Korean peninsula’s north-south split has created a distinct lingustic divide

In the closing days of World War II, the Korean Peninsula, home to one of the most ethnically homogenous populations in the world with political boundaries among the oldest on earth, was arbitrarily divided by the great powers.

Competing regimes have since applied contrasting approaches of policy and planning to the Korean language, which have far-reaching implications for possible reunification and for North Korean refugees living in the South.

Language, division

In South Korea post-1945, there was an impetus to remove hancha (Chinese characters) in favour of the Korean hangul system only, and to expel Japanese loan words from the language. But more recently, the country’s overall laissez-faire approach to its language has meant that language change has been largely driven by the linguistic market and the whims of the public. This has meant an increasing influence of Japanese and English on the Korean language.

In the North, hancha was also removed in favour of hangul-only writing as the North placed a premium on mass literacy for the effective spread of propaganda and the advancement of socialist revolution. According to Soviet sources, beginning with a 1945 illiteracy rate of more than three quarters (and even higher for mixed script), North Korea virtually eliminated illiteracy even before the outbreak of the Korean War in 1950.

However, it is North Korea’s language policies from the 1960s that laid the foundations for more drastic divergence between the language varieties and has posed the greatest challenges for saet’ŏmin (North Korean refugees).

In that decade, the North Korean leader Kim Il-Sung conducted and published his so-called Conversations with Linguists (1964 and 1966), in which he portrayed the southern variety of Korean as “inundated with foreign borrowings”, a “gibberish mixture of Chinese, Japanese and English” that had lost its ethno-national characteristics, necessitating the northern country’s intercession to defend the language.

In addition to the explicit proscription of foreign borrowings (especially from English and Japanese), Kim called on creating pure (North) Korean words to replace not only Japanese and English loan words, but the extremely numerous Sino-Korean vocables as well.

A successful campaign to do away with (obvious) Japanese loans also unfolded in South Korea, and so the first area was not as consequential. But in the case of English loans and Sino-Korean vocabulary, these proclamations by Kim and the subsequent policies they engendered have resulted in profound divergence in the Korean varieties.

Research has shown that the greatest divergence between the languages has been in the various areas of lexicon, including synonyms like kungmin (citizen; NK: inmin), words with the same spelling and pronunciation but different connotations such as tongji (friend or colleague; NK: comrade), remaining Sino-Korean words such as minganin (civilian; NK: samin, private citizen), and even the pronunciation and spelling of limited loan words such as k’ŏp (NK: koppu, cup), the latter revealing Russian influence.

The most highly publicised (and for some snicker-inducing) changes however are the North Korean attempts at actively creating pure Korean words in place of Sino-Korean words such as Hanbok (traditional Korean clothing; NK: Chosŏn ot (North) Korean clothing), hongsu (flood; NK: k’ŭn mul, big water), sirŏp (syrup; NK: tanmul, sweet water), rek’odŭ ((music) record; NK: sorip’an, sound disk) and p’ama (perm; NK: pokkŭm mŏri, fried hair).

North Korean refugees

The significant number of successful adaptations along with the very effective limitation of foreign borrowings have contributed to the creation of a very distinct language variety. This directly affects the linguistic assimilation of North Korean saet’ŏmin when they settle in the South. It is estimated there are 34,000 North Korean refugees living in South Korea.

According to one study, while South Koreans tend to underestimate the differences between the language varieties and the challenges they pose to new settlers, saet’ŏmin ranked linguistic challenges as the most significant impediment, with over 70% of respondents reporting “much difficulty” or “considerable difficulty” due to language. Importantly, all of the 34 saet’ŏmin interviewed as part of this study indicated language difference as a contributing factor to difficulty in work life.

Significant percentages of respondents reported experiencing difficulties due to differences in pronunciation and intonation, the extensive use of English expressions in South Korea, differences in honorifics, ignorance of hancha, not knowing the name for an object or everyday vocabulary word, and a feeling of self-consciousness when interacting with southerners.

Research has reported extensive discrimination experienced by saet’ŏmin due to language difficulties, while many respondents are either mistakenly ascribed or assume the identity of ethnic Korean Chinese (Chosŏnjok), various Korean dialect speakers, or overseas Koreans rather than revealing their true identities. This suggests that many saet’ŏmin view their background and identity as an impediment or mark of shame rather than a potential asset that might be fostered.

As the population of saet’ŏmin inevitably increases in the South, the difference between the North and South Korean language varieties will continue to be a salient issue. Reflecting the perceived widening gap between the languages, work began in 2005 on the Kyŏremal k’ŭn sajŏn (Unabridged Dictionary of Our Language), an ongoing joint project involving experts from North and South Korea that seeks to index the entire Korean language and “re-converge” the varieties.

In the event of unification moreover, the issue would have even more intense and far-reaching ramifications for the entire population of the Korean Peninsula as it deals with social inequality, discrimination, and power imbalances.

Daniel Pieper is a lecturer in at Monash University.

A longer version of this article was originally published by Melbourne Asia Review.