“The Oxford Dictionary adds new foreign words: what it’s all about Seven new Korean words have been added to the Oxford English Dictionary, including “dalgona” and “maknae”. This reflects the growing influence of Korean culture in the English-speaking world.”, — write on: unn.ua
Details
In particular, in the December 2024 update, seven Korean words were added to the dictionary – “dalgona”, “hyung”, “noraebang”, “maknae”, “jjigae”, “tteokbokki” and “pansori”.
As indicated, this is not the first time that Korean words have entered the Oxford Dictionary. So, for example, in 2021, 26 Korean terms were added to the dictionary, including “K-drama”, “Hallyu”, “mukbang” and “daebak”.
Among the seven new terms this year, “dalgona” is defined as “a Korean confection made by adding baking soda to melted sugar, usually sold by street vendors as a flat disk with a simple shape carved into its surface, such as a heart, star, etc.” Such a delicacy is well known to fans of the TV series “Squid Game”, where one of the games was to cut figures from “dalgona”.
As an example of using the word in a sentence, the dictionary presented an article from the Boston Globe from October 2022: “Netflix just released ‘The Squid Game,’ a Korean hit that has fans ‘flocking’ to ‘dalgona’ candy. Many have turned to TikTok to recreate inexpensive sweet treats.”
Another addition – “maknae” is defined as “the youngest person in a family or group; (now) specifically, the youngest member of a K-pop band”.
The dictionary is reportedly already considering more Korean words for future updates, including “haenyeo” (female divers from Jeju Island), “ajumma” (middle-aged women) and “bingsu” (shaved ice dessert).
We will remind
Oxford Dictionaries chose the term “brain rot” as the word of the year 2024 after 37,000 people voted. The term describes a deterioration in mental state due to excessive consumption of online content.