Ryoukai

Posted by GPP October 26, 2003In reply to No. 20 posted by ESC on October 26, 2003

Adding No. 19 - It came from the Japanese word: ryoukai.

No. 20. (From post on Oct. 22) OK has a Turkish origin.

I was just wondering. It can always go the other way, and I had no idea OK dates back to the 1840s.

More likely ryoukai comes from the english. It's just odd to me that the Japanese would use such in military communications?

Oh well, I guess there realy is no way to know.

That's what makes it interesting. Thanks for posting.

I am informed by an amateur Orientalist that 'ryoukai' means 'understand, comprehend' in Japanese, and has a common root with a related word in Chinese, both antedating not only the expression 'OK' but also the English language as we know it. If 'OK' can be dated in print to 1839 -- regardless of its origin -- and Matthew Perry didn't open Japan and its culture and language to the West until 1854, we appear to have a small dating problem with this suggestion.