by 
Anonymous
ANSWERS: 1
-
The etymology of this racial slur is shrouded in mystery, disagreement, and controversy. The Oxford English Dictionary admits that its origin in "unknown," but that isn’t quite fessing up to true complexity of the matter. It is generally agreed that the term was coined by the US military, the question is: In which war? The farthest back that its genesis is likely to have occurred was the Filipino uprising of 1899. The American soldiers are said to have referred to the natives as "gugus," playing off a Tagalog word meaning "tutelary spirit." Was this "gugu" slur passed along by the US military for two generations until the outbreak of the Korean War? It is unclear, but during that conflict the term "gook" emerged in its current form. The Korean language has a suffix, "kuk," (phonetically "gook") that means person, and seems to be a likely source for an entirely new coinage, perhaps completely unrelated to "gugus." http://kpearson.faculty.tcnj.edu/Dictionary/gook.htm
RELATED QUESTIONS
Copyright 2023, Wired Ivy, LLC