Dit Da Jow And It’s Meaning

Over the last 30+ years we have been selling the most Authentic Dit Da Jow liniment kit online and we have been asked hundreds of times what does Dit Da Jow actually mean. The answer surprises everybody because the name Dit Da Jow is not really an actual name.

You are probably aware there are two main Chinese dialects spoken, Mandarin in mainland China and Cantonese in Hong Kong. Across the vast country of mainland China and Taiwan there are hundreds of variations of these dialects.

Dit Da Jow would be classified as a Cantonese word but Jow as it is spelled is not a Cantonese or Mandarin word. It comes from the Mandarin word Jiu meaning wine and the Cantonese word Zau also meaning wine.

Over time the two words were blended together and Jiu and Zau became Jow, but let me break down the whole word.

Dit is a Cantonese word meaning “Fall Down” “Fall Forward”

Da is Mandarin and Daa is Cantonese which means “to beat / to strike / to hit / to break”

We described above the word Jow which  was derived from Jiu and Zau, meaning wine.

So if we put it all together we have a translation to English of “Fall Hit Wine”

Classic Chinese writing of Dit Da Jiu

Now lets look at this word “Die Da Yao” this is the Mandarin word written in Pinyin style meaning “Liniment”

Here is Die Da Yao in Chinese  跌打药

To make words in Mandarin easy to pronounce for westerners the Pinyin method(developed by the Chinese government and approved during 1958) for pronunciation was developed and in Cantonese  the Jyutping method was developed. Before Pinyin the Wade- Giles method was used to pronounce Mandarin words for the English speaking world, the term Romanization is often used to describe these types of methods for pronunciation.

Die Da Yao sounds a lot like Dit Da Jow so this was probably another small factor in the creation of the word Dit Da Jow.

Tieh Ta Yao is the Wade- Giles way to write and pronounce Diedayao and you will see a lot of herbs and Chinese Patent formulas still using this system still to this day even though pinyin is what has been used exclusively since the late 70’s early 80’s.

You will also see Dit Da Jow referred to as Tit Daa Zau and Die Da Jiu and even Tieh Ta Yao. These are actually legitimate words depending on where you are in China.

I cannot say with complete certainty when the term Dit Da Jow was first coined but it has become the term we use when describing the bruise liniment.

The Shaolin Monks used a formula called Tie Die Yao Xiang Jing which translated from Mandarin to English means “Strong As Iron Fragrant Essence Liniment”. This is the Dit Da Jow Formula we sell as a kit (shown below) to make over a gallon of this powerful liniment.

If you would like more information on Dit Da Jow read our FAQ or if you can email us and we can answer your question. Click Here