Learning Korean
With hallyu sweeping the globe, many non-Koreans are learning the Korean language. The Korean government has been actively promoting the Korean language overseas, manifesting its soft power.
Learning Korean allows non-Koreans to appreciate hallyu products beyond the language barrier. While hallyu can encourage Korean learning on impulse, such passion is hard to maintain in the long run, unless it goes beyond hallyu.
For Korean to be more widely spoken in the world, there needs to be more practical usefulness. In English, “my country” or “our country” refers to the speaker’s country of citizenship. It is by no means limited to Singapore or the U.K. It is the same case for Chinese words like “wo guo” (my country) or “wo men guo jia” (our country). Yet, “urinara” ― the Korean equivalent ― has different interpretations.
While some South Koreans say foreigners can use it to refer to their own countries, others believe it is a term reserved exclusively for South Korea. Even some overseas Koreans with no South Korean nationality use “urinara” to refer to South Korea, instead of their country of citizenship ― not only raising the question of loyalty and identity, but also a potential source of tension in multiethnic countries.
According to the Basic Korean Language Dictionary by South Korea’s National Institute of Korean Language, “urinara” is “the term which the South Korean people use to refer to South Korea.” Other examples include “urimal” ― “the Korean language that the South Korean people use,” and “urigeul” ― “the Korean letters that the South Korean people use.” These expressions carry a nationalistic, ethnocentric undertone. In the long run, this would destroy the vitality of Korean. It’s strange if foreigners cannot use “urinara” ― a term with an emphasis on the sense of belonging ― to refer to their own countries.
In reality, usage of “urinara” is by no means confined to South Korea: media outlets in China’s Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture actively use “urinara” to refer to China. New definitions of the same word in different contexts have emerged as languages undergo globalization. In British and American English, “blur” means to make things less distinct or clear. Whereas in Singapore, the same term is used to describe a person who is confused or foolish. In March 2016, 19 Singlish (Singapore English) words including “shiok” (cool, great; delicious, superb) were added to the Oxford English Dictionary, taking into account loanwords from Chinese and Malay.
In addition to the inter-Korean dictionary project, South Korea should recognize the various ways Korean is used abroad and update the definitions of words in dictionaries promptly. But this is not easy. South Korea sees itself as the “big brother” of other Korean societies. Nationalism and South Koreans’ attitudes towards other Korean communities could also influence its language policies. In the Unification Attitude Survey 2015 released by Seoul National University’s Institute for Peace and Unification Studies, only 51 percent of respondents believed that unification was necessary ― the lowest since 2007. Although the South Korean government is officially pro-unification, many South Koreans do not regard North Koreans as their fellow countrymen, let alone overseas Koreans without South Korean citizenship.
It is unnecessary to fear the “erosion” of Korean, because languages are dynamic and fluid in nature, and linguistic interaction is not a one-way process. Many words in use in South Korea today were heavily influenced by American English, ancient Chinese and Japanese. Interestingly, words like “jinjja” (real) even have almost identical pronunciation and meaning as the Hokkien dialect of Chinese. While some government intervention in language development is understandable for easier communication, South Korea needs to make Korean more relevant and friendly for foreigners. Failure to keep up with new language development patterns will eventually render such intervention obsolete.
The writer is a student at the National University of Singapore. He was also an exchange student at Seoul National University. He studied the Korean language in both universities. Write to huaqing@u.nus.edu.
(This article was originally published in The Korea Times on 24 November 2016)
