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Effects of divided Korea on the language | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| outcast Bilingual Heptaglot Senior Member China Joined 4948 days ago 869 posts - 1364 votes  Speaks: Spanish*, English*, German, Italian, French, Portuguese, Mandarin Studies: Korean | Message 1 of 12 25 September 2012 at 7:36pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Maybe this was asked before, but I was wondering the other night: How has the almost complete separation of North and South Korea affected the language?
I guess the first thing to consider is how the language landscape was before the split. Were there significant differences in dialect to start with running north to south in the country. Considering that Seoul is so close to the border, I wonder if before the conflict the language spoken to the immediate north (some of what today is North Korea) would have been similar, and has it changed since then. Then we come to the period after the split. Has there been appreciable changes between north and south as a whole? Meaning, things that are only encountered in one side or the other. Also, I was wondering if perhaps some features, grammar, or expressions have been preserved in the north (or south), from before the split, that have been lost in the other, and things like that. I really don't know a ton about Korea so this all intrigues me. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Josquin Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4843 days ago 2266 posts - 3992 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Latin, Italian, Russian, Swedish Studies: Japanese, Irish, Portuguese, Persian | Message 2 of 12 25 September 2012 at 7:42pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Well, all I know is that there are some remarkable differences between North and South. I'm not an expert on Korean though, so all I can do is recommending the Wikipedia article on Korean. It's maybe too specialized for someone with no knowledge of Korean at all, but it's really extensive.
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| IronFist Senior Member United States Joined 6436 days ago 663 posts - 941 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Korean | Message 3 of 12 26 September 2012 at 5:39am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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NK is one of those things that sucks you in when you read about it. I'm just talking about the country and some of the crazy stuff that goes on over there, not the language. I'll go to look something up and end up spending an hour reading about it. Edited by IronFist on 26 September 2012 at 5:39am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| druckfehler Triglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4867 days ago 1181 posts - 1912 votes Speaks: German*, EnglishC2, Korean Studies: Persian | Message 4 of 12 27 September 2012 at 3:34pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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There certainly are differences, for example in North Korea older levels of politeness are still used, which have become obsolete in the South (where you will only hear them in historical dramas). So, the North still uses a greater variety of speech levels. I'm not sure whether this has to do with dialect - in any case, the standard for South Korean is Seoul dialect, the standard for North Korean is Pyeongyang dialect. There are differences that existed before the split. Then there are different influences - North Korean has taken some loan words from Russian and generally uses less English words, instead creating their own. Some words have fallen into disuse in the South because of their communist connotations - 동무 (dongmu), which used to mean "friend", has been replaced by 친구 (chingu) only in the South, where 동무 (dongmu) now means "comerade" in a communist context. Spelling conventions are slightly different as well.
Generally, they are as mutually intelligible as any two dialects, though I suspect the vastly different political systems and economies may have produced some difficulties in understanding. Mind you, I'm just telling you want I remember having read a while ago, so it may not be totally accurate. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| clumsy Octoglot Senior Member Poland lang-8.com/6715Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5177 days ago 1116 posts - 1367 votes Speaks: Polish*, English, Japanese, Korean, French, Mandarin, Italian, Vietnamese Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written), Swedish Studies: Danish, Dari, Kirundi | Message 5 of 12 27 September 2012 at 3:39pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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There is a tv programme about it in Christian Korean TV.
They invite 'defectors' to talk about their experience in South Korea. They often talk about difficulty of adaptation to new language standard. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5380 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 6 of 12 27 September 2012 at 3:51pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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From what I understand, North Korean has been a lot more conservative and much effort has been made to eradicate the recent influence of other languages. For instance, there are (virtually?) no English borrowings in NK. There are also phonetic differences. Generally, dialects and language variants maintain a certain degree of cohesion because of mutual interactions, but in the case of NK, there's been 3 generations of people who have not had any contact with SK. I suspect it's a bit as if you heard English from 100 years ago.
I've also heard that many defectors find it extremely difficult to adapt to SK life, in part because their language makes it very hard for them to find work. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| druckfehler Triglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4867 days ago 1181 posts - 1912 votes Speaks: German*, EnglishC2, Korean Studies: Persian | Message 7 of 12 27 September 2012 at 4:08pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
As far as I remember there are some, but they could have been taken from other European languages... I think North Koreans also use "computers" and "tractors", for example.
If you don't take into account forbidden South Korean media, then that's true. North Korean definitely does sound antiquated, like I said, because they still use politeness forms that are considered historical in South Korea.
I assume that this has nothing to do with understanding difficulties, but with the lack of prestige of their dialect, which gives them away as North Korean defectors or Chinese-Koreans, which leads to ostracism. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Duke100782 Bilingual Diglot Senior Member Philippines https://talktagalog.Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4487 days ago 172 posts - 240 votes Speaks: English*, Tagalog* Studies: Spanish, Mandarin | Message 8 of 12 03 October 2012 at 6:28am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Thanks Outcast for posting this thought-provoking topic. I think the study of the divergence of language
used in DPRK and ROK may be a goldmine for the fields of anthropology and linguistics. It think what's also interesting is not just how increasingly different they become, but how fast the divergence happens. Another factor than can be explored is how differences in culture can affect the speed and way languages change overtime. Edited by Duke100782 on 03 October 2012 at 6:33am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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