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Kim Jong-Un has a mission to eliminate bourgeois, foreign, and southern terminology. This story in the Daily Mail by Sabrina Penty, citing the Daily NK, is hardly scholarly, but it gives some examples, and there are other stories online. The Metro in the UK reported that "I love you" (discovered in a love letter during a routine Big-Brother check by the Socialist Patriotic Youth League) was subject to severe state criticism. "Hamburger" has to be called something else (dajin-gogi gyeopppang [double bread with ground beef]) in Korean. "Karaoke" is too Japanese (try "on-screen accompaniment machines" instead). But the most interesting ban was on the phrase "ice cream" ("aiseukeurim 아이스크림). Kim wants it replaced by eseukimo. But doesn't this show that the dear leader is weak on etymology? Isn't it transparently a Koreanized borrowing of English eskimo?
"Eskimo" raises all sorts of questions:
Attested since 1584, from French Esquimau, ultimately from an Old Montagnais term. Ives Goddard's theory, accepted by most linguists today, is that it derives from Montagnais ayaškimew (“snowshoe-netter”). An older theory, defended by John Steckley due to its greater acceptance in Native oral traditions, but discredited[3] by linguists, is that it derives from a term meaning "eater(s) of raw meat".
Usage Note: Eskimo has long been criticized as an offensive term, and many Americans either avoid it or feel uncomfortable using it. In Canada, where Eskimo is especially frowned on, the only acceptable term is Inuit, and Americans have generally come to prefer this name too, knowing it to be a term of ethnic pride. But it is not always understood that Inuit cannot substitute for Eskimo in all cases, being restricted in proper usage to the Inuit-speaking peoples of Arctic Canada and parts of Greenland. In southwest Alaska and Arctic Siberia, where Inuit is not spoken, the comparable term is Yupik, which has not gained as wide a currency in English as Inuit. While use of these more specific terms is generally preferable when speaking of the appropriate linguistic group, none of them can be used of the Eskimoan peoples as a whole; the only inclusive term remains Eskimo. · The claim that Eskimo is offensive is often supported by citing a popular etymology tracing its origin to an Abenaki word meaning "eaters of raw meat." Though modern linguists speculate that the term may actually derive from a Montagnais word referring to the manner of lacing a snowshoe, the matter remains undecided, and meanwhile many English speakers have learned to perceive Eskimo as a derogatory term invented by outsiders in scornful reference to their neighbors' eating habits. See Usage Note at Inuit.
(American Heritage Dictionary 5th ed.)
See also Wikipedia for extensive notes on "eskimo" as an exonym, recent theories about its etymology, and examples of its usage,
One thing is certain, eseukimo. doesn't mean "ice cream", except in the dear leader's febrile mind.
Selected readings
- "In North Korea, it's a dire crime to speak like a South Korean, part 2" (7/3/23)
- "In North Korea, it's a dire crime to speak like a South Korean" (4/21/23)
- "Hockey language divergence between North Korea and South Korea" (2/11/18)
- "Some remarks from North Korea on language" (Pinyin News [12/13/07])
- "Ban loan words, says North Korea" (Pinyin News [12/19/08])
- "'Bad' borrowings in North Korean" (12/3/16)
- "Is Korean diverging into two languages?" (11/6/14)
- "Is Korean diverging into two languages?, part 2" (5/4/22)
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