Provinces in Solomon Islands adopt Korean writing system

Two provinces in the Solomon Islands have decided to use Korea's Hangeul writing system to preserve their spoken languages, two local organizations working to help foreign tribes use the Korean alphabet said Tuesday.

This marks the second time foreign tribes have adopted Hangeul as a written system, following the Cia Cia, a minority tribe in Bau-Bau, Indonesia, which embraced the Korean alphabet in 2009.

The latest adoption of the phonetic alphabet is by the Guadalcanal and Malaita provinces of the islands chain, according to the Seoul National University (SNU) Center for Humanities Information and the Global Compact Network Korea.

Since its independence from British colonial rule in 1978, the Solomon Islands have experienced communication difficulties as its 70 different tribes all use different languages and only about 2 percent of the population speaks English, the country's official language.

The two provinces designated Hangeul as their official written script, and two Korean-speaking local teachers began teaching the system at one school in each province on Monday of last week, using a textbook developed by the SNU center.

The center said it plans to run the education program at more schools, including elementary schools, in the second half of next year and expand it to cover the entire country if successful.

"The Solomon Islands previously attempted to teach their native languages using the English writing system but the program was halted a long time ago due to financial difficulties and other reasons," said Lee Ho-young, a professor at Seoul National University who led the project to proliferate the Hangeul system. "The governor of Guadalcanal province and others actively sought to introduce the Korean alphabet system."

The program's ultimate goal is to help the local people resolve poverty by learning how to read and write their native languages using Hangeul, the professor added.

Elsewhere, the first and only Korean language education facility for the Cia Cia tribe closed in August, according to South Korean entities involved in the facility's operation.

The closure of the King Sejong Institute in Bau-Bau, a city where the tribe resides, came only seven months after its opening due to financial problems and several misunderstandings with the city government, they said.

South Korea's Kyungpook National University ran the institute in cooperation with Indonesia's Muhammadiyah Buton University, with financial support from Seoul's culture ministry. (Yonhap)