an EMAIL from a veteran language man, a reporter/editor in NYC:

http://www.rameniac.com/forum/viewthread/83/

Dear Tampopo,

What a GREAT question you raise here!

I suspect—but have no reason to know—that this happened a lot with other transliterations as well.

You may have to concede this one, though.

Every English dictionary I can find—including the venerable Oxford English Dictionary—accept “ramen” with no qualifications.

Only Random House Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary lists an alternate spelling, and it won’t make you happy, either: “Also called larmen.”

(There, is however, a restaurant in Greenwich Village called Tokyo Lamen.)

When the horse is that far out of the barn, there’s no going back.”

[TAMPOPO ADDS: But this editor also said that maybe this lamen/ramen brouhaha is worth discussing, if only to see where it leads.... Yes, let’s see where this discussion leads. Chances of getting the English speaking world to change the spelling of RAMEN to the correct LAMEN are slim, very slim, quixotically slim, impossibly slim, slin as a LAMEN noodle, but hey, let’s try. That’s what language is all about: trying to set things right!]