Oppa, Skinship. Daebak!

On 6 October 2021, the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) officially added 26 Korean words to the official OED. It also revised 11 Korean words including K-Pop and kimchi.

The Korean wave has been sweeping across first in Asia and then globally for the past 20 years. Coincidentally, the word Hallyu (from the Chinese words 韩流). With the success of K-Pop bands like BTS, movies like Oscar award winner ‘Parasite’ and now the phenomenally popular ‘Squid Game’, it is not surprising that the commonly used K-words are now officially recognized. So next time you play Scrabble, you can use your tiles and form the words like ‘aegyo’, ‘mukbang’ without batting your eyelids.

What I was surprised to learn was that K-pop had an earlier entry, whereas K-drama was only just added. I guess K-pop received much notice because of Psy, Blackpink and BTS in the western countries. But in Asia, it was K-drama that started the whole craze.

‘Autumn in My Heart’, ‘Jewel in the Palace’, ‘Princess Hours’ were popular. But none as big as ‘Winter Sonata’. the drama that started it all in 2002. The star of the drama, Bae Yong Joon was covered extensively in all the media when he embarked on his Asia Tour in 2004. In fact, according to OED, the term K-drama was first mentioned in Straits Times in 2002. No doubt the article was probably referring to rising popularity of the Korean dramas on Channel U back then.

The 26 words added to OED in September 2021 are: