Is “eco-bag” a Japanese word?

Is this a word like tsunami or something that started in Japan but is now used in English? (…And it just feels weird because it is now some sort of opposite loan word?)

2 comments
  1. The company [ECOBAGS](https://www.ecobags.com/) was founded in 1989 in the US. I have no idea their influence on common usage of the word, but it definitely wasn’t first coined in Japan.

    Edit: To add, according to Wikipedia, the term “エコバッグ” was first used in Japan in 1992 and inspired by German reusable shopping bags – but there’s no sources listed for those claims.

  2. Cambridge dictionary says it’s a brand name. The Portuguese Wiktionary says it comes from English. Haven’t dug any deeper though. Eco-anything is just marketing lingo all over the planet. I haven’t noticed it used in Japan too much. マイバック is more common in my experience and that’s the reverse tsunami with a twist in terms of loanwords.

Leave a Reply
You May Also Like