Korea to Promote 'Endangered' Jeju Dialect

[Harold F. Schiffman]

Korea to Promote 'Endangered' Jeju Dialect

The National Folk Museum and the National Academy of the Korean Language
on Tuesday agreed to make joint efforts to help the dialect of Jeju Island
into the UNESCO list of intangible cultural heritage and to conduct
linguistic and folklore studies about the dialect. The two agree to use
the UNESCO Endangered Language program that helps languages facing
extinction to survive.

NAKL director Lee Sang-gyu earlier this year vowed to promote linguistic
diversity over the absolutism of the standard language. Our language
policy has emphasized only the standard language and failed to embrace
other dialects, he told the Chosun Ilbo. We will start by studying the
dialect of Jeju Island and expand our efforts into dialects in other
regions. Korea has three intangible cultural heritage items on the UNESCO
list including Jongmyo Jeryeak, music for a royal ancestral ceremony
(2001), Pansori, a traditional one-man narrative opera (2003) and the Dano
Festival of Gangneung (2005).

(englishnews at chosun.com)




url: http://english.chosun.com/w21data/html/news/200604/200604180029.html