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thrdbndndn an hour ago

Chinese does the same thing, using prefixes like 西 (western), 番 (foreign), and 洋 (foreign) for introduced items.

For tomatoes, interestingly, it has two common names that follow this pattern: *西紅柿*, literally translated as "Western Red Persimmon", and 番茄, literally translated as "Foreign Eggplant".

Other produce examples include 番薯 (Foreign Yam) for sweet potato, 西瓜 (Western Melon) for watermelon, 洋蔥 (Foreign Onion) for bulb onion etc.

dotancohen 23 minutes ago | parent [-]

The recorded English-language etymology for "ketchup" suggests that the word comes from one of the Chinese dialect's word for tomato. Do you have any idea which Chinese word sounds like ketchup?