거문도

Sino-Korean word from 巨文島, from 巨 (“great”) + 文 (“learning”) + 島 (“island”). Until the late nineteenth century, the islands were simply called 삼도 (三島, Samdo, “three islands”). At least on the level of the central government, the name change appears to have been influenced by the new name being used by Qing China during the 1885—1887 Geomundo crisis.

According to local oral history, the current name was coined by Chinese admiral Ding Ruchang in 1885 during a conversation with a certain local village leader, who impressed him with his knowledge of 文言 (wényán, “Literary Chinese”) despite living in such a desolate area.^[1]

However, in an 1885 letter to the Korean court, Li Hongzhang refers to the islands both as 거문도 (巨文島, Geomundo) and as the semantically meaningless 거마도 (巨磨島, Geomado), which suggests that the oral history is simply a folk etymology and the name is actually a transcription of a Korean word. This is probably 검은 (geomeun, “black”), as there are a group of rocks called 백도 (白島, Baekdo, “white islands”) not far from Geomundo.

• (SK Standard/Seoul) IPA^(key):
• Phonetic hangul:
  • Though still prescribed in Standard Korean, most speakers in both Koreas no longer distinguish vowel length.

거문도 • (Geomundo) (hanja 巨文島)

1. Geomundo (a small group of islands in the Jeju Strait off the southern coast of the Korean Peninsula)
2. the largest island in this group, more often called 고도(古島) (Godo)