[KS] Re: Se habla Han'gul?

[Ross King]

The use of "hankul" to mean "Korean language" is one of my pet peeves, too.

>What concerns -- and befuddles -- me at present is the apparent willingness
>of KATUSAs (Korean soldiers serving in U.S. units), and perhaps other
>Koreans working for USFK...

Somebody else put their finger on it in one of the related postings -- I
think this is a good example of what usually gets called "foreigner talk"
by sociolinguists. ('Who cares if it's wrong and dumb -- we're only dealing
with foreigners here who don't have the gene sequence which controls the
ability to learn Korean to 'native' level, anyway.')

>Do literate Koreans use "Han'gu^l" to refer
>to their spoken language, as opposed to the alphabet?

Obviously some do, but I've only encountered it in 'foreigner talk'-type
situations (which, almost by definition, includes Korean communities in
North America). The fact that Korean Saturday schools in North America are
called Hankul Hakkyo does not, pace Young-Key, seem to be good evidence
that this 'variation' is widespread or widely accepted (in the meaning she
suggests).

And on the subject of variation and linguists' attitudes to it, while I
generally share Young-Key's lack of patience for prescriptivism and
school-marmism, I also think that occasionally we linguists (many of whom,
in our field, anyway, are also pedagogs trying to teach a semblance of
'standard Korean', whatever that is) should saddle up and take a quixotic
tilt at silly or wrongheaded usages like hankul = Korean language. In other
words, I don't think we should immediately reify or sanctify every odd
usage or mistake that comes out of the mouth of native speakers and
promptly put it in our database of examples of 'change in progress' or the
like.

"Hankul" is indeed a coinage (from han[nala]kul), supposedly first attested
1913, by Cwu Sikyeng. He advocated a parallel coin which never caught on:
han[nala]mal. Maybe somebody should revive it!

Ross King
UBC




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