[KS] Re: Se habla Han'gul?

Morgan Clippinger clippim at hotmail.com
Thu Jan 27 20:24:10 EST 2000


The fascinating thread on han'gul led me to check out the two-volume North 
Korean Chosonmal taesajon, to see if the term was even there.  Surprisingly, 
it was.  According to its definition,  han'gul is another way of referring 
to the Hunmin chong'um, the "distinctive national characters (minjok kulcha) 
of the Choson people," which has meaning of "great characters" (k'un kul) or 
"correct characters." (parun kul)    It notes that in 1927 the journal 
Hangul was published and the term-"hangul" presumably--came to be used 
throughout society. It gives two examples:  han'gul pogup {han'gul 
popularization" and han'gul tokpon 'han'gul reader."

The next entry was "hangul hakkyo."  The Chosonmal taesajon defines kan'gul 
hakkyo as the "schools that were organized immediately after the liberation 
in order to eliminate illiteracy."  Hmm. Could there be some linkage here 
with the hangul hakkyo in the US?

The word "han'gul," interestingly enough, does not appear in the North 
Korean Cho-yong sajon.



Morgan E. Clippinger


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