Chris
Having recently returned to Canada after 4 years in Korea, I find myself using Korean variations for English words without realizing it. This form of language is known as “Konglish” (McPhail, 2018), and basically describes words that have been appropriated from English, and repackaged into Korean. Sometimes the words are shortened, distorted or have their meanings completely changed. This would explain the reason that when I go hiking, I cheer on others with a hearty “paiting !”, while simultaneously throwing an energetic fist into the air. “Paiting” being the English derivative of “fighting” or meaning to do battle, but in this case is used as encouragement. It basically means “you can do it!”. In English we can fight a foe, for love, or even an illness but we cannot fight a mountain. So the word has been taken out of context and has even changed a bit since Hangul (the Korean alphabet) cannot compensate for the sound made by our letter “f”.
I would be remiss to say that is the only Konglish I find myself using. Just the other day, I asked a friend if he wanted to go to the “health”. What I really wanted to know was if he wanted to go to the gym. “Health” is the Korean slang term for “gym”, and I’ve always assumed that it’s short for “health club”. Another word I find myself throwing out there is the word “service”. In Korean, “service” is something that is generally offered for free, such as a small gift or a sample. It is shortened from the English term “self-service”, where someone will generally help themselves. In English, there is no implication that self-service means free (such as a self-service gas pump). However, the meaning has changed and in Korea “service” is always free, and is usually offered to you. An example of this is when I would visit my local fruit vendor, and she would slip a few extra apples into my bag as “service”.
One thing that I realized with all three of these words, and a lot of Konglish in general, is that when somebody is not familiar with it, they can usually piece together the meaning themselves. The context might be different, but it’s usually quite closely tied to the original one. I also think that body language has a lot to do with it. I think that if I changed my encouraging tone to an angry one, when I said “paiting”, it would elicit a very different reaction.
I was wondering if there were English words that have been adopted, and perhaps changed in other languages; or if people have had similar experiences. Please feel free to share !
Reference
McPhail, S. (2018). South Korea’s Linguistic Tangle: English vs. Korean vs. Konglish: A study of the relative status of Konglish and its parent languages in South Korea. English Today, 34(1), 45-51.
Hi, Chris, this is Yunjie. I have to when reading the first paragraph, I couldn’t help laughing because I am now faced with the same situation. As a K-pop fan, I have watched Korean variety shows and listened Korean songs for many years. During the time, I picked some Korean including “fighting”. Not only I, but also many other Chinese people now understand the meaning of “fighting” and use it a lot in the daily life. The question is, “fighting” has been rooted in my mind so deeply that I nearly forget how to express the same meaning in English!
This is not an exception. I have learned English for more than ten years at school and have never ever learned Japanese or Korean systematically and formally. But every time I want to say something specifically, I would speak Japanese or Korean. NOT Chinese. NOT English. For example, when I want to say “are you crazy”, I would say “미쳤어”; when I want to ask “is that ture/really”, I would say “本当に” or “진짜”; when I want to say “never mind”, I would say “大丈夫” or “괜찮아”. I think part of reason why I could say those words without thinking is that, firstly, they are very short, simple, and catchy that one could remember and use very easily. And they are also very “powerful” and emotional, which impress people greatly.
Hi, Chris! Your hearty “paiting !” is very cute, when I read it, my mind was brought back to the time when I started learning English. I remember there were several English words, whose pronunciations somehow were very familiar for me the first time I met them. Then my teacher told me because they were the loanwords borrowed from English. For example, 巴(bā)士(shì)—-bus；的(dī)士(shì)—-taxi；迷(mí)你(nǐ)—-mini; 巧(qiǎo)克(kè)力(lì)—-chocolate；吉(jí)普(pǔ)—-jeep；西(xī)冷(lěng)—-sirloin ect. Their pronunciation is very similar to English because these words use Chinese characters as phonetic characters to represent their original pronunciations. However, similar to what you have talked about ”fighting” and “paiting” with regard to Hangul (the Korean alphabet), Pinyin (Chinese phonetic alphabet) cannot exactly make the sound of English alphabet, accordingly, there are still differences when I speak “巴(bā)士(shì)” instead of “bus”.
—-Dantong
Thanks, Chris and friends—I am learning a lot from these conversations. I had NO idea this was happening in Korean. There are historical parallels, probably many. The one I am most familiar with is the phenomenon of South Asian English (SAE), which is now a recognized variety. Many SAE words and expressions arose in ways very similar to what you describe. Similarly, South Asian languages are full of “nativized” loanwords…the list is endless…check out any Bollywood movie!