Talk:List of English words of Korean origin

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"Cut a chogi"? Google turns up only 6 results, of which 2 are from an expat blog and 1 is this page. Absent some other form of verifiability, I don't think this term belongs here. -- Visviva 04:49, 3 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

As a general rule, I would like to add more words to this list.
However, if any word is so obscure, like "cut a chogi", I believe we have to delete it too. I don't see any entries containing "chogi" in Merriam-Webster Online nor American Heritage Dictionary. If it's not in OED (Oxford English Dictionary) either, you should definitely delete it. User:Nohat was extremely helpful, looking up the OED for us, when I did a major cleanup of the List of English words of Japanese origin. I'll ask him if he can help.
Also, Nohat has devised a 3-part test, to determine if words should be included on the list. The test is as follows:
  1. Does the word occur in English texts with any regularity?
  2. Is it listed in any major English dictionaries?
  3. Is the word used by people who don't speak the foreign language?
As long as a word robustly meets at least one of these criteria, it should be included.
Nohat says "This criterion has been used successfully on many other of these pages."--Endroit 15:36, 3 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
As with a lot of Korean words, the romanization varies. Chogi is correct per the wikipedia naming conventions, but there are equally many search results on the internet at large for "cut a chogie", "chogee", and "chogey" (though "chogee" primarily returns references to a racial slur of Australian origin).
It probably does not appear in any dictionary, but it seems to be widespread as military slang during the mid-20th century. AKADriver 17:09, 1 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

NPOV?[edit]

I'm curious if anyone knows why this tag was added. -- Visviva 00:24, 7 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • I didn't add it and it's probably not the best tag for the situation, but looking at the list, it's pretty clear that many, many words don't fit the definition of an 'English' word. They may be words that have been used in

English at some point to describe something about Korea or Korean culture, but that's far different from being an English word. Go to Talk:List of English words of Japanese origin to see how fun these discussions are once they start.--Hraefen 19:09, 7 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Can we use the NPOV tag here? I have my own doubts. Some other legend describing the position is to be divised for such issues. --Bhadani 10:28, 14 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

By the way, whatever in there in a good up-dated dictinary of English language should qualify to be an English word - the language is a dynamic thing, and it continues to absorb words from diffirent sources. --Bhadani 10:30, 14 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

ok, cutting to the chase, who disputes the contents of the article as it is now, & which entries for what reason? might as well try to resolve the dispute, or just remove the tag. Appleby 17:18, 14 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Someone needs to verify that each word actually occurs in at least one major English dictionary. Nohat 19:05, 14 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

shouldn't the person disputing explain what he/she disputes? i see it was added by an anonymous editor no longer participating. i propose to remove the tag until there actually is an articulated dispute. personally, i'm not sure of a few of the entries, but i think that's something that can be discussed in talk without making the dispute tag a permanent feature at the top of the article. Appleby 19:31, 14 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

New romanisations[edit]

Someone has just updated the romanisations of some of the words, e.g. changing kimchi to gimchi. I think this is incorrect because this is a list of English words. It isn't a list of Korean words and their current romanisations. The correct English spelling is currently 'kimchi' (1.8 million Google hits), not 'gimchi' (23,700 Google hits). The English spelling might change, but it hasn't at this time. Maxchristian 11:29, 3 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Sijo[edit]

I believe that sijo is not well known in any English speaking region. If any genre of Korean traditional vocal music is known in the English speaking world it's pansori (thanks to the films "Seopyeonje" and "Chunhyang," and "pansori" certainly isn't an English word, as generally only specialist listeners such as ethnomusicologists or those familiar with Korean culture know about it. So the question is, how and why did sijo get added to this list? Badagnani 06:55, 4 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

English words?... really?[edit]

Most of the words aren't really English words, as they are mostly popular transliterations of Korean things. Most, if not all are only Korean-related. The only "English word" I see is Korea, which happens to be the most popular among these "English words." Kimchi counts also, as it is recognized by authoritative English dictionaries because of its popularity. Similarly taekwondo (also spelled tae kwon do by various dictionaries, scholars, writers, etc.) counts because of its inclusion in authoritative dictionaries.

Also, "Cut a chogi", even if true, is not an English word. It would qualify as English slang, like something that would be defined in Urban Dictionary. We need some linguists here for articles like this. A transliteration does not become an English word unil it gains widespread use and acceptance. Tofu (Japanese, from Chinese) is an example. It's not dooboo (from Korean) or doufu (from Chinese).

I'll be happy to see "cut a chogi," never properly verified, disappear from this list. However, I don't think "being a phrase" is grounds for exclusion -- ask a linguist about the problematic nature of "wordness."
For the other words, I'm not sure what criteria you're suggesting. If "presence in at least one print English dictionary" is a criterion, then "kisaeng," "shijo," and "kalbi" certainly qualify. "Chobo" and "gosu" probably would not, but that has more to due to with their relationship to internet gaming than anything. If "being used in non-Korean contexts" is a requirement, then "kimchi," "chobo" and "gosu" might be the only words on the list that could qualify.
I think you probably are right about "bibimbap" and "bulgogi." -- Visviva 10:50, 17 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Revision[edit]

I revised this article because half of the words listed were not in any dictionary that I used. I also would like to entirely delete the "Martial Arts" terminology because those are just Korean words.221.154.11.149 15:37, 6 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I've added back "Kisaeng" and "Sijo" because they are in the Webster's Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged. Merriam-Webster, 2002 http://unabridged.merriam-webster.com (subscription required).--Endroit 18:15, 6 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • I support the deletion of the excessive "Martial Arts" section, which are NOT English words at all.--Endroit 18:15, 6 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

2007-02-7 Automated pywikipediabot message[edit]

--CopyToWiktionaryBot 08:38, 7 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

These aren't loan words...[edit]

They are just foods (in general) which are not loanwords...delete the whole article. There are simple not Korean loanwords in English. 71.123.191.252 04:43, 2 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Taekwondo[edit]

Is the Chinese character version correct? (胎拳道)? My dictionary lists it as 跆拳道, and this version also has more hits on Google. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.40.193.20 (talk) 13:19, 20 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Your version is correct. The current character for 태 means "womb", which gives 胎拳道 the oddly humorous meaning "womb fist way", which I suppose could be a euphemism for back-alley abortions. ;) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.184.211.170 (talk) 03:52, 6 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

two ideas[edit]

One, I don't know any other word than "Hagwan" for a sort of after-school school, a private school that kids attend after their regular school is over so that they never have to stop going to school until they drop from exhaustion. Anyone who speaks English and refers to these schools so far as I know has to either thrash about to describe them, use an inadaquate English word term like "night school" or "institute" or some other thing that doesn't bring up the right referent to the English-speakers mind, or uses the word "hagwan".

Second, isn't the term "brain-washing" a litteral translation from the Korean?

Just thoughts...Chrisrus (talk) 06:11, 23 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

You've never heard of a "cram school?" The term seems fairly widespread, to me. There's already a Wikipedia page, and it get 400,000 results on Google. JohnDavidWard (talk) 07:23, 15 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Evidence for use in English[edit]

While there are a few words of patently obvious borrow and common use in english (kimchee, taekwondo, hapkido, hantavirus (sort of)), and a few words which have decent citations for their use (chaebol, soju: gosu in the target article), i question the other words on this list, and would ask for better references in this list and in the target article. Korea may qualify, as they call themselves korea, and we often dont directly transliterate country names (japan instead of nippon, etc), but hangul seems doubtful, as only students of the korean language would use it, thats not a field that would qualify as a borrow. Kisaeng is not accessible at the MW site, may not be a word there. the target article doesnt indicate its use in english at all. Bibimbap, Galbi, Kimbap show no refs, and main articles dont indicate english usage. (Maybe they are used, and bibimbap may be familiar, but no refs exist yet. Bulgogi needs to be added (it is sold prepackaged at Trader Joe's, as an example). chobo has no refs in article. Hwabyeong is ONLY used by DSM to describe people in korea suffering from this illness. thats a special use, that is completely culture bound to korea, I dont think its a proper borrow. Im writing this to encourage people to provide better references, so that anyone reading this wont think its just some koreaphile groups idea of borrow words. I wont remove any.(i will add bulgogi).Mercurywoodrose (talk) 03:24, 25 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The Jindo, and others[edit]

There are several dogs from Korea known by no other name than their Korean name. The Jindo, for example. Chrisrus (talk) 02:44, 6 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

According to Category:Dog_breeds_originating_in_Korea, Wikipedia knows of the following dog breeds with no English word for them except the Korean word for them, the Jeju, the Jindo, the Nureongi, the Pungsan and the Sapsali. Should we add these words to the list? Chrisrus (talk) 21:40, 6 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

chogi![edit]

likely the only word so ingrained into English (a la amok, boondocks) that ppl don't immediately think "Korean loan word". it should be FIRST on a list like this!

where is it?! 209.172.25.34 (talk) 19:50, 23 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]


I first learned the expression "cutta chogi" in Japan in 1959 when I was in the USAF. We used it to mean "Let's get out of here." I always thought it was Japanese. Now, 58 years later curiosity led me to look it up. The meaning of the word "chogi," defined by a Japanese friend, was "over there." My tutor did not mention it being of Korean origin.

i dunno what kind of "japanese friend" this is, b/c he was answering IN KOREAN! japanese word for over there is "asoko". korean is the lang with yogi and chogi for here and there.
a way with words covered it, btw: https://www.waywordradio.org/cut-a-chogi
really needs to be added to article! 66.30.47.138 (talk) 00:33, 21 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]