context:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;I knew he had recognized me. When we rode up to him he said: &#8216;Good morning. Long time no see you,&#8217; and at the same time presented the gun with breech foremost.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Another idea is that it is comes from Chinese phrase <strong>\u597d\u4e45\u4e0d\u89c1<\/strong> [\u597d\u4e45\u4e0d\u898b] (h\u01ceoj\u01d0u b\u00faji\u00e0n), which means \u201cquite a while, not see\/meet\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>The character <strong>\u4e45<\/strong> (j\u01d0u) means \u2018(long) time\u2019, and appears in Japanese equivalents of the phrase: <strong>\u4e45\u3057\u3076\u308a<\/strong> (hisashiburi) and <strong>\u304a\u4e45\u3057\u3076\u308a\u3067\u3059\u306d<\/strong> (o hisashiburi desu ne). In this context, the <strong>\u3076\u308a<\/strong> (buri) part, which can also be written \u632f\u308a, means after (a period of time), again or for the first time in (a period of time) [<a href=\"https:\/\/jisho.org\/search\/%E6%8C%AF%E3%82%8A\">source<\/a>].<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u4e45<\/strong> always appears in expressions like:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\u4e45\u3057\u3044 (hisashii) = long (time that has passed), old (story)<\/li>\n<li>\u4e45\u3005 (hisabisa) = (in a) long time, long time (ag), while (ago)<\/li>\n<li>\u4e45\u3057\u304f (hisashiku) = for a long time, for ages, for a good while<\/li>\n<li>\u4e45\u61d0 (ky\u016bkai) = long-cherished hope<\/li>\n<li>\u4e45\u95ca (ky\u016bkatsu) = not having met or contacted someone for a long time; neglect of friends\u200b [<a href=\"https:\/\/jisho.org\/search\/%E4%B9%85\">source<\/a>]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>There\u2019s a nice equivalent of this phrase in Russian: <strong>\u0421\u043a\u043e\u043b\u044c\u043a\u043e \u043b\u0435\u0442, \u0441\u043a\u043e\u043b\u044c\u043a\u043e \u0437\u0438\u043c!<\/strong> (Skol&#8217;ko let, skol&#8217;ko zim!), which means literally \u201cHow many years, how many winters!\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>How to say \u2018long time, no see\u2019, or something similar, in many languages: <a href=\"https:\/\/omniglot.com\/language\/phrases\/longtimenosee.htm\">https:\/\/omniglot.com\/language\/phrases\/longtimenosee.htm<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If you haven\u2019t seen someone for a while, you might greet them by saying \u201clong time no see\u201d. Have you ever wondered where that phrase comes from? According to NPR, if was first used in print in 1900 in a book by William F. Drannan called Thirty-One Years on the Plains and in the Mountains, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[95,104,129,10,78],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22134","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chinese","category-english","category-japanese","category-language","category-words-and-phrases"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22134","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22134"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22134\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22138,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22134\/revisions\/22138"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22134"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22134"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22134"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}