丼 ショウ、タン、セイ どんぶり a large bowl for serving rice with meat and vegetables, or the meal served in such a bowl

丼 is an interesting character. Generally regarded as a distinctly Japanese character and visible all over the place in any Japanese city, it’s only now being added to the Joyo kanji list.

It turns out this character has a history of use in China as well, and though its recent popularity there may be thanks to Japanese influence, the use of this character for a popular rice dish may have its roots in Cantonese.

The above ad shows the character in use in China, borrowed from Japanese.

The character originated as 井, meaning “well”, with the inner “丶” stroke added to represent something fallen into a well. The character is not considered to be a standard Mandarin character, but in Cantonese, it can be pronounced dön and means “the sound of something falling down a well”.

Let’s leave that for a moment and look at the Japanese word donburi. During the Edo Period, this food was served at a type of restaurant called a kendonya (慳貪屋). The dish it was served in was called a kendonburi-bachi (慳貪振り鉢), or donburi-bachi for short. Hachi, of course, means “bowl”. During the same period, coincidentally, there were cotton or satin bags called donburi, which, thanks to homophony, suggested the idea of a casual dish into which any food item could be thrown. On top of that, giongo words like どぶん and どぼん suggested the sound of something plunking into water.

At some point, it seemed a natural fit to borrow the character 丼, which had a similar pronunciation in certain Chinese dialects and meant “the sound of something thrown into a well”, and apply it to “donburi”.

Or so it seems, anyway. I’ll revise this article if I uncover more information about 丼.