Recently I've been hearing about a Japanese electronic device called a "garakei ガラケイ". Mystified by this katakana word, which I assumed to be at least partially the transcription of some foreign term, I set about trying to find out more about it.
Before explaining why it is styled "Galapagos", let's address the form and meaning of the word garakei ガラケイ ("Galapagos cell phone").
Phonologically, garapagosu ガラパゴス ("Galapagos") ＋ keitai ケイタイ ("cell phone") ＝ garakei ガラケイ ("Galapagos cell phone"). It's also written garakē ガラケー (because kētai ケータイ is an accepted, indeed preferred, katakana-ization). I should note that keitai ケイタイ (or kētai ケータイ) is the first portion of keitai denwa 携帯電話 ("mobile phone"), where keitai 携帯 means "carry (along); mobile" and denwa 電話 means "(tele)phone". The Chinese word for "cell phone" is completely different, being shǒujī 手机 (lit., "hand device"), and "mobile phone" is yídòng diànhuà 移动电话. The word xiédài 携带 ("carry; take along; portable") does exist in Chinese, but it was not chosen to form the word for "cell / mobile phone" as it was in Japanese.
Incidentally, the Chinese word shǒujī 手机 (lit., "hand device", i.e., "cell phone") reminds me of the German word for the same device, viz., "handy", which is a peculiarly German usage of the English word.
So why is the garakei ガラケイ referred to as having to do with the Galapagos? The idea is that, like the animals and birds of the Galapagos Islands, which developed unique traits in isolation from mainland species so as to fit their special environment, the garakei ガラケイhas features that were developed solely in and for people of the Japanese islands without regard to global IT trends. Thus, garakei are not known or used in places outside Japan. Naturally, they have some features that are shared with cell phones elsewhere (e.g., built-in camera), but they also have functions that do not exist outside of Japan.
This usage of the characterization garapagosu ガラパゴス ("Galapagos") has become very popular in Japan, especially for products from the Sharp Corporation that are thought to be especially well adapted to the current needs of Japanese consumers.
To summarize for garakei, while it is said that this was originally a self-effacing "joke" name, it now refers more generally to any of the (mostly) non-smartphone mobile phones with Japan-only features like wansegu ワンセグ (1seg ["one segment"] for watching TV), FM radio, o saifukētai おサイフケータイ ("mobile wallet"; phone = credit card), etc., and is a nod to the "unique evolution" in an "isolated archipelago" that brought these phones about.
Another new and related Japanese word that has been put together from borrowed English components is "sumaho (スマホ)", which is an abbreviation of "smart phone". In Japan today, you see and hear this word everywhere.
Here are a few more borrowings (but also adaptations and transformations) of this type, some a little bit earlier than garakei and sumaho:
afureko アフレコ ("after recording") in the recording, movie, and audio industries
masucomi マスコミ ("mass communication media")
sekuhara セクハラ ("sexual harassment")
chaidoru チャイドル ("child idol" — very young media darlings)
You can find more abbreviated borrowings of this sort here, although many of the expressions on this list are abbreviated wholly or partly from Japanese words.
Once again (in this recent post and many others on Language Log), we see the Japanese love of borrowing and their zest for doing interesting things with the words and things that they borrow.
[Thanks to Cecilia Segawa Seigle, Nathan Hopson, Hiroko Sherry, and Miki Morita]