A question

[Richard J. Senghas]

[Again, just forwarding this; please don't reply to me. -RJS]
====================================

Date: Fri, 05 Oct 2001 01:21:31 -0400
From: andy j <jocunsa at georgetown.edu>
To: "Kenneth N. Ehrensal" <ehrensal at kutztown.edu>
CC: Bambi Schieffelin <bs4 at nyu.edu>, linganth at ats.rochester.edu
Subject: Re: A question

A fellow linguist friend from Korea had the following to say about it:

"Gook" in "Mee-gook" and other Korean words means 'country' . For example,
we call Korean "han gook" and China "Chung Gook"   The word "mee gook"
literally means "beautiful Country".  I never heard that Gook is  a racial
slur for Koreans.  do you ever use Gook to refer to Koreans or something
else? makes me curious.  I never heard anyone saying it.

Also gook means soup in Korean.

I hope this helps

"Kenneth N. Ehrensal" wrote:

> Well, I put "mee-gook" into the Google search engine and came up with the
> following link
>  http://newswatch.sfsu.edu/guide/m.html
> which is at San Fran. State U. and it seems to confirm what your student
> said.
>
> Ken
> **************************************************************
> America Works Best When We Say, "Union YES!"
> **************************************************************
>
> Ken Ehrensal
> Associate Professor
> Management Department
> Kutztown University
> (610) 683.4599
> ehrensal at kutztown.edu
> http://www.kutztown.edu/~ehrensal
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Bambi Schieffelin" <bs4 at nyu.edu>
> To: <linganth at ats.rochester.edu>
> Sent: Thursday, 04 October, 2001 11:18 AM
> Subject: A question
>
> > One of my students heard the following, and was wondering if any of it was
> > true - any ideas or is this a language myth?
> >
> > Gook, a racial slur for Koreans comes from the Korean word for "America".
> > Supposedly, when the troops landed in Korean during the Korean war, they
> > heard local people saying "mee-gook" (America/USA) and assumed they were
> > speaking English.
> >
> >
> > Thanks - Bambi