What language does Obrigado means thank you in?

Answer 1

Obrigado means "thank-you" in Portuguese.

Answer 2

Arigato, or more often, domo arigato, is Japanese for Thank You very much.

Obrigado! - the first word you learn in Portuguese! Which means Thank You.

Since the word is the past participle of the verb obrigar, it is necessary to use the appropriate gender of the word. Males should say obrigado and females ought to use obrigada. As one might imagine, this is a common mistake among beginner Portuguese learners.

Some have speculated that the word obrigado is cognate with the Japanese word for thank you, arigatou (gozaimasu). I've heard this one a lot; let me save you a lot of hassle and debate: there is no such connection, though some insist that there is. As I understand it, the coincidence is really amazing; beyond sounding exactly alike, and being commonly used for the same purpose, arigatou and obrigado have even another level of commonality. Arigatou "…is based on two Chinese characters, one meaning "difficult" and the other "to be". In other words, I'm so indebted to you, I'm having a hard time even existing over here…" [source].

Given that obrigado literally means 'I am obligated [to you],' the coincidence is really spooky. One word derives from Latin (obligare) and the other from ancient Japanese, and yet the two words sound almost the same, literally mean close to the same thing which in both cases is different from the common usage of the word, which is the same for both words. Wow.

Some of my historian friends (from Brazil) have the believe that the Japanese used (borrowed) the word obrigado as they didn't have a word for thank you, but rather a gesture. During the time that the Portuguese were the leaders in trading, they travelled the world and shared (knowingly or not) their knowledge in many different areas, including language. Although there is not proof to back my friends' statements, I too believe that the Japanese borrowed the word from the Portuguese. I also agree that your assessment makes a lot of sense.