Korean Bamboo English

T HE ARMISTICE which put an end to the Korean 'police action' was signed in July, 1953. Although some seven years have elapsed since then, little attention has been paid to the language of the American soldier who served during the Korean hostilities. The only study of post-Korean army language is that of Arthur Norman, who has published two articles about the Japanese influence on American speech in Japan.' The present account of the special vocabulary of the American GI in Korea is the product of random notes and remembered occurrences and consequently far from complete; perhaps others who have had experience in that part of the world will also record what they know of 'Korean' slang before this peculiar form of linguistic behavior is forgotten, even by those who once practiced it. The slang of the Korean GI was time-honored army talk with a gilding of Japanese and Korean borrowings. This traditional army slang sometimes suffered a sea change in its transit across the Pacific and acquired new uses in its new environment. In addition, -many of the GI's had had prior service in Japan and had there learned the elements of Bamboo English, a Japanese slang which was intelligible to the Koreans because of the long Japanese occupation of the peninsula. Korean Bamboo English was a form of oral communication; it had no proper written form. Consequently, in recording Korean and Japanese words I have generally used an impressionistic spelling; however, for the former I have occasionally employed the McCune-Reischauer romanization.