Why is there no Mandarin on a Chinese Take-out Menu?

How many French loanwords can you find in English? The answer is a hell of a lot. Culture, government, soup, broil, cream.

What about from German? Not nearly as many as French, but things like schadenfreude, zeitgeist, kindergarten, and wunderkind might come to mind.

So, now, how many words can you find in English that come from Mandarin?

That number is a whole lot less.

There are an absolutely massive number of Mandarin-speakers living in English-speaking countries and China plays considerable role in geopolitics and commerce worldwide. THat being said there are hardly any Mandarin loanwords to be found in English.

Certainly, there are terms like fengshui, shitzu, qi/chi, and possibly the word silk.

Beyond that, you probably have some interest or some strong connection with China or Chinese culture if you know things like guanxi, hanfu, dao, and wuxia. Even so, each of these refers to some very specific cultural concepts that really don’t translate to English.

Now you might be thinking that actually English has a huge trove of Mandarin loanwords related to food. After all, food is one of the major categories that’s likely to adapt a foreign word rather than translate it. Just look at pizza, sushi, pad thai, and pho. All borrowed in.

So what about the work 'wok'? 

What about 'wonton'?

Source: Wikimedia Commons

If you go to a Chinese restaurant in an English-speaking country and look at the menu, you’re sure to see loads of loanwords. You can find lo mein, bok choy, dim sum, as well as wok and wonton. The thing is almost every word on that menu that isn’t English doesn’t actually come from Mandarin, but probably comes from Cantonese.

To illustrate the point, here’s a little list, where you can compare the terms in Mandarin, Cantonese, and English

English	Cantonese	Mandarin
bok choy	baak6 coi3	báicài
char siu char siew	caa1 siu1	chāshāo
chop sue chop suey	zaap6 seoi3	zásuì
chow mein	cau2 men5	chǎomiàn
dim sum	dim2 sam1	diǎnxīn
hoisin	hoi2 sin1	hǎixiān
kumquat	gam1 gwat1	jīnjú
lo mein	lou1 min6	lāomiàn
lychee	lai6 zi1	lìzhī
wok	wok6	guō
wonton	wan4 tan1 wan4 tan4	húntun

You can see right away that the Cantonese names for these foods are much closer to the terms used in English than the Mandarin ones.

There are also a handful of English food words that are derived from Hokkien, another language of Southeast China.

Ok, but why does English have so few words from Mandarin? Especially when Mandarin is one of the most widely spoken languages in the world?

Like most things that have to do with language borrowings, the answer lies in history the migration of people. To make an extremely long story extremely short, Mandarin hasn't always been as dominant a language in China. Today it's the standard language (Putonghua) of the People’s Republic of China. In fact, way back in 1909, the Qing education ministry officially proclaimed Imperial Mandarin to be the "national language.” However, when the British were doing certain colonial activities in China years earlier, a lot of their focus was in the South, specifically in the province of Guangdong. 

The province of Guangdong/Canton/广东

The province was also called Canton for a long while and it’s where Cantonese was and still is a major language. As a result, the first group of loanwords that came into English from China came primarily from Cantonese.

Area where Cantonese/Yue is widely spoken

                

In different waves of migration, people from Canton/Guangdong left the region and made lives all around the world, often speaking Cantonese at home. To make a whole lot of long stories short, Chinese restaurants that catered to non-Chinese customers started to become more common. As this happened, naming was done with some creativity and a small group of words became more common in English.

Menu items like ‘chicken fried rice’ were direct part-for-part translations of the original names. At the same time, a whole host of foods were given half-translated names often with the meat translated and the noodle taken as a loanword. This is where we get names like ‘chicken lo mein’ ‘shrimp chow mein’ and ‘beef chow fun.’ 

When my family would order Chinese food, my father would always order Singapore Mei Fun which would take me years to think twice about and recognize  ‘mei fun’ as a kind of rice noodle. 

One of the other effects of this migration is that many names for Chinese foods in other European languages are also derived from Cantonese rather than Mandarin. 

English	Russian	Dutch	Spanish
wonton	вонтон (vonton)	wantan	wantón, wantán
wok	вок  (vok)	wok	wok
dim sum	димсам (dimsam)	dimsum	dim sum
chow mein	чоу мейн (čou meyn)	chow mein, tjauw min	chow mein, choamin

It’s worth mentioning that when using Russian, I have heard and seen the Mandarin word xun’tun’ used for wanton, but mostly from people from Siberia or those who are deeply interested in China and Chinese culture.

The names for Chinese food doesn't only come from Southern China. There are, of course a few Mandarin terms that have made it into English, especially related to food. This includes the mooshoo of mooshoo pork, the pu’er of pu’er tea and the kung pao of kung pao chicken. This little group are sort of bound words however. In English, you can talk about wontons and woks, but saying 'kung pao' without 'chicken' or 'moo shu' without 'pork' doesn't sound quite right. 

English	Mandarin	Translation
kung pao chicken	gōngbǎo jīdīng	‘palace guard poultry cube’
moo shu pork	mù xū (ròu)	mushroom meat’ ‘scrambled eggs meat’
pu’er tea	pǔ'ěr chá	tea from Pu’er (city in Yunnan’

There’s also the word gaiwan (蓋碗) which is a kind of lidded teacup that’s only just started getting popular attention in the English-speaking world. And even now it’s really only known by tea-enthusiasts so it still gets put in italics most of the time.

The big Mandarin word that’s been on the rise in Engilsh for the last few years has to be bao. The name comes from bāozi (包子) which refers to steamed buns that are normally filled with meat and/or vegatables. That being said, it is worth mentioning that the word does bear a striking resemblance to the Cantonese term baau1 and Vietnamese bao.

Interestingly and expectedly, the English words bao and the Mandarin bāozi, are already diverging in meaning. At the moment bao can refer to most steamed buns both with and without filling (there is a type of  Chinese bun without filling called mantou). Likewise a bun that is perceived to be from any east Asian nation is called a bao. At the same time, dishes like xiaolongbao are often called 'dumplings' or 'soup dumplings' in English rather than falling into the new 'bao' category.

That being said, foodies are going to keep looking for new dishes to try and my bet is that there are more food-related loanwords to come from Mandarin soon.