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The weekly "training" meetings aren't getting any better, so I'm pursuing a simple two-pronged strategy of (1) making sure I get a working computer and (2) sitting next to someone I like chatting with. That's how earlier this week, while our perpetually unprepared coworker was flailing about try to get a connexion and my boss was getting progressively more annoyed by the lack of response from IT, I had a nice chat with my big rugby bear colleague about buns.
Specifically, Japanese bean jam buns or manjū. What caught my eye about this is that the characters (饅頭) are the same as they are for mántóu. In Standard Chinese, this designates a steamed wheat flour bun that is a staple food in the north of China--specifically, an unfilled bun. Filled buns are called bāozi (from 包 "wrap"). In Korean, the same characters are pronounced mandu, which designates a kind of a steamed dumpling more similar to Chinese jiǎozi (of which "pot stickers" are one variety) than to either manjū or mántóu. What's going on?
A clue was provided by the Lin Yu-tang dictionary, which mentions that in Shanghai, mántóu are filled buns. The local name for "soup dumplings" (SC 小籠包 or "small bamboo steamer bao") is actually siohlon-meudoe (i.e. "small bamboo steamer mántóu). According to an unsourced Wikipedia article, this is because mántóu was once a more general term, covering both types of buns, and gradually became restricted in meaning in some but not all dialects. (The Chinese version states that bāozi first appears in texts from the Northern Song.) Given that manjū are documented in Korea and Japan from the 14th century, it certainly makes sense that a broader term underwent divergent specialisation in each language.
Clearly further research is necessary--particularly of such claims that mántóu is also the source of Turkic mantı (very similar to Korean mandu) rather than the other way round. That's fine--I've got several more of these weekly sessions ahead of me.
Specifically, Japanese bean jam buns or manjū. What caught my eye about this is that the characters (饅頭) are the same as they are for mántóu. In Standard Chinese, this designates a steamed wheat flour bun that is a staple food in the north of China--specifically, an unfilled bun. Filled buns are called bāozi (from 包 "wrap"). In Korean, the same characters are pronounced mandu, which designates a kind of a steamed dumpling more similar to Chinese jiǎozi (of which "pot stickers" are one variety) than to either manjū or mántóu. What's going on?
A clue was provided by the Lin Yu-tang dictionary, which mentions that in Shanghai, mántóu are filled buns. The local name for "soup dumplings" (SC 小籠包 or "small bamboo steamer bao") is actually siohlon-meudoe (i.e. "small bamboo steamer mántóu). According to an unsourced Wikipedia article, this is because mántóu was once a more general term, covering both types of buns, and gradually became restricted in meaning in some but not all dialects. (The Chinese version states that bāozi first appears in texts from the Northern Song.) Given that manjū are documented in Korea and Japan from the 14th century, it certainly makes sense that a broader term underwent divergent specialisation in each language.
Clearly further research is necessary--particularly of such claims that mántóu is also the source of Turkic mantı (very similar to Korean mandu) rather than the other way round. That's fine--I've got several more of these weekly sessions ahead of me.
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