A question

[Laura Miller]

I don't know the etymology of "gook," and suspect that Jim Stanlaw might know something about it,  since he has investigated various English-based pidgins in East Asia. But in regards to Peter Patrick's note about Japanese and Mandarin "cognates," please keep in mind that Japanese and Korean are Altaic languages, and not related to the Sinitic language family. They simply borrowed a writing system and some lexicon.


>>> P L Patrick <patrickp at essex.ac.uk> 10/08/01 13:36 PM >>>
david's reference may outdate this guess of a response, but I ahven't
seen it yet...
	I don't know about US contact with Korea pre-1935. But if it is
not plausible as a source in that timeframe, then S China may be
possible. The Mandarin and Japanese cognates (I assume, since they are
all so similar) for Korean 'gok' have been noted, and this suggests--
sicne S China varieties are generally quite historically conservative--
that maybe Cantonese etc have the velar-final form equivalent to
Mandarin /guo/. Anyone on the list know Cantonese? (I could look it up
but am pressed just now).
	Of course there was tons of US contact with Macao, Canton etc
well back into the 19th century so no problem for the timeframe. And of
course the word was used for people of Chinese ethnicity as well, eg in
the Viet Nam war. So that is a possible origin... Now, anyone who has
David's source, could you please settle the suspense?
	-p-

Prof. Peter L. Patrick
Dept. of Language & Linguistics
University of Essex
Wivenhoe Park
COLCHESTER CO4 3SQ
U.K.

Tel: (from within UK) 01206.87.2088
    (from outside UK) +44.1206.87.2088
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Email: patrickp at essex.ac.uk
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