Yi Whan-woo is a Korea Times journalist primarily covering finance. He writes in-depth articles on macroeconomy and financial markets and previously covered sports, politics, diplomacy and inter-Korean affairs, among others. Feel free to contact him at yistory@koreatimes.co.kr.
Scholar devoted to inter-Korean dictionary
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Kim Wan-seo
By Yi Whan-woo
By Yi Whan-woo
Kim Wan-seo, a scholar at an inter-Korean compilation board that will publish a unified Korean language dictionary, disagrees with the belief that people should not bet their lives on something that is unlikely to happen.
Kim, 44, says he instantly determined to dedicate his life to the then-envisioned board when he was just 19 after reading related news.
The news back in 1989 reported on South Korean pastor Moon Ik-hwan’s unauthorized visit to Pyongyang during the peak of the Cold War era.
The progressive-minded pastor and then-North Korean leader Kim Il-sung met and agreed to set up a joint organization to publish a dictionary that contains vocabulary used in both Koreas.
The visit of the now-deceased Moon to the communist state was controversial and the pastor was jailed for five years for violating the National Security Law.
“But I was certain that one day the Korean Peninsula would be reunited and a unified Korean language dictionary would be needed to narrow the widening gap of word usage across the tensely guarded border,” Kim said during a recent telephone interview. “As a high school senior back then, I was interested in majoring in Korean language and literature in university and the agreement between Moon and Kim Il-sung helped me make up my mind.”
Kim, a senior researcher at the Joint Board of South and North Korea for the Compilation of the Unabridged and Unified Korean Dictionary, was a founding member of the South Korean side of the board when it launched in 2006.
Under the progressive-minded Roh Moo-hyun government, the two Koreas established the joint committee in line with the deal reached between Moon and the now-deceased Kim Il-sung.
“I checked every news report and job posting to see whether such a committee would be set up and hire people,” Kim said. “And my dream came true after earning my bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Korean language and literature and also building experience as a Korean-language scholar.”
Kim was one of the 38 South Korean scholars who attended a joint conference with their North Korean counterparts at Mount Geumgang in the North from Oct. 12 to 19 this year.
It was the 24th meeting between the two sides where they selected some 21,000 words for the envisioned dictionary, which is expected to be completed by 2019.