Multilingual Foodscape in Honolulu Chinatown: Variations in Food Names: Language Contact and Lexical Borrowing

In my fieldwork, I noticed variations in food names for certain dishes. For example, 叉烧包 (Mandarin pronunciation: chāshāobāo; Cantonese pronunciation: char siu bao; meaning: BBQ pork bun) is a common dish in many Cantonese dim sum restaurants in Hawaii. However, its name varies in the English versions of menus. Some restaurants refer to it as "bun", while others call it "manapua", a Hawaiian word meaning "pork bun". For BBQ pork, some English menus retain the Cantonese pronunciation "char siu" (Figure 2), while others use "BBQ pork" based on its meaning (Figure 1). 

Lexical borrowings and language contact are also observed in other food names. For one type of Chinese sausage, 腊肠 (Mandarin pronunciation: làcháng; Cantonese pronunciation: lap6 cheong1), the English menu of a bakery uses the transliteration of the Cantonese pronunciation, rendering it as "Lup Chong" (Figure 2).

Figure 1. Menu of One Dim Restaurant 


Figure 2. Menu of One Bakery 

Additionally, other food names originate from Cantonese or are associated with Cantonese. For example, "Kum Quat" comes from the Cantonese term for 金桔 (Cantonese pronunciation: gam1gat1, meaning "gold tangerine"). For "Li Hing Mui," "Mui" comes from the Cantonese word for 梅 (Cantonese pronunciation: mui4, meaning "plum"). The origin of "Li Hing" remains uncertain, as there is no consensus on its etymology. One shop owner told me it might come from 旅行 (Cantonese pronunciation: leoi5 hang4, meaning "travel"). The screenshots are from the website of a local bakery (https://singcheongyuan.com/).

Figure 3. Screenshot of the food "Honey Kum Quat" 


Figure 4. Screenshot of the food "Li Hing Mui" 

In summary, these food names in Hawaii reflect a history of linguistic and cultural contact, as well as lexical borrowing between languages.




Comments

  1. Crookes blogApril 13, 2025 at 3:51 PM

    I never knew where 'manapua' comes from (though I know the word 'pua' as pig in Hawaiian). I wonder if it would be possible to interview Chinese patrons to see what they make of the linguascape.

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