Vol. 09 · Loanwords ·Chinese ·1940s
Wonton
from wàhn-tān
- Meaning
- A filled dumpling served in soup.
- Source word
- wàhn-tān
- Route into English
- Cantonese *wàhn-tān* → American English via Chinese restaurants. The Mandarin cognate is *húntun*; the Cantonese pronunciation won because Cantonese emigration to North America predated Mandarin emigration by decades.
- Arrived
- 1940s
From Chinese
Trade English from the South China Sea ports (especially Hokkien-speaking Xiamen and Canton) seeded the early borrowings; 20th-century diplomacy and military contact added the rest.
English borrows.
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