# The word "melungeon" **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 14, 2005, 11:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-word-melungeon/312489 "2005-07-14T11:32:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![mamboman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ecb155/32.png) [@mamboman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mamboman)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2005, 11:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-word-melungeon/312489/1 "2005-07-14T11:32:52Z")
Does anyone know the origin of the word “melungeon”? I heard once that it mean “abandoned by God” but I’m not sure, it was a while ago. Does the word have any other use other than to describe the people of the South Eastern USA? mm ---
**Author:** ![An\_Arky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/87869e/32.png) [@An\_Arky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/An_Arky)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2005, 12:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-word-melungeon/312489/2 "2005-07-14T12:01:11Z")
It is thought that it comes from _meluncan_, which means (IIRC) “cursed soul”, in Turkish, which is about the same thing as “abandoned by God”, I reckon. It is also thought thgat it comes from the French word _melange_. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2005, 12:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-word-melungeon/312489/3 "2005-07-14T12:24:46Z")
I always assumed it came from Italian dialect _melangiani_ ‘eggplant’, used as slang for dark-skinned people. ---
**Author:** ![Crotalus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crotalus/32/41_2.png) [@Crotalus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crotalus)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2005, 12:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-word-melungeon/312489/4 "2005-07-14T12:39:57Z")
\Me\*lun"geon, n. [Cf. F. m['e]langer to mix, m['e]lange a mixture.] One of a mixed white and Indian people living in parts of Tennessee and the Carolinas. They are descendants of early intermixtures of white settlers with natives. In North Carolina the Croatan Indians, regarded as descended from Raleigh’s lost colony of Croatan, formerly classed with negroes, are now legally recognized as distinct. [http://dictionary.reference.com/search?r=66&q=Melungeon](http://dictionary.reference.com/search?r=66&q=Melungeon) ---
**Author:** ![Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e47c2d/32.png) [@Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biffy_the_Elephant_Shrew)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2005, 12:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-word-melungeon/312489/5 "2005-07-14T12:43:03Z")
I only understood this word to mean a mixed-race person. According to my dictionary, it comes from the French _mélangé_, mixed. ---
**Author:** ![mamboman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ecb155/32.png) [@mamboman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mamboman)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2005, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-word-melungeon/312489/6 "2005-07-14T19:33:08Z")
> [@An Arky](#): > > It is thought that it comes from _meluncan_, which means (IIRC) “cursed soul”, in Turkish, which is about the same thing as “abandoned by God”, I reckon. > > It is also thought thgat it comes from the French word _melange_. That was my understanding, that the word was of Turkish or perhaps Moorish derivation. Ta! mm ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Slant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c57346/32.png) [@Mr.Slant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Slant)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2005, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-word-melungeon/312489/7 "2005-07-14T22:01:24Z")
Quick googling of “meluncan” turned up an academic paper on these people at: [http://www.colorado.edu/iec/FALL299RW/can.html](http://www.colorado.edu/iec/FALL299RW/can.html) The author thinks of the melucan/melungeon people as being Turkish in origin. ---
**Author:** ![samclem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2005, 1:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-word-melungeon/312489/8 "2005-07-15T01:25:30Z")
The current thinking among etymologist is that the origin of the word is still unknown and in dispute. There is NO DOUBT that it refers to : > [@](#): > > A member of a North American people of mixed white, black, and American Indian descent, inhabiting the southern Appalachian mountains of the eastern United States. This from the OED. Their earliest cite in print is > [@](#): > > 1813 Minute Bk. Stony Creek Baptist Church 26 Sept. in [searches.rootsweb.com/](http://searches.rootsweb.com/) (O.E.D. Archive), Then came forward Sister Kitchen and complained to the church against Susanna Stallard for saying she harbored them Melungins (Melungeons). I personally doubt the Turkish association. Douglas Wilson, a member of the American Dialect Society, and a valued contributor to the Mailing List there, posits this: > [@](#): > > I’m not convinced about “melungeon” however: the “g” is not the same “g” as > in “malungo”. Origin from “melange” seems phonetically and semantically > believable, and “melange” is old in English, so you don’t need to involve > any Frenchmen. My own wild guess, however, is “Melungeon” \< “Mulatto” + > “Indian”/“Injun”. That was from [http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0304C&L=ADS-L&D=0&I=-3&P=12468](http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0304C&L=ADS-L&D=0&I=-3&P=12468). He was responding to my bringing this up from a previous post about this to the SDMB. Ignore Doug at your peril. He’s solved many a mysterious word question. He thinks out of the box. And that sometimes is the key. ---
**Author:** ![An\_Arky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/87869e/32.png) [@An\_Arky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/An_Arky)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2005, 11:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-word-melungeon/312489/9 "2005-07-15T11:16:34Z")
[Here’s](http://www.melungeon.org/index.cgi?&CONTEXT=cat&cat=10073) an article that has some breakdown of DNA for some Melungeons. Interesting. There’s a Middle Eastern component, as suspected, but not so much Native American or African. ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2005, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-word-melungeon/312489/10 "2005-07-15T14:22:44Z")
> [@](#): > > My own wild guess, however, is “Melungeon” \< “Mulatto” + > “Indian”/“Injun”. That actually sounds like a pretty good guess. It seems like just the way some backwoodsmen might invent a name for dark-skinned mountaineers of unknown ancestry. While “melange” sounds similar to “Melungeon,” it’s hard to imagine the steps by which the former might have evolved into the latter.