Essays on Writing and Language in Honor - Sino-Platonic Papers

Schriftfestschnfr: &says in Honor of John DeFrancis
schools. This practice still obtains at present, although the 1,800 characters do not have a binding
force on South Korean society.
As for Romankition, the major issue is what symbols are to be used for individual sounds,
and how to spell them. This had been a long standing issue in SK, until 1984 when the Ministry
of Education revised its 1959 system drastically and announced a new system which is based in
large part on the MaCune-Reischauer system. How to spell loanwords in hankul had also been a
controversial issue until 1986 when the Ministry announced the current Loanword Spelling
Conventions. From 1970 the Ministry and scholars made efforts to revise the 1936 Version of
Standard Speech and the 1933 Hankul Spelling Conventions. As a result, the Ministry announced
the current Revised Standard Speech Regulations and Hankul Spelling Conventions in January
1988.
As for language purification, SK has achieved only limited success, despite the continued
efforts of the Government, scholars, and language associations. Thus, numerous Sino-Korean
words are newly coined or being introduced from Sino-Japanese as needs arise and the Korean
lexicon is inundated with recent English-based loanwords.
3. NK has launched two stages of language policy with complete success: (a) the policy of
abolishing the use of Chinese characters and hahl-based literacy movement, to popularize the
doctrine of socialism by eliminating illiteracy (1945-1966), and @) the policy of "Cultured Speech" -
(mwunhwae), to standardize Korean based on Pyongyang speech and Kim I1 Song's cwuchey
(self-reliance) ideology (1966-present)? Success of the fvst stage policies was due to Kim's
1946 Teachings, as already indicated, and the Government's initiation in 1949 of compulsory
elementaq education, together with the honlatl-only policy.
Second stage policies have been implemented according to Kim's two sets of language-
related Teachings, one in 1964 and the other in 1966. The former presented the basic directions
Many studies on North dean Lsnguage policies are available, recent ones inclu&ng M. Kim (1985), Chon and
Choy (1989), and CEH (1990).
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