Korean Language Society Marks Centennial

Kim Seung-gon, president of the Korean Language Society, talks with pride of how the society standardized the usage of hanguel.

/ Korea Times photo by Shim Hyun-chul

By Chung Ah-young
Staff Reporter

Many people know hangeul, the Korean alphabet, was invented under the reign of King Sejong (1397-1450). But few might know the term hangeul was coined by Korean linguist Ju Si-gyeong in 1910s.

The Korean native script was designed so that even a commoner could learn to read and write easily, as the majority of Koreans were actually illiterate before the introduction of hangeul. But it was harsher to preserve the Korean native language from outward pressures than it was creating it from scratch.

The Korean Language Society struggled to keep the Korean language alive during Japanese colonial rule, which attempted to eradicate the native language and culture. Now the institute will celebrate the 100th anniversary of its establishment on Aug. 31.

Kim Seung-gon, president of the Korean Language Society, said that the association has survived against all odds.

``We are proud of the long history of our association. The society was created in the middle of the hardest time historically and economically,'' Kim said in an interview with The Korea Times.

He said that the centennial anniversary is particularly meaningful as the association played a key role as the first private-run academic institute during the colonial period by providing educational tools to ordinary people.

``At that time, the incapable Joseon Kingdom to rely on Japanese power, such as their military forces, to curb revolts from people against the ruling class, which ultimately gave a clue to the Japanese later,'' he said.

Kim said that under Japanese influence, Ju, the founding member of the institution, thought it was urgent to help people learn hangeul so as to unite for liberation..

Ju and other founding members began teaching students in a small class in 1907 and then officially opened the language research institute in Sinchon on Aug. 31, 1908. Ju used the term hangeul to refer to the system of the Korean alphabet in 1912, which means ``great script.''

But even after Ju, who invented Korean grammatical terms, died in 1914, the activity has continued to today.

Kim said that among the activities the association has done so far, the publication of Korean language dictionaries was the most important achievement for language development.

During Japanese colonial rule, there were no manuscripts for making a dictionary, which could put the language in order and standardize it.

But society members laid the basic foundations for making a dictionary and despite disturbances and torture by the Japanese government, the unified hangeul orthography was made public in 1933. Its members standardized language principles in 1936 and finished the orthography of foreign languages in 1940.

Sponsored by the U.S. Rockefeller Foundation, members finally finished the massive manuscript titled "the Grand Dictionary of the Korean Language", a complete set of six volumes finally published on Oct. 9, 1957, Hangeul Day. The project for the grand dictionary lasted approximately 28 years.

``It was the first dictionary we made with our own ability, and laid the foundation for researching and studying the Korean language,'' Kim said.

The dictionary, which contains 164,125 lexical entries and includes dialect, obsolete words, and technical terms, was the first to be published since the "Hunminjeongeum (Proper Sounds to Instruct the People)", the Korean writing system, was promulgated in 1446.

``Korean language scholars such as Choi Hyeon-bae, president of the then Korean Language Society, devoted himself to making the dictionary, a basic tool for keeping Korean culture through language,'' he said.

Concerning the recent craze for English education, Kim said that Korean cannot resist the trend of the global era.

``But the thing is that we should not put the cart before the horse. We should not educate our children, who cannot speak even Korean, with English. The Korean language should be first, not English, in public educational policy,'' Kim said.

However, Kim pointed out that the Korean language contains many remnants of the Japanese language. ``Many people don't know how much we use Japanese words in our daily language,'' said Kim.

Kim said that the association tries to globalize the Korean language, but it is more important to set up the principles of narrowing the difference between the two Koreas.

``The two Koreas have evolved their own language styles over the past decades. So we have to research the language differences between the two Koreas,'' said Kim.

The association has supported about 35-40 overseas Koreans who teach Korean language to foreigners by inviting them to Korea for the training every year in an attempt to make the language global.

``Learning Korean language is becoming more important in Asian countries as it is easy to learn and suitable for the digital era given the simplicity of the script,'' he said.

Since the creation of the institute in 1908, it has changed its name to the Joseon Language Research Institute in 1921, the Joseon Language Society in 1931 and finally the current Korean Language Society in 1949.

chungay@koreatimes.co.kr