Prof. Kim to Publish Korean Dictionary After 17 Years of Work
By Cho Jae-hyon
Staff Repoter
An institute of Korea University will publish today one of the biggest Korean dictionaries, containing 40,000 new, contemporary words, such as "netmaeng (computer illiterate)," and "ggotminam (cute boys with delicate and feminine features)."
Kim Heung-kyu, chief of the Research Institute of Korean Studies, has worked for more than 17 years to publish the 390,000-word"Grand Korean Dictionary."It comes out a day before the 563th anniversary of the Korean alphabet, Hangeul.
"Language is like a house of soul wherein people feel and think about the world. The publication of a dictionary is a work to repair and renovate the home regularly," Kim said.
Kim started the work in 1992 with three colleagues. "Language is an important tool to express and understand the world but I found existing dictionaries were insufficient to serve the purpose," Kim said. "We agreed to make a better dictionary and start working."
He recalls the work was anything but easy, with a publishing firm discontinuing its financial assistance in the middle of the work. He had to halve the number of researchers and staff, hit by the Asian financial crisis in 1997.
"That was the most difficult time during the past 17 years," Kim recalls.
The dictionary, with more than 7,000 pages, is based on the Corpus Linguistics, the study of language as expressed in samples (corpora) or "real world" text. This method represents a digestive approach to deriving a set of abstract rules by which a natural language is governed or else relates to another language.
For instance, the terms like "netmaeng,"and "ggotminam" emerged out of Internet-driven youth culture. Netmaeng is a compound of the words for Internet and the illiterate "maeng."Ggotminam is a compound of the Korean words for flower, "ggot," and a handsome man, "minam."
It is the first time that these terms have appeared in a dictionary, the institute said. It also provides in-depth information on 2,200 items for users.
Kim said the time is over when dictionaries have been published for commercial gains. "We were able to complete the dictionary because we have had a goal to study language and make a contribution to society by studying human beings through language."
He said the tome, compiled with brand new methods, will open a new chapter in dictionary publication.
The publication ceremony will take place today at Korea University. Kim has also been honored by the culture ministry as he and nine other people will receive awards at a ceremony Friday for their contribution to the development and broader use of Hangeul.