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Hellbound and Squid Game fame causes dalgona, tteokbokki, and more words to be added to Oxford dictionary
The Oxford dictionary added more Korean words at the end of December last year, inspired by the huge popularity of K-dramas such as Squid Game season 2.
The global reach of K-dramas has been increasing with each passing year. With the success of 2024 K-dramas such as Season 2 of the survival drama Squid Game and Season 2 of the horror thriller Hellbound, the Oxford English Dictionary has incorporated seven new Korean words. The new additions are: dalgona, hyung, maknae, noraebang, jjigae, tteokbokki, and pansori.
These words are a mixture of food, attributes, and things related to music. The dictionary describes dalgona as "a Korean confection made by adding baking soda to melted sugar, typically sold by street vendors in the form of a flat disc with a simple shape, such as a heart or star, carved on its surface." The word dalgona gained popularity and saw repeated Google searches, thanks to the K-drama Squid Game. An episode from Season 1 of the survival drama featured a game where players had to lick a small dalgona plate to remove the carved shape without breaking it.
Not just K-dramas, but K-pop has also had a significant influence on the addition of Korean words to the Oxford dictionary. The dictionary describes maknae as "the youngest person in a family or group or the youngest member of a K-pop group." With the inclusion of these seven terms, Korean-origin words have made it into the Oxford English Dictionary for the first time in three years.
The last time Korean words were included in the dictionary was in September 2021. Among the 2021 additions were aegyo, banchan, bulgogi, chimaek, daebak, dongchimi, fighting, galbi, hallyu, hanbok, japchae, K-, K-drama, kimbap, Konglish, Korean wave, manhwa, mukbang, noona, oppa, unni, PC bang, samgyeopsal, skinship, tang soo do, and trot.
The Oxford English Dictionary has incorporated around 20 Korean-origin words over the past 45 years, with kimchi, makgeolli, and ondol being the first of the group in 1976. With the growing number of K-pop listeners and K-drama watchers each year, more Korean words are likely to be added to the dictionary in the coming years.
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