Discussion Post 6

As I have discussed in my previous discussion post, the Korean Language was created by King Sejong in 1446 to improve the overall literacy level of the Korean Population, as the official written language, Chinese, was too complicated and difficult to learn and study. The creation of Hangul altered the language family of Korean completely, but there are still many recognizable element of the language that relates to Chinese, and due to the influence of Japanese Colonialism in the 19^th and 20^th century, there are also many similar elements of Korean in comparison to Japanese.

There is a consensus among linguists that Korean belongs to the Altaic language family, which originated in northern Asia, including Mongol, Turkic, Finnish, Hungarian, and Tungusic (Manchu).

I suspect that due to same root that Korean and Japanese share, the similar grammatical structure, and through the influence of the Japanese culture during the period of Japanese colonialism, there are many words and phrases that were brought into the Korean Language. On the other hand, though the Korean language and Chinese are not related in the terms of grammatical structure, more than 50 percent of all Korean words and vocabularies are derived from Chinese loanwords (popularity人气 rén qì 인기 ingi). This also reflects the cultural dominance of China of over two millennia.

Unlike other languages that have developed naturally, the Korean written language was created by an individual person at a specific point in history. King Sejong’s creation of Hangul may cause some problems for linguists to identify trend of language development, but at the same time this action shows how the spoken language connects to the new developed language. Some scholars are also studying the difference between the North and South Korean language, where allegedly the north Koreans are trying to eliminate as many foreign loanwords as possible, and at the same time creating new words. This could also be an interesting field of study for linguists to see how new words are developed to incorporate meaning and replace existing ones.

I know little about North Korea, but the fact they are trying to reform their language is interesting and perhaps suspicious, though not necessarily uniquely so. Top-down language reform sounds a bit like newspeak. I say this because the very act of language reform is not neutral. It draws a line between what is native and what is foreign and, by implication, states what is pollution. Thus language reform has a sociopolitical objective.

Shifting slightly to the more obviously political arena, different political ideas like communism or democracy have been called foreign by various regimes. The argument is something like this: these ideas are from outside and seek to replace our native traditions that are fitted to us as a people. Thus we must reject these foreign ideas and maintain whatever system we have in place at present. I would call this foreign-izing something because in most societies across time, there are trends at play that are similar to communism and democracy, for example. What makes such ideas foreign is their presentation, the words used to market them. While many Americans may want a fair economic system, they reject socialism, which claims to be fair, largely on the packaging of the idea, that is "socialism." They do this, I believe, because it has been foreign-ized. Further, opponents to that which has been called foreign can foreign-ize someone by equating their ideas to those which they oppose.

If there is a movement in North Korea that is foreign-izing Chinese and Japanese words, then it may also be the case that they are doing so for some political objective. While it is probably not the case that North Korea is saying words meaning "love" and "peace" are foreign and need to be cleansed, it is the case that they have the power to do so.

Replies

Christopher J Meike November 27, 2019 at 7:16am

I know little about North Korea, but the fact they are trying to reform their language is interesting and perhaps suspicious, though not necessarily uniquely so. Top-down language reform sounds a bit like newspeak. I say this because the very act of language reform is not neutral. It draws a line between what is native and what is foreign and, by implication, states what is pollution. Thus language reform has a sociopolitical objective.

Shifting slightly to the more obviously political arena, different political ideas like communism or democracy have been called foreign by various regimes. The argument is something like this: these ideas are from outside and seek to replace our native traditions that are fitted to us as a people. Thus we must reject these foreign ideas and maintain whatever system we have in place at present. I would call this foreign-izing something because in most societies across time, there are trends at play that are similar to communism and democracy, for example. What makes such ideas foreign is their presentation, the words used to market them. While many Americans may want a fair economic system, they reject socialism, which claims to be fair, largely on the packaging of the idea, that is "socialism." They do this, I believe, because it has been foreign-ized. Further, opponents to that which has been called foreign can foreign-ize someone by equating their ideas to those which they oppose.

If there is a movement in North Korea that is foreign-izing Chinese and Japanese words, then it may also be the case that they are doing so for some political objective. While it is probably not the case that North Korea is saying words meaning "love" and "peace" are foreign and need to be cleansed, it is the case that they have the power to do so.

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