A 1982 Mandarin-to-Southern-Min dictionary, he says, confirms that the first syllable of the written Chinese name for ketchup is an archaic word pronounced gue in spoken Southern Min, and meaning a preserved fish. So ketchup is an "archaic word for fish sauce" in the Hokkien dialect of Southern Min Chinese, Jurafsky concludes.

Furthermore, Jurafsky says, early English recipes show that the original ketchup was indeed fish sauce, the stinky cooking sauce called nuoc mam in Vietnam, nampla in Thailand, patisin the Philippines, all made from salting and fermenting anchovies.

Jurafsky's blog also sheds light on a long-time mystery - why ketchup sometimes is spelled "catsup". Since Hokkien isn't written with the Roman alphabet, the same archaic, Western process that transcribed fish sauce as "ke-tchup", also delivered the world catsup, and even katchup.

In the statement provided to China Daily by Heinz, the company says its founder, Henry Heinz, "chose ketchup as the spelling" for his product to "differentiate" it from the rivals' "catsup".

Linguist Yu agrees that the theories surrounding ketchup's origin are noteworthy. "It was a surprise to me," he says. "First, the tomato is not originally from Asia, so that is strange. What is even more strange is that it is somehow related to fish sauce."

In its original incarnation, ketchup was made with something other than tomatoes, Jurafsky notes. Tomatoes were added to the recipe around 1800. From 1750 to 1850 its chief ingredient was fermented walnuts or sometimes fermented mushrooms, he writes. But as the blog points out, Samuel Johnson's seminal 1755 dictionary stated that English mushroom ketchups were "just an attempt to imitate the taste of an earlier original sauce that came from Asia".

Despite their abiding love for ketchup, Americans don't have a monopoly on how the popular sauce is used. Jurafsky's blog notes that people in China like to use it on fried chicken, and in Sweden it's a frequent pasta garnish. In Thailand, teens dip potato chips in ketchup, while in Eastern Europe it is a favorite pizza topping.

Taking her cue from Jurafsky's blog, Anzia Mayer, a writer for the China-focused blog Tea Leaf Nation, has dipped into scholarly literature to highlight other common English words with Chinese links.

"I was shocked to find some common words that sounded really English to me," recalls Mayer, who is a senior at Amherst College in Massachusetts. Besides ketchup, her list includes kumquat, typhoon and gung ho.

At 22, Mayer has already made four trips to China and is "more or less" fluent in Mandarin. She hopes to become a Chinese teacher or journalist after graduation. Of her writing about the surprising influence of Chinese on common English words and expressions, she says: "I'm excited by the feeling of being able to make something foreign familiar."

michaelbarris@chinadailyusa.com