キムチ

1951 is the early Japanese citation for キムチ in Shogakukan's Seisenban Nihon Kokugo Daijiten, from Tamiya Torahiko's Chosen Dariya. The source form is Korean 김치, written in the dictionary as gim-ci. Korean scholarship also discusses older forms such as dimchae and jimchae, linked in many accounts to 沈菜, a term for vegetables put in brine. The borrowing route is direct contact with Korean food culture, not an English route. In postwar Japanese writing and restaurants, キムチ came to name seasoned fermented vegetables such as napa cabbage, radish, and cucumber with chili, garlic, and seafood seasonings. The National Institute of Korean Language treats 김치 as a representative Korean food made by seasoning salted vegetables and fermenting them. It sits beside other Korean-food loans in Japanese, including コチュジャン, ナムル, チヂミ, and ビビンバ. Modern Japanese キムチ can refer to Korean kimchi, Japanese-made kimchi, or kimchi-flavored foods such as キムチ鍋 and キムチチャーハン. Supermarket labels in Japan often add 和風 or 本格 to mark style. Korean kimchi is a wider food category with named types such as baechu-kimchi and kkakdugi. Japanese pronunciation adds the vowel u after ch, so 김치 becomes キムチ rather than a two-syllable kimchi.