define:melungeon

OK, watching Weird USA last nite/this morning, I learned the existence of a word of which I'd never heard - "melungeon" - whose meaning seems, to me, a more specific type of mulatto. Googling for a definition brings up a lone Wikipedia entry. Yet another example of serendipity?

• In May 2005, while looking for who all might be of mixed Japanese-black ancestry because of international nite @ Jordan's school, I bumped into a list of largely known, or safely-guessed-at terms at MixedFolks.com.
• I have this unattached interest in "invisible" ethnic minorities such as Japan's Burakumin.

All of which connect to my fascination w/ linguistic anomalies as in foreign accent syndrome, regionalisms and translation idiosyncracies as described in "Minority Wonders" and "Lost in Translation".