24. The Globalization Strategy of Hangul!

24. The Globalization Strategy of Hangul!  “Many scholars call Hangul ‘the most scientific writing system among the writing systems commonly used in the world’,or more simply, ‘the world’s best alphabet’.” (Jeffrey Sampson, author of <The Writing System of the World>) Now, the terms internationalization and globalization have become one of the elements that define present and future society. If internationalization is an activity that allows students to adapt to changes expected in the present or the future through education and to acquire the ability to deal with them appropriately, then globalization can be considered one of the important tasks that should be considered in education.Today, due to the rapid development of scientific civilization and transportation and communication, mankind is living together in a huge net called ‘interdependence’ that surrounds the world society. In other words, we have entered the era of ‘globalization’ where fences between countries become meaningless within a single system.This means that the level of consciousness of a region or country is increasingly expanding to the international and global level of our present and future lifestyle. The lifestyles and ways of thinking at the regional or national level are relatively simple and homogeneous, making them easy to understand, but at the global level, they are quite heterogeneous and complex, which means that understanding and adaptation are not easy. Mutual understanding and cooperation between countries and regions are becoming increasingly necessary for cultural exchanges, economic activities, and political events, and we live in a world where we must constantly change and adapt to life at the global level, from our individual inner consciousness to social structures, cultures, and behavioral patterns. However, on the other hand, it is also true that there are still deeply ingrained cultures, ways of thinking, and lifestyles. In order to spread the Korean language widely, making it more easily and familiarly accepted in more diverse cultures will be an opportunity to use the Korean language or Hangul more effectively. For this purpose, I was able to hear about the government's plans for expanding the overseas distribution of the Korean language and globalizing the Korean language by attending the first Korean Educators' Conference, which was attended by participants from all over the world during the Korean language training period. They said that they are trying to make it easier to access Korean without confusion by unifying the names of Korean language distribution organizations as U-Sejonghakdang and branding them. In order to do so, they held the first-stage U-Sejonghakdang system report conference at the Hangeul Day ceremony on October 9, 2009, and announced a plan to complete the system construction by the end of 2010. U-Sejonghakdang is to enable Korean language study through various media online and support a teacher network, making it a meaningful space for all people studying Korean around the world. They said that they plan to hold a BI declaration ceremony along with a demonstration of the U-Sejonghakdang homepage and to standardize the curriculum and textbooks around the world by 2011, and to establish 45 new schools in major regions with rapidly increasing demand for Korean language learning. This government's will is very encouraging, and it will help the Korean language become globalized more quickly. However, more diverse research will be needed in terms of content. For example, since the English language that Westerners are already familiar with is written in a prose style, it will be an opportunity for English speakers who have been accustomed to it for a long time, or for those who have already used English as an international language, to understand and learn it more easily and familiarly. The first discussion on the full-writing system appeared in the 'National Language Research Plan' submitted by the National Language Research Institute in December 1908. At that time, there were various opinions for and against the full-writing system, but on November 28, 1936, the members of the Korean Language Society, who inherited the will of Ju Si-gyeong, temporarily adopted the 'horizontal writing plan' by Song Gi-ju as a plan at the extraordinary general meeting of the society. In July 1946, the Hangul Horizontal Writing Research Association was founded with Choi Hyeon-bae as president, and it held commemorative lectures and radio discussions with opponents such as Kim Chang-je and Lee Seung-nyeong. It was during the Hangul Wave that the full-writing system was once noted for its ability to simplify spelling. In accordance with the Prime Minister's Order No. 8 of April 1954, which ordered the 'Unified Korean Spelling Plan' to be written as it sounds, the Korean Language Subcommittee of the National Language Deliberation Council decided at its 9th meeting to propose that 'the method of simplifying Korean is to recognize the horizontal writing of Korean.' However, as this plan did not receive widespread support, the Minister of Education at the time announced a plan to simplify Korean by writing in groups on July 3 of the same year, and after that, in terms of mechanization of Korean, teletype telegrams were once implemented in the form of a full-writing system, and in October 1971, after the deaths of Kim Yun-gyeong and Choi Hyeon-bae, the Korean Full-writing Research Association was established again, suggesting a reform of the alphabet through full-writing. The encyclopedia lists the advantages of this writing system as follows: first, it is easy to read; second, it is efficient because words are read individually like the alphabet; third, cursive writing can be created, so writing speed can be increased; fourth, while writing in groups requires 2,500 to 3,000 types of letters, writing in a written form only requires about 60 letters, so there is a big difference in printing efficiency, making mechanization of letters easier; fifth, because final consonants are not distinguished separately, difficult spelling problems will disappear; and sixth, since Chinese characters are not used together, there is an advantage in unifying writing life with Hangul. Currently, some netizens are already trying this method of writing in a simplified form. Among the reasons why netizens write in a simplified form are, first, the function of slang that only they know, second, the function of imitation to keep up with trends, third, the function of economy that allows for quick writing, and fourth, the function of combining with English, Japanese, and Chinese characters. In particular, the function of economy that allows for quick writing has already been pointed out in encyclopedias. On the other hand, writing in a simplified form also has the following disadvantages: first, the volume increases by about 60% compared to the existing combined writing, second, considerable inconvenience and errors occur in reading and writing at first, and third, although it is less complicated than the combined writing, new grammar needs to be organized and the system refined. However, when looking at this as a long-term strategy or from various perspectives, if it is beneficial to efficiently spread the Korean language, I think that it is something that we can accept and overcome. Small inconveniences bring greater benefits, because there are various benefits for us who use letters, from direct to indirect benefits. It is truly a blessing that God gave us Hangul through someone or through some process. However, although Hangul is ours, it does not mean that only our Korean people should use it. There are many countries and peoples in the world today who do not have their own letters and use other countries’ letters to write their own language, just like in the old days when we used Idumun because we did not have Hangul. It will take some effort to help these countries and peoples use Hangul together, but the joy and happiness that comes from doing so will be even greater. And this will be a dedication and service of our people and the Republic of Korea to the world. And there will be significant benefits that we could not have imagined. Although it has been discontinued, recently, the Cia-Cia tribe in Indonesia decided to use Hangul letters to write their own language through the efforts of the Hunminjeongeum Society, which became a hot topic. Sharing Hangul, the letters we have, is truly a rewarding thing for future generations who use it as a favor from our ancestors who created Hangul and passed it on to us. The scientific excellence and superiority of Hangul is something that everyone in the world who has an eye for language or letters already agrees with. When we consider its scientific universality, rationality, and objectivity, its practicality in terms of how useful and easy it is to use, and its relative superiority compared to other languages, Hangul is the best among the letters currently used by people on Earth. In that sense, we should not define Hangul as only the Korean letters or just sit around bragging about receiving this gift, but rather let people who are poor in letters or have difficulty learning letters know that it exists and share it with them. It is our task and mission to share the spirit of Hangul, which is the universal letters of mankind that can best record all human speech and all sounds of nature, and the crystallization that contains the highest essence of human culture and civilization, and is truly the letters of nature and the letters of the universe, so that all of humanity can use it together. Then, the love within us will naturally appear and be conveyed. However, if we think lightly about the Korean language, it may actually have the opposite effect. A few years ago, the New York Times reported that the Manchurian language, the language of the Manchu people who founded the Qing Dynasty, the last dynasty of China, is on the verge of extinction. Some experts even predict that half of the 6,800 languages that exist in the world will disappear by the end of this century. Korean is no exception to this phenomenon. As the speed of incorporation into the neoliberal capitalist order accelerates, the influence of 'English' in Korean society is growing. Now, it seems that English has taken the position of a 'common language' rather than a 'foreign language' among certain classes. As the colloquial-centered ‘writing culture’ becomes widespread among the 10s and 20s in the Internet space, the destruction of Korean spelling and grammar is unfolding quite rapidly. Therefore, we should not take the news of the ‘death of Manchurian’ lightly. Korean, one of the many ethnic languages, is also a matter of time before it disappears if those who use it do not make efforts to preserve it. Even if we do not necessarily bring up hegemonic nationalism, since language fully reflects the history and culture of those who have used it, preserving that language is tantamount to preserving culture and history, so efforts to preserve the language are also necessary. In particular, Hangul, the invented ‘scientific alphabet’, is a highly receptive language that can express all languages in the world in phonetic symbols. As if to reflect this, Chungnam National University Department of Korean Literature Professor Jeong Won-su (48) created ‘Korean Input Device and Input Method as Chinese Characters’ in November 2006, which uses Korean letters to write Chinese, and named it ‘Onnuri Hangul’ meaning that Hangul benefits the entire world. Onnuri Hangul writes various sounds by combining consonants, vowels, and left, right, and up and down. Recently, the number of foreigners trying to learn Korean has been rapidly increasing, but foreigners say that it is difficult to access systematic Korean language textbooks and qualified teachers. Efforts to solve these practical problems are extremely important. In 2009, KBS 1TV aired a special program titled ‘Korean in the World’ to celebrate Hangul Day, which sought ways to spread Korean smoothly and correctly and establish it as a language in the world. On this day’s broadcast, Ida Doshi and Sam Hammington appeared and shared their experiences learning Korean and introduced methods to teach Korean well to foreigners. Ida Doshi, who is from France, emphasized that the more opportunities to experience Korean culture are provided, the higher the rate of Korean language diffusion. Sam Hammington, who is from Australia, requested the development of various Korean language textbooks. In response, Lee Sang-gyu, the director of the National Institute of the Korean Language, promised, “We will soon publish Korean language textbooks in five languages and will not spare support for the training of high-quality Korean language teachers.” KBS World Radio also started its ‘multilingual Korean language course’ service on the 9th. These efforts will come together to make a substantial contribution to Korean becoming a global language. It is said that Korean was adopted as the official language of the international patent community in 2007. Until now, the official languages under the International Patent Cooperation Treaty were 8, mainly from advanced countries, including English, French, and Japanese. The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), a UN agency, officially adopted Korean as an ‘international publication language’ along with Portuguese at its 43rd General Assembly held in Geneva, Switzerland on September 27, 2007 (local time) with 183 member countries unanimously. As a result, the number of international publication languages under the International Patent Cooperation Treaty increased from 8 (English, French, German, Japanese, Russian, Spanish, Chinese, and Arabic) to 10. Of the existing 8 international publication languages, 6 languages, excluding German and Japanese, are currently designated as official languages of the UN. ‘International publication language’ is a term used in the patent community when informing the international community of the nature of an applied patent technology. Institutions that have issued patents are required to disclose the contents of the patent in an ‘international publication language’ within 18 months to prevent duplicate investment, so the cost and time required for translation are reduced, and it is expected that the number of international patent applications from Korea will increase. This example is just one example of the process in which Korean is gradually approaching a language that is realistically needed in the world. If you look at the newspapers that have been published so far, you can find the following news: “East Timor, which gained independence from Portugal in 1975, decided to use Indonesian instead of Portuguese as its official language, but after gaining independence from Indonesia in 1999, it even abandoned Indonesian. However, due to the lack of a proper script, it is using Portuguese as its official language again. Accordingly, East Timor decided to pursue a plan to use its own language called ‘Tetum’ as an official language as a national task and to create a script to record Tetum. Like most countries without a script, the East Timorese government also began researching a method to write Tetum using the alphabet. However, the alphabet had several limitations in expressing the sounds of Tetum. It was difficult to write the aspirated sounds corresponding to ㄲ, ㄸ, ㅃ, ㅆ, and ㅉ in Korean, and it was expected that one letter, such as S, would be read as two or more letters, which would cause confusion. Eventually, discussions arose to introduce Hangul as a script to solve these problems. The wife of the East Timorese president and the foreign minister, who heard that Hangul had excellent phonetic notation, visited Korea in January 2004. They soon visited Kyungpook National University and agreed to promote the ‘Tetum-Hunminjeongeum Connection Project.’ Furthermore, it is said that the ‘Cia-Cia’, a minority group with a population of 60,000 living on the Indonesian island of Buton, decided to officially write their language in Hangul. This will likely be an opportunity to impress the world with the excellence of Hangul and enhance the image of the Hangul brand. This is a significant achievement, as efforts to globalize Hangul in regions without written language such as Thailand and China and in minority groups have failed. It is a great joy to see Hangul written in textbooks that have already been produced, and to also see traditional Korean tales included. Furthermore, the fact that they have revived the ㅸ (sungyeong sound ㅂ) that has disappeared from Korean must have greatly expanded the scope of pronunciation. Hangul is a writing system that is recognized by world-class linguists as an excellent writing system with no uncountable sounds. However, while it is difficult to realize this right away since English is still the mainstream, there are many opinions that it would be good to use Hangul as a global language, and as long as they are not simple greetings, these thoughts and hopes will become more and more real. There are no sounds that cannot be expressed in Hangul, so the Korean Language Information Society and the Hangul Character Globalization Movement Headquarters are moving to adopt Hangul as the international phonetic symbol. UNESCO has proposed the ‘Babel Plan’ to promote linguistic diversity and fair information use, and there is also a suggestion that preventing the extinction of minority languages by having minority language users who have a language but no letters to write it in Hangul will play a large role in increasing linguistic diversity. And above all, in this modern era of advanced information technology, the originality and excellence of Hangul are shining even brighter. The consistency between Hangul’s letters and sounds is expected to be a very advantageous condition in the ubiquitous era, which is becoming increasingly real due to its high voice recognition rate, and the keyboard and mobile phone text input speed is also faster than any other text. The fact that Korea has the highest penetration rate of high-speed Internet and mobile phones in the world was not a coincidence. It was possible because of the power of Hangul. As the world becomes more and more like one family and IT technology develops, the status and influence of Hangul will only increase. And one more thing to remember is that we often use Hangul and Korean interchangeably. And even among experts, although they distinguish Hangul and Korean in terms of meaning, they often confuse Hangul and Korean in terms of actual behavior. One of them is the ‘Hangul Society.’ The ‘Hangul Society’ should be studying Hangul and researching how all nations can write their own languages in Hangul and establishing standards for it. However, looking at the current work of Hangul schools, I think that since various definitions and regulations for Hangul have already been established, they are now studying Korean. However, I think that the ‘Hangul School Society’ should be studying Hangul. In other words, if we want to write the languages of the world in Hangul, we need to establish a notation method that takes into account the characteristics of each language in order to write that language in Hangul, so that Hangul can be used more and more in each country around the world. For example, who would do it if we, in our country, which is trying to spread Hangul, and the ‘Hangul Society’, which studies it professionally, established a notation method for writing the languages of countries that have languages but no letters? Furthermore, I think that the ‘Hangul Society’ needs to establish notation methods for languages that have their own letters. Then, I think that in the future, it will have a big effect, and it will become a realistic thing where countries and peoples truly use Hangul as their own letters. And if that happens, Korean will eventually become known to the world faster, and more and more people will use Korean. Hangul, the great heritage of the Korean people and the best letter of mankind that all linguists praise! I hope that the day will come soon when Hangul is used all over the world and people can freely converse in our language and letters anywhere on the globe. It is not just a story about satisfying our greed or that the culture and language of the Korean people dominate and benefit other peoples, but if it is a special grace that everyone enjoys together through the order and providence that created this land and all things, we should devote our heart and soul to informing and spreading this and move forward with a sense of mission. And if we pay attention and move forward like that, this will be the result of taking on another important mission that has been hidden from us.