THE HISTORY OF THE ORIGIN OF "KONGLISH" AND ITS APPLICATION TO EVERYDAY LIFE

Abstract

Konglish (Korean 콩글리쉬) is officially a Korean-style English language and it is the English language used by Korean speakers. This term is a combination of the sounds of two words with different meanings, the less common terms are Korlish (1988), Korenglish (1992), Korglish (2000) and Kinglish (2000). Konglish contains words that have come into Korean from English, and many of them are incomprehensible to English speakers. A common example is the Korean term 핸드폰 (hand phone) for the English "mobile phone". Straight English words, wrongly translated words from English into Korean, or fake English words imported from Japanese have been used as the “Konglish” words in Korean. The use of “Konglish” is common in South Korea as a result of American cultural influence, but the language is not familiar to North Koreans. English is also present in the domains of main streets, restaurants, and shopping areas in Seoul and the rest of South Korea, where Koreans use English mainly to sociolinguistically express luxury, youth, sophistication, and modernity.