Articles and Stories

July 11, 2013

The English language uses letters to describe the shape of some clothes. A few examples are T-shirt, A-line dress or skirt and V-neck. The United States has created these terms and other countries with Roman alphabets have adopted them. Have you ever thought about what countries might be using for these words that do not use a Roman alphabet but instead use characters to write?

Here are a few examples of how countries with non-Roman fonts describe this clothing:

What the Chinese call an A-line dress or skirt is called an inverted V shaped skirt in Chinese 人字形长裙 (人-shaped skirt).

The Korean language has adopted the same English letters to identify the shapes of clothes. T-shirt and V-neck are used the same way on a regular basis.

In Japan a V-neck shirt like the one in blue is called a ‘Y-shirt’ and not a ‘T-shirt’

In written Hindi, in the non-Roman script, English terms for these clothes, which could resemble a letter in the alphabet, are never used. However, in the spoken language words like T-shirt and V-neck are quite popular.

The Chinese use additional characters to describe other clothes:

A thong is called 丁字裤 (丁-shaped under pant).

The waist buckle in the following shape is called 日字形腰扣（日-shaped waist buckle)

A Sandal in the following shape is sometimes called 一字型凉鞋 (一-shaped sandal)