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I was discussing with a friend about the word 人孔, and I know I read (or was told) that it's taken from the English "manhole", literally juxtaposing the kanji for "man" with that for "hole", since for a while that's what Japanese did, giving a kanji writing to new concept/words instead of just taking them (like with ミス); I was unable to find where I read/was told that, though, and searching on Google was unhelpful. I was just able to find that in Chinese the word is different, so it's not a loan from there.

Can someone confirm or deny this etymology? Is 人孔 a native word, or does it derive from English?

Edit: in the comments Leebo stress that Chinese is listed in the Wikitionary entry for 人孔, which I misread in my research.

I was discussing with a friend about the word 人孔, and I know I read (or was told) that it's taken from the English "manhole", literally juxtaposing the kanji for "man" with that for "hole", since for a while that's what Japanese did, giving a kanji writing to new concept/words instead of just taking them (like with ミス); I was unable to find where I read/was told that, though, and searching on Google was unhelpful. I was just able to find that in Chinese the word is different, so it's not a loan from there.

Can someone confirm or deny this etymology? Is 人孔 a native word, or does it derive from English?

Edit: in the comments Leebo stresses that Chinese is listed in the Wikitionary entry for 人孔, which I misread in my research.

I was discussing with a friend about the word 人孔, and I know I read (or was told) that it's taken from the English "manhole", literally juxtaposing the kanji for "man" with that for "hole", since for a while that's what Japanese did, giving a kanji writing to new concept/words instead of just taking them (like with ミス); I was unable to find where I read/was told that, though, and searching on Google was unhelpful. I was just able to find that in Chinese the word is different, so it's not a loan from there.

Can someone confirm or deny this etymology? Is 人孔 a native word, or does it derive from English?

I was discussing with a friend about the word 人孔, and I know I read (or was told) that it's taken from the English "manhole", literally juxtaposing the kanji for "man" with that for "hole", since for a while that's what Japanese did, giving a kanji writing to new concept/words instead of just taking them (like with ミス); I was unable to find where I read/was told that, though, and searching on Google was unhelpful. I was just able to find that in Chinese the word is different, so it's not a loan from there.

Can someone confirm or deny this etymology? Is 人孔 a native word, or does it derive from English?

Edit: in the comments Leebo stress that Chinese is listed in the Wikitionary entry for 人孔, which I misread in my research.

I was discussing with a friend about the word 人孔, and I know I read (or was said) that it's taken from the english "manhole", literally juxtaposing the kanji for "man" with that for "hole", since for a while that's what Japanese did, giving a kanji writing to new concept/words instead of just taking them (like with ミス); I was unable to find where I read/was said that, though, and searching on Google was unhelpful. I was just able to find that in Chinese the word is different, so it's not a loan from there.

Can someone confirm or deny this etimology? Is 人孔 a native word, or does it derive from English?

I was discussing with a friend about the word 人孔, and I know I read (or was told) that it's taken from the English "manhole", literally juxtaposing the kanji for "man" with that for "hole", since for a while that's what Japanese did, giving a kanji writing to new concept/words instead of just taking them (like with ミス); I was unable to find where I read/was told that, though, and searching on Google was unhelpful. I was just able to find that in Chinese the word is different, so it's not a loan from there.

Can someone confirm or deny this etymology? Is 人孔 a native word, or does it derive from English?