머시기
Korean
Pronunciation
- (SK Standard/Seoul) IPA(key): [mʌ̹ɕʰiɡi]
- Phonetic hangul: [머시기]
| Romanizations | |
|---|---|
| Revised Romanization? | meosigi |
| Revised Romanization (translit.)? | meosigi |
| McCune–Reischauer? | mŏsigi |
| Yale Romanization? | mesiki |
Etymology
Dialectal variant of 거시기 (geosigi) (“thingy, whatsit; placeholder pronoun and discourse marker”). Jeonnam dialect studies and dialect dictionaries list 머시기 (meosigi) alongside 거시기 (geosigi), 거슥 (geoseuk), 그슥 (geuseuk) as forms ultimately traced back to Middle Korean 므슥 (musuk) (“what; what kind (of thing)”), used as a vague noun or pronoun.
Pronoun
머시기 • (meosigi)
- (Jeolla dialect, dialectal) A vague placeholder pronoun, roughly “thingy, whatsit”, used when the speaker cannot or does not want to name something explicitly.
Interjection
머시기 • (meosigi)
- (Jeolla dialect, dialectal) A discourse filler or hesitation marker, functionally similar to 거시기 (geosigi), used to stall for time, soften an utterance, or introduce a new topic.
See also
Further reading
- “머시기”, in Wordrow 사투리 사전. (Jeolla dialect entry glossing 머시기 as a variant of 표준어 거시기.)
- 국립국어원 온라인 문의: “거시기와 머시기의 쓰임”. (Explains 머시기 as a dialectal form related to 거시기, derived from 서남방언 forms of “무엇”.)
- 이태영 (2003), “‘거시기’의 열풍”, 국립국어원. (Discussion of 거시기 and related placeholder forms including 머시기.)
- 고형숙 (2013), 국어 방언의 담화 표지, 박이정. (Includes a chapter on the discourse markers 거시기 and 머시기 in southwestern dialects.)
- 이태성 (2019), “전남 방언 담화 표지 연구”, 석사학위논문(조선대학교). (Analyses the discourse-marker uses of 거시기 and notes Jeonnam variants such as 머시기.)