By Lee Tae-hoon

The government has decided to revise high school textbooks that falsely claimed the Cia Cia, an Indonesian tribe in Bau-bau City, had officially adopted the Korean alphabet Hangeul in 2009 as its official writing system.

The minority tribe on a remote Indonesia island received much attention based on reports insisting that Korea “exported” Hanguel to it. The Korea Times earlier revealed that those reports were untrue.

“Everyone turned a blind eye to the issue,” Kim Hye-sun, a senior official at the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, said.

She said the ministry has instructed high school textbook makers to remove information that suggests the Cia Cia tribe officially adopted Hanguel as its own alphabet, as its language faced extinction due to lack of a writing system.

The Cia Cia tribe rose to instant fame here and abroad after a host of newspapers and TV networks rushed to reported that it adopted the Korean alphabet as a means to write its spoken language.