Tofu is at least as important as language as food. The invention of tofu during the Han dynasty was probably the most important milestone in the history of the Chinese diet, and the Chinese, who were more agrarian than animal husbandry-oriented, thus had a stable and cheap source of high-quality protein. So important, of course, that a national standard needed to be promulgated.
If the matter involves language and tofu, then it is doubly important. So important is the question of translating the name of tofu.
Walking on the street, a large number of public **** signage in English translation does not know, Chinese people can not read, foreigners can not understand. Not only can not read, but also made a lot of jokes. In response to this phenomenon, several national ministries and commissions have recently jointly issued a set of "public **** services in the field of English translation and writing norms" series of national standards. In addition to the general guidelines, this set of standards in transportation, tourism, catering, culture and other thirteen areas to give specific norms, and attached more than 3700 recommended translation.
The original intention of writing this set of norms is certainly good, and most of the guidelines and recommended translations are in line with English usage. However, there are certain words that seem to oscillate between conforming to the translation norms and respecting established usage, and "tofu" is one of them.
1. Recommended translations for tofu
The recommended translations for tofu are Bean Curd or Doufu, which are both transliterated and transliterated.
First, let's look at Bean Curd, which is the English translation of some Chinese foods in the books I studied when I was a kid. I lived in North America for many years, and every time I tried to use the word, the other person was on cloud nine.
To be fair, this is not a bad translation. Translation is never just a matter of language, culture and habits are a much bigger obstacle. If something doesn't exist in a culture at all, it's not easy to introduce that thing to that culture by translating a word so that people understand what it is. A common practice in this case is to use a similar thing that already exists in the target culture, such as translating dumplings into Dumpling.
So what is this Curd in Bean Curd? Literally, the word describes a small piece of a small shape. In terms of usage, it usually refers to a lump of fermented milk. Speaking of curd alone, this is a dairy product similar to yogurt but thicker and more viscous than yogurt. It's more common in India and the UK, and rarely seen in North America. The other thing is called cheese curd, which is a semi-finished product that occurs during the fermentation process of making cheese, and is shaped into small, one-inch-square cubes that are very sticky and tough. Shape-wise, it seems to make sense to translate curd as bean curd. However, both curd and cheese curd are fermented. Tofu, on the other hand, is produced without fermentation and is categorized as a non-fermented soybean product in China's national food safety standards. So curd is not very accurate.
Bean means bean, which is fine. However, in everyday usage soy or soy bean refers to soybeans, while bean on its own usually refers to beans like string beans. For example, soy sauce is usually translated as soy sauce, never bean sauce.
So, bean curd is not a very intuitive translation. It's been proven that the word has existed in the US for over a hundred years, but it's so unpopular that basically no one uses it. It's not an optimal translation.
2. How about phonetic translation
In a sense, phonetic translation may be a better choice. That's why the national standard recommends using the hanyu pinyin Doufu as the English translation for tofu.
It's also very common practice. For example, Tiramisu, the famous Italian dessert, was originally just a trademark of the restaurant that created it, with some saying the chef named the dessert after himself and others saying it meant "take me away. But when it became popular, other cultures didn't have anything like it, so they just transliterated the name. A more interesting example is the latte, which is written as latte in English, also phonetically translated from Italian. It sounds like a very high class word, but in Italian it is a very common word, meaning milk. Italians drink coffee habits, if you do not add special instructions, are not added milk, espresso, milk is latte.
So that the tofu translated as Doufu, no problem at all.
3. Usage
If there's a problem with this translation, it's that it doesn't conform to the conventions of usage. The English language already has a popular word Tofu used to translate tofu. The word is phonetically translated from Japanese into English, just as Japanese ramen is translated into Ramen.
Yes, both tofu and ramen came from China to Japan, and from Japan to Europe and the United States. But once these transliterated words entered the English language, they have become part of the English language's foreign vocabulary. I'm afraid it would take some effort to change them, if at all, to correct their origins.
For example, the trademark for Tsingtao Beer, which, according to the standard transliteration method, should be spelled Qingdao in Hanyu Pinyin, was sold all over the world under the trademark Tsingtao Beer many years before the Hanyu Pinyin program was introduced. Today Tsingtao Beer still uses this trademark. On the other hand, once a foreign word enters the Chinese language, it is not easy to change its usage. The famous Johnson & Johnson is called Johnson, the same name as NBA star Magic Johnson. But both Johnson and Johnson are already widely accepted English nouns in Chinese, and it's hard to accept either the hard renaming of Johnson to Johnson or the renaming of Magic to Johnson.
The most familiar example of a country that must let other countries change their names according to their own customs is South Korea's request that China change the translation of "Seoul" to "首尔". Not to mention that this request has been ridiculed by Chinese netizens for a while, but in terms of maneuverability, this request is at least feasible, because the main body of the incident is in the diplomatic activities of the two governments. But what if the South Korean government asked all restaurants selling Korean barbecue around the world to change their names from "Seoul Barbecue" and "Seoul Barbecue King" to "Seoul Barbecue"? "Seoul Barbecue King" would be not only ridiculous, but also unattainable -- restaurant owners wouldn't listen to him.
It remains to be seen whether Chinese restaurants will follow national standards and call tofu doufu or call it tofu according to the language of the customers who eat it. Overseas Chinese restaurants don't have to worry about the ministry's standards, and will probably continue to use tofu -- the standard-setter on one side, and the breadwinner on the other -- so who's going to listen?