Japanese

[koster]

Why has Japanese borrowed so many basic words from Indo-European languages?

For example:
pen - pen
doa - door
pinku - pink

[Peter Pedant]

erm Urdu has 30% Arabic loan words

[heathfield]

Hardly surprising, Peter, since Urdu is written in Arabic.

As to the Japanese borrowing words, it's been an 'in' thing for many years, to show off your 'worldliness'.

Even the 'tea ceremony' is these days referred to as a 'serimoni'.

[koster]

So these words have Japanese synonyms which are not borrowed?

[heathfield]

In most cases there is already a perfectly adequate Japanese word for whatever it is.
Exceptions might occur where something was unknown in Japan until introduced from outside the country. In this case, the foreign word may be incorporated into the Japanese language. I can give an example in Thai, where the Thai word for a fountain pen (and nowadays also a ballpoint pen) is 'pakaa' (from the Parker pen).

It's really a case of the Japanese looking favourably on western things, which they were denied for a very long time through import restrictions by consecutive governments. Today, many of their products, from cigarettes to household cleaners are produced bearing western names as a form of status.