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 By Jon Huer
Korea Times Columnist
One of the constant elements in the pride of Korean heritage is the reference to the Korean Language being the most-scientifically-superior among world languages. They point out the logical manner in which the system is constructed and the variety of ways Korean can be called upon to perform. Indeed, the simple way its written system is developed, which can be mastered by anyone within a short time, is a marvel of ingenuity.
However, when a foreigner actually tries to learn the Korean language in its fullest utility, as a written and spoken system of communication, a nightmare quality begins to haunt the learner. In his nightmare, the foreigner soon learns the most awful truth about the Korean language: That there are actually two Korean languages, one formal-written and the other colloquial-spoken!
It is common to observe that virtually all advanced cultures have formal communication that is different from the daily street variety. Legalese English is quite different from conversational English and that much is commonly understood. But it is a matter of degree: English used in court is not that much different from conversational English, and the overlap is extensive enough to prevent any type of unbridgeable gap between the two.
Much of the court language is archaic and professionally restricted, to be sure, but the difference is nothing like the gap between Korea's Chinese-based language and its street variety.
It is one of the most aggravating experiences for foreigners who make a gallant attempt to understand Korea is that the spoken Korean, which is what the foreigner intends to use in his daily life in Korea, has nothing to do with the formal, mostly written, Korean. The latter is the heavily Chinese-based version that members of the Korean elite use mostly in courts, politics and on the evening news. The spoken variety is the ordinary street-level colloquial Korean used by commoners in family and interpersonal relations in everyday life. The two types of Korean are so different from each other that one might as well say Korea actually has two completely different languages.
The upper-echelon Korean is virtually 90-percent Chinese, very little of which is understood by the lower-echelon Koreans. The language is so turgid and heavy with jaw-breaking Chinese that only the highly educated people can comprehend much of what is said. What aggravates this further is that this upper-class, Chinese-based language is written in Korean, which guarantees that few will ever understand it.
Some time ago, a group of us was confronted by a sign written in Korean marking a forest in the area we were hiking through that seemed to forbid trespassing. None of the 10 or so Koreans we asked, some of them obviously college-educated types, understood what the sign meant. It is almost as if all the elite members compete with one another to see who is going to be most impossible to understand by ordinary Koreans (and more so by foreigners). Most foreigners find this part of their Korean acculturation almost insurmountable.
On the other hand, lower-level Korean, spoken mostly in the daily run of life in Korea, is equally impossible for foreigners to understand. While interesting and versatile, and in some ways much more appealing than the technically frigid Chinese-Korean, this variety of Korean varies so much and in so many unpredictable ways, most foreigners never master spoken Korean. On this level, the Korean language varies endlessly, depending on so many factors that are impossible to control: Regions, ages of speakers, relations of speakers and listeners, occupations, familial positions, social titles, and so on, ad infinitum.
Within family situations, in intimate relations, among peers, and on the street among the masses, this variety of Korean is spoken in its incredible variations and permutations and combinations. Even those who have been in Korea for decades, many of them studying Korean, are constantly surprised and dismayed by the appearance of new endings and new expressions they have never heard before.
The gap between the two languages in Korea grows ever wider. The younger reporters on TV or on the radio, especially, feel compelled to use as many Chinese words in their lines as possible to show off their education. Whenever there is a Chinese substitute available, they seem to prefer to use a Chinese word or phrase, rather than Korean.
Their tendency is quite reminiscent of average American scholars, mainly in education and social science, who favor Latin-based words when plain English words would suffice, to show the world that they are above-average.
Both the Korean and American upstarts heavily lace their language with Chinese and Latin respectively, only to demonstrate their linguistic prowess. It is just more severe with the Korean upstarts simply because Chinese words, by nature, can appear alien in their endless variety of combinations and permutations, even to educated Koreans. As competition grows over who can cover up their insecurity with Chinese words better, and much of it unnecessarily, the gap between two languages in Korea widens.
Into this gap between the two languages in Korea enters, to complicate the matters, a third variation: The English words and phrases that are neither truly English nor linguistically Korean. In the media and in daily conversational Korean, tons of new words from English creep into usage. Words like "out," "cool," "pick-up," and "happy" get mixed with colloquial Korean to muddle up the issue further. The educated class, especially, is prone to mixing up their language with these English-originated words that make Korean-savvy foreigners cringe at their strangeness and doubt Korea's claim to possess the most scientifically-superior linguistic system in the world.
By its very nature, science opens itself to anyone who is willing to follow its logical steps and procedures. In essence, there is no secret in science that is understood only by the inner circle.
In truly scientific systems, there are no inner and outer circles. But the Korean language is generally considered the most secretly-guarded code system among the world's major languages. There is no way an "outsider," who is not born into this circle, can crack the code of the Korean language, no matter how long one devotes oneself to its mastery. Its grammar and syntax are capable of so much situational variation and impromptu adaptation that only the native can get the feel of the language. Anyone who is encouraged by the scientific claim and tries to learn the language soon finds that he is merely scratching the surface after years of devoted study.
If Korea is serious about its ambition to be an advanced nation characterized and united by a middle-class medium of communication, it must seriously consider developing a national language that would be functional, rational, and democratic for the middle masses of Korea. As Korea's middle-class expands, it will be imperative that its communicative system be something that all middle-level Koreans can understand and use, in writing and speech. As it stands, Korean society is divided between two languages that are almost as impossible to bridge as the two languages in China.
Korea is already a rigidly divided society: Some go to college and work for companies and some don't go to college and work as laborers. The new government seems to be determined to narrow the economic gap between the two classes. But it would behoove Koreans to seriously consider the language divide as well.
The writer can be reached at jonhuer@hotmail.com
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