Talk:탐정

Etymology

@Tibidibi, Suzukaze-c, TAKASUGI Shinji, other KO editors --

Is this term actually from Japanese 探偵 (tantei)? The pronunciation suggests that this is just another Sino-Korean compound. I see in the KDJ entry that the Japanese term is only attested from the late 1870s. The detective gloss misses some nuance from the Japanese meaning, which has more emphasis on sneakiness, which dovetails with the scout, spy sense.

Is it possible that the Japanese term is one of the Meiji-era terms that arose as new coinages or repurposings of older Chinese-based words? ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 22:07, 1 December 2021 (UTC)