From the WSJ:
The most devoted uploader [to YouTube] is Christy Leigh Stewart, a 21-year-old college student who lives near Modesto, Calif., and who has so far uploaded nearly 2,000 videos. Nearly all involve Korean pop music, a passion of Ms. Stewart. Indeed, she says the main reason she spends too much time with YouTube is to drive traffic to hwaiting.net, a Korean-oriented Web site she runs with her friend Megan Hansen.
(HT to reader)
7 Comments
Wow! She really scored a good domain name, too. She could probably auction that off eventually for a good deal of money if she wanted to.
Now, all her website needs is an FAQ to explain how the heck 화이팅 (from English “fighting”???) entered the Korean language.
…Just answering my own question, but in case anyone’s wondering:
According to this page—part of a campaign to replace words of non-Korean (including Chinese) origin with native Korean terms—화이팅 comes from Japanese:
http://www.hanmalgeul.org/geul.....amp;no=155
It would appear to come from the Japanese expression faito (ファイト; http://jpdic.naver.com/jpdic.n.....id=1085294), which can be used as an interjection in the same sense as 화이팅 (or 파이팅) is used in Korean (http://kin.naver.com/db/detail.php?d1id=6&dir_id=601&eid=19rjPnr8gSn9W+L6TjozUM0+e/pJTraO&qb=yK3AzMbDIKvVq6GrpKvI). Faito comes from the English “fight.”
Language is a living thing, thus is ever changing. It is almost madness to attempt to “purify” a language in that it reflects the times and conditions of a culture. I will say I find it strange for some Korean businesses to Hangul-ize certain words (write English out in Hangul) when perfectly good Korean words are available.
Oh, any attempt to purify a language is surely pie-in-the-sky. Imagine if there were a movement in English to use only words of Germanic origin; to root out all words from Latin, Greek, French, Hindi, etc., and replace them with good Old English words. A fun way to while away a couple of hours over a few beers in a bar, maybe, but hardly worth spending any serious time on promoting.
But, yes, I agree that using Konglish words when there are already widely accepted Korean words for the same concepts doesn’t make much sense. All it does is help to further the hopelessly misleading illusion among naive English speakers that English is actually widely used in Korea!
Lemme just say that you run with strange company. Most of us barely know any Old English, and here, you’re making a drinking game out of it.
Yeah, I should have added the qualification, “…if you’re a geek….”