Etymology of ramen and katsu

Nancy Friedman just published "52 interesting things I learned this year" (Fritinancy, 12/30/2024). The whole thing is worth reading, but I especially liked (10), which resonates with (17), which references LLOG.

10.  Japanese ramen is a borrowing from Chinese lamian, the source of lo mein. They’re essentially the same word: “The l to r switch occurred because the Japanese r sound is an alveolar tap halfway between the phonemes.” (Adam Aleksic , Etymology Nerd. More on L/R convergence on Adam’s Instagram account.)

17. Katsu, Japanese for a fried meat, seafood, or vegetable cutlet, is a “boomerang word.” It’s a clipping of katsuretsu, which was adapted from English “cutlet,” which in turn was borrowed from French côtelette. Katsu has now boomeranged back into English: it was added to the OED in March 2024. (South China Morning Post and Language Log)