Originally Posted by worldramen.net
The word “RAMEN” is obviously a Japanese one coined from Chinese.
First of all, please let me inform you of the meaning of “men” in "Ramen". Though Japanese are using the same Chinese character to express “men” as Chinese are, the meanings are a bit different. For Japanese “men” mean all kind of noodles including rice sticks, soba, etc., whatever the ingredients are as long as they are cereal flour. On the other hand, in Chinese, it means “dough” made of WHEAT flour only. So in their language, udon and ramen are counted as “men” but rice sticks and laksa are not. However when it comes to the form, they do not limit its usage only to “string-like” stuff, so dumplings are also considered to be a part of “men”.
You may have noticed some use “Lamen” or “Larmen” rather than “Ramen.” This is solely because in Japanese language there is no distinction between “L” sound and “R” sound, so it depends his/her favorite which to use. Since the “R” is more popular today to express the sound in alphabet in Japan, “Ramen” overpowers “Lamen” or “Larmen”.
Now getting back to the origin of the word “Ramen”. Frankly speaking, there are several hypotheses but no one can tell which is it. But the following two are the most widely-accepted.
1)In Chinese, ”La” in “Lamen” means pulling and stretching. So “Lamen” means noodles (made of wheat flour) by pulling and stretching. It is believed that when the origin of ramen arrived in Japan, noodles were made by “Lamen” way. Then “Lamen”, the name of noodle making process, turned “Ramen” and became the general name of this noodle dish.
2)Deriving from “La-, La-“ meaning “Yes, Yes” in Chinese uttered by an Chinese chef employed by some Ramen shop in Sapporo, the mistress of that shop coined. This is the second one.
FYI, there still is a word “Lamen” in Chinese as with the meaning explained and they are using the same character to express “Ramen” since there is no other characters equivalent. So in Chinese speaking countries (areas?), like Hong Kong or Taiwan, they usually call ”Japanese Lamen” (in Chinese characters) explicitly to distinguish.
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