Naming What We Eat: Food and Beverage Names in the Context of Singapore Hawker Centres

Despite efforts to document the heritage and significance of Singapore’s hawker centres, the names of the food and beverage served at these food establishments do not receive the same attention. The present study critically examines the various etymological claims against the available evidence from a variety of disciplines, combining synchronic and diachronic linguistics with aspects of history, culture, food sciences, social sciences and Singapore studies. Analysis reveals that etymologies tend to be more reliable when they correspond to the Singapore language ecology (at both the national and hawker centre levels), linguistic features of the supposed language of origin, as well as facts established in the other aforementioned disciplines. Finally, the names studied demonstrate how naming processes in Singapore are heavily influenced by visual associations.