Last weekend, I watched a Korean drama called Welcome to Samdal-ri. It was about a woman who ran a photography company in Seoul, but suddenly had to return back to her hometown in Samdal-ri in Jeju due to her company going out of business. Back in her hometown, she reconnects with all of her family, friends, and her ex-boyfriend whom she tries very hard to avoid due to their nasty breakup years ago. However, she ends up rebuilding a strong bond with her ex-boyfriend which leads to a heartwarming love story between the two.
I enjoyed watching this drama because it allowed me to explore my interest in the Korean language and culture. It showed a very good representation of how people in the countryside and islands live in Korea as I have been to Busan and Jeju, which are in those environments. However, what really piqued my interest was the Korean language in the drama. Most people only know Korean to be spoken in one dialect. However, there are nine dialects spoken in North and South Korea. The standard dialect spoken is Seoul’s dialect, which most Koreans speak. The drama I watched not only incorporated Seoul’s dialect, but also Jeju’s dialect which is the hardest dialect to speak in the Korean language. I was fascinated to see that the actors who speak Seoul’s dialect spoke Jeju’s dialect so well. The dialects are very different from each other in terms of wording and sound. As someone who is almost fluent in Korean, it was very difficult following along with what the actors were saying. Thankfully with the advancement of technology nowadays, I was able to turn on subtitles to understand everything that was being said in Jeju’s dialect.
From watching this drama, I realized that there can be more languages than I thought where there are multiple dialects. Before watching the drama, I only knew that Spanish and Chinese had different dialects. I did know that Korean had different dialects, but I only knew of three. This made me question how much I actually know the Korean language since I’ve only been surrounded by Seoul’s dialect my entire life. Also, I personally thought that Jeju’s dialect sounded a lot cooler than Seoul’s dialect. Maybe it’s because I’ve only heard and spoken in that dialect so I’m unamused by it. What’s interesting is that Jeju’s dialect and Seoul’s dialect are so different that some people are starting to consider it as a completely separate language from Korean. I did some research and found that Jeju’s dialect uses certain words that would be said differently in Seoul’s dialect. For example, the words dog, potato, and grass are said completely differently in each dialect. Many people think that the reasoning is due to Jeju’s dialect being influenced by Mongolian as the dialects had some loanwords, which makes sense because Jeju’s dialect has been existing for some time. Also, it could just be due to the isolation of the Jeju people from the mainland since Jeju is an island. Perhaps overtime, the Jeju people slowly started to speak differently from mainland Koreans? Now, I am very eager to learn more about these nine dialects in the Korean language and boost my knowledge of it.
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