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

Sch~iffestschri~: Ersays in Homr of John DeFrancis
Linguistic theory, policies, planning, and practices in NK are aimed at realizing Kim's two
sets of Teachings. Dealing with linguistic phenomena and refining Korean must all be done taking
Kim's mucky ideology into account, i.e., for the people and socialist revolution, rejecting
toadyism and doctrinalism and safeguarding autonomous and creative positions by developing the
national characteristics of the language. An unprecedented linguistic reform has resulted,
encompassing orthography, pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary, meanings and stylistics, and
usages.
4. The major areas of linguistic disparity at present between NK and SK may be summed up
roughly as follows.
(a) Standard speech and pr~nunci~om: NK takes Pyongyang-based Cultured Speech as standard
both in pronunciation and spelling. Cultured Speech is defined as "the richly developed national
language that is formed centering around the revolutionary capital under the leadership of the
proletarian party that holds the sovereignty during the socialism-constructing period, and that all
people hold as a standard, because it has been refined revolutionarily and polished culturally to fit
the proletariat's goals and lifestylew (Cosen Mwunhwae Sacen, A Dictionary of Korem Culncred
Speech, 1973). SK's standard speech (phyocwune) is defined as "the contemporary Seoul speech
used by educated people" (Phyocwune Kyuceng, "Standard Speech ~egulations", 1988).
(b) Word creation: NK has coined some 5,000 lexical items either by nativising Sino-Korean
words or by creating new words based on native roots, affixes, archaic forms and dialectal
elements, while maximally limiting the importation of new loanwords. SK has been relatively
generous in creating or importing Sino-Korean words. Over 10,000 English-based loanwords,
including such recent loans as 'lame duck', 'incubator', and 'free-lancer', are used in SK.
(c) Meanings and sryles: While meanings and styles of words and phrases in SK are largely
neutral, many expressions in NK have metaphorical connotations, orienting the people toward the
"socialistic revolutionary strugglew. For example, sewulmal 'Seoul Speech' is defined as "the
speech used in South Korea today which, due to American imperialists and their followers'