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

Sino-Platonic Papem, 27 (August 3 1, 199 1)
national language erasure policies, has lost the unique national characteristics of our language and
is recklessly mixed with Western, Chinese, and Japanese words" (Chong 1981). 'Harvest' is
kaulkeri centhwu (lit. 'autumncollecting combat*) in NK and kaulketi or cwuw (lit 'autumn-
collecting') in SK. '15 million ton grain production goal' is rendered as 1,5'00 manthon uy alkok
bci lul cemlyenghal tey toyhan mokphyo (lit 'goal regarding occupying the hill of 15 million tons
of grains') in NK, as compared with the neural SK form i,SW manthon uy ymgkok sayngsan
mkphyo. Norong labor ', tongmwu 'friend', inrnin 'people', etc. have socialist mnnotations.
(d) Chinese charmers: As already mentioned, characters are taught in NK only for reading South
Korean publications. In SK, 1,800 characters are taught at elementary and secondary schools.
Characters are used widely in publications in SK.
(e) Hankul spelling conve~ons: Both the NK spelling conventions (in Kaycenghan Cosenmal
Kyupemcip, "the Revised Collection of Korean Norms", 1987) and the SK counterparts (Hankul
Macchwumpep, "Korean Spelling Conventions", 1988) are modified versions of the 1933 Hankul
Spelling Conventions (Hankul Macchwumpep Thongdan). This sharing of the source system and
the fact that both systems follow the same basic principles (e.g. the principles of morphophonernic
spelling and word- based spacing) have contributed to preventing disastrous divergence. Thus, the
differences are due mainly to the existence of two standard types of speech and different analyses
(with regard, for example, to linguistic fossilization) of linguistic phenomena. Spelling divergence
includes the following aspects: NK's use of horizontal (left-to-right) writing only, and SK's use of
both horizontal and vertical writings; names of h h l letters (e.g. NK kiuk instead of SK kiyek
for the letter k); NK's grouping geminate letters (egg. kk, ay) after all basic letters (egg. S a), and
SK's ordering each geminate after each basic letter; tensified sounds after the suffix -I (e.g. NK -I
ky vs. SK -I kke 'I promise'); word-initial l and n (e.g. NK lyekra vs. SK yeksu 'history'; NK
nyenlyeng vs. SK yeniyeng 'age'); other Sino-Korean words (egg. NK pheysway vs. SK
phyeysway 'closure'; NK hannasan vs. SK hanlasnn 'Mt. Halla'); diphthongs (egg. NK
mryyessuki vs. SK ttuyessuki 'spacing'), vowel harmony (e.g. NK alwntavo vs. SK alumrowe