i apple

here's a fun fact about korean.

first, i will say that there are numberless amounts of korean words that come from english, and therefore, they sound like the english. here's an example of a word that was more cleverly adapted from english into korean:


the korean word 사과하다 (sah gwah hah dah) means "to apologize"

the noun form of this word is 사과 (sah gwah), meaning "apology" or "apple"

also, notice the strong resemblance between the english words "apology" to "apple"

so, in the same way that "apology" and "apple" sound similar in english, they sound (and are spelled) exactly the same in korean! so in a strange way, the korean "to apologize" literally means "to apple" or "to do apple."

now, it is certainly plausible to say that this is coincidence. however, given the face-saving, non-apologizing culture of korea, i would say it's more likely they didn't already have the exact word "apology" before english broke out in korea.

of course, they do have a word for "sorry," like any language, but i think "apology" and its verbal counterpart are often used in slightly different contexts than just "sorry".

so, maybe koreans felt they needed to add a word to their language, but didn't want it to sound like our word. some clever people probably thought, "oh, that english word sounds like apple! i'm gonna use korean's word for "apple," too!"

so, the next time i have to apologize to a korean, i'm gonna bring an apple along :)