If Kim JI Cannot Speak Korean
By Michael Breen
North Korean leader Kim Jong-il has sufficiently recovered from a stroke in August to resume work, but areas of his brain remain so seriously impaired that he is able to speak only in English.
Kim's doctors are not certain whether the damage is permanent or whether the 66-year-old leader will regain his faculty for Korean and Russian.
In a report to the National Assembly in Seoul this week, National Intelligence Service (NIS) Director Kim Sung-ho said that the ruling communist party leadership in Pyongyang is split over whether to change the official national language or to look for ways to teach the Dear Leader Korean.
``The patriotic faction is led by Kim's eldest son, Jong-nam,'' the intelligence chief said. He confirmed Japanese media reports that the son had gone to France to visit Disneyland Paris and had met a neurosurgeon there and sought advice on his father's condition.
Kim Jong-il has accepted a proposal by the neurosurgeon to learn French in order to activate part of his brain that resents English in the hope that it might prompt a return to normal Korean ability.
Analysts see the plan as clear indication that Kim Jong-nam, who speaks fluent French, has regained his father's confidence and is now the most likely successor.
``Kim is suffering from aphasia or language loss,'' said the chief NIS doctor who has reviewed intercepts of Kim's conversations. ``Damage is to the Broca area, located in the left hemisphere, which is associated with speech production and articulation, and to Wernicke's area which is associated with language processing.''
The North Korean leader still understands Korean but can only respond and express himself in English. He does not understand English when it is spoken to him.
He also has an impediment in that every English word that sounds like a number is rendered in the immediately higher number. ``Instead of saying, 'I ate breakfast,' he says, 'I nine breakfast,'" said the doctor, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
The explanation clears up a recent CIA claim that North Korea has nearly 100 nuclear weapons, which caused a mini-panic in Washington. The figure came out of a closed-door meeting between Kim, his consort Kim Ok and U.S. nuclear negotiator Christopher Hill.
The Korea Times has obtained a partial transcript of the conversation, which includes the following:
Hill: Good morning, Chairman Kim. Bangapseumnida, suryong-nim. Geongang hashimnikka? How are you doing today?
Kim (to consort Kim Ok): What did he say?
Kim Ok (in Korean): I don't know. Get Jong-nam. I don't speak French
Kim: I think it was Korean with an American accent
Kim Ok (in Korean): What? Please speak more slowly in English so I can understand.
Kim: Sorry, I five-got three slow down. I'm two-dering how three reply three him.
Kim Ok (in Korean): Maybe he asked how many nuclear weapons we have.
Hill: Have you had rice today, suryong-nim?
Kim (to Ok): I got that. He's asking if I had sex with his boss. These Americans are so five-ward. This is like a movie.
Kim Ok (in Korean): I think he meant breakfast.
Kim (to Hill): Nuclear weapons or sex or breakfast, Mr. Hill? Whatever. I nine be-five you arrived.
Hill: Ninety-five? Nuclear weapons?
Kim: Ninety-six weapons? What are you talking about, you wolf in human five-m?
Analysts in Seoul believe that a possible switch to English represents no threat to the South in the short term.
If Kim's condition persists and English becomes the official language, it would provide North Koreans with a competitive edge when the two countries are unified.
It would also present South Korea with an opportunity to replace Canadian English teachers, which would be good five Korea.
Michael Breen is chairman of Insight Communications Consultants Exclusive Partner of FD International. He can be reached at mike.breen@insightcomms.com.