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After 70 years apart, North and South Koreans speak increasingly different languages
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Korea laguage
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<small>Hyung-Jin Kim,The Associated Press</small>
<div class=""><i>North Korean
defector Pak Mi-ok struggled with a linguistic divide when she arrived
in South Korea. The language gap has grown so wide that scholars say
about a third of everyday words used in the two countries are different.</i></div>
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<small class="">Waterloo Region Record</small>
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<span>By</span>
<a href="http://www.therecord.com/news-story/5475558-after-70-years-apart-north-and-south-koreans-speak-increasingly-different-languages/#" class="">Hyung-Jin Kim</a>
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<p class="">
SEOUL — On one side of the line that has
divided two societies for so long, the words arrive as fast as
globalization can bring them — English-based lingo like "shampoo,"
"juice" and "self-service." To South Koreans, they are everyday
language. To defectors from the insular North Korea, they mean
absolutely nothing.
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<p class="">
Turn the tables, and the opposite is true,
too: People in Seoul furrow their brows at homegrown North Korean words
like "salgyeolmul," which literally means "skin water." (That's "skin
lotion" in the South.)
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Two countries, mortal enemies, tied together
by history, by family — and by language, but only to a point. The
Korean Peninsula's seven-decade split has created a widening linguistic
divide that produces misunderstandings, hurt feelings and sometimes even
laughter. The gap has grown so wide, scholars say, that about a third
of everyday words used in the two countries are different.
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North and South Koreans are generally able
to understand each other given that the majority of words and grammar
are still the same. But the differences show how language can change
when one half of the country becomes an international economic
powerhouse and the other isolates itself, suspicious of outside
influences.
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America's huge cultural influence through
its military presence, business ties and Hollywood has flooded the South
Korean vernacular with English loan words and "konglish," which uses
English words in non-standard ways, like "handle" for steering wheel,
"hand phone" for cellphone and "manicure" for nail polish.
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In North Korea's view, all that is just
further evidence that the South is an American cultural colony.
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When Pak Mi-ok first arrived in South Korea
after her defection in 2002, she was told by a waitress at a restaurant
that water was "self-service," an English phrase she had not heard
before. Too shy to admit she didn't understand, she ended up going
without water during her meal.
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"I worried the waitress would look down on
me," said Pak. She started out working at restaurants but struggled to
understand customers. "I thought they spoke a different language," she
said.
</p>
<p class="">
Pak gradually picked up on the new lingo,
and in a recent interview she used words like "stress" and "claim" that
aren't heard up in the North.
</p>
<p class="">
The North's isolation and near-worship of
the ruling Kim family has also skewed the language. "Suryong" is the
revered title for the North's founding leader and his son, Kim Jong Il,
the father of the current ruler, Kim Jong Un. But in the South, it's
used to refer to a faction or local leader from centuries ago.
</p>
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Pyongyang is so eager to "purify" its
language under its guiding philosophy of self-reliance that it
vigorously eliminates words with foreign origins and uses homegrown
substitutes. Shampoo is called "meorimulbinu," or "hair water soap," and
juice is "danmul," or "sweet water." Such differences fascinate and
amuse South Koreans, who love to examine them on quiz and comedy shows.
</p>
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Misunderstandings can arise to seemingly
innocuous Korean phrases like, "Let's do lunch sometime," which those in
the South frequently use as a friendly ending to conversations, even
with casual acquaintances. But newly arrived North Korean defectors take
such invitations literally, and are often dismayed or offended when
they don't get a followup phone call.
</p>
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"If someone uses such empty words in North
Korea, they'll see their relations with others cut off and be branded as
a faithless person," said a defector who asked not to be identified
because of worries that doing so would put family members in the North
at risk.
</p>
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Linguists say it takes about two years for
North Korean defectors to feel comfortable conversing in South Korea.
</p>
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The communication gap widens when it comes
to technical terms used in medical and technological settings, according
to Han Yong-un, a South Korean linguist. About two-thirds of medical
terms are different, he said.
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"I think that North and South Korean doctors
cannot work together in the same operating room," Han said.
</p>
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Over the past 10 years, there have been
efforts to produce a joint dictionary containing 330,000 words from both
countries — a rare example of co-operation.
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But as is often the case, political tensions
have interfered with progress. The meetings only resumed last July
after a more than four-year hiatus following the 2010 sinking of a South
Korean warship. A new round of meetings, tentatively set for last
month, hasn't been held as North Korea bristled over the annual
springtime joint U.S.-South Korea military drills.
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Even language experts from the two countries can have trouble understanding each other.
</p>
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During last year's meeting in Pyongyang,
South Korean linguist Kim Byungmoon said he tried to explain how South
Koreans use the English word "glamour" as a noun to refer to a
voluptuous woman, but North Korean scholars had difficulty understanding
its usage.
</p>
<p class="">
Given the completely different political and
economic systems between the two countries, it also takes a while to
learn the connotations and associations that some emotionally-laden
words have.
</p>
<p class="">
In South Korea, "spec" refers to
qualifications and credentials that college students need to land a good
job. While defectors can quickly learn what the word literally means,
it takes much longer to understand the immense stress associated with
the word for young job-seekers in South Korea's ultra-competitive
society, said Jeon Young-sun, a research professor at Seoul's Konkuk
University.
</p>
<p class="">
Those in the South, meanwhile, may struggle
to understand the emotional impact of "saenghwal chonghwa," the regular
meetings in the North at which people are required to reflect on their
behaviour and criticize each other. The phrase, which literally means
"group discussions on daily lives," isn't used in South Korea.
</p>
<p class="">
"We were sick and tired of it," Pak said. "I still get goosebumps whenever I hear that word."
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<p><span class=""></span></p><p>The Associated Press</p><p><a href="http://www.therecord.com/news-story/5475558-after-70-years-apart-north-and-south-koreans-speak-increasingly-different-languages/">http://www.therecord.com/news-story/5475558-after-70-years-apart-north-and-south-koreans-speak-increasingly-different-languages/</a><br></p><br clear="all"><br>-- <br><div class="gmail_signature">=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+<br><br> Harold F. Schiffman<br><br>Professor Emeritus of <br> Dravidian Linguistics and Culture <br>Dept. of South Asia Studies <br>University of Pennsylvania<br>Philadelphia, PA 19104-6305<br><br>Phone: (215) 898-7475<br>Fax: (215) 573-2138 <br><br>Email: <a href="mailto:haroldfs@gmail.com">haroldfs@gmail.com</a><br><a href="http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/">http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/</a> <br><br>-------------------------------------------------</div>
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