[KS] Re: Se habla Han'gul?

[Horace H. Underwood]

At last!  Something Ken and I agree about!

I have never in my life heard any Korean refer to the spoken language as
"han'gul," since hangul means "korean writing".  (In fact, the spoken
language is seldom even hanguk-mal - it is usually "urinara-mal," but that's
a separate issue.)  The ones Ken asks seem to be at least polite.  I wonder
if they are being polite in adapting to the incomprehensible idiocy of a
guest, the U.S. Army.  The ones I ask just laugh.

On the other hand, Ken, are you sure you want to sit on that chair and tell
the tide not to come in?

Horace H. Underwood

-----Original Message-----
From: Kaliher, Kenneth L. <KaliherK at usfk.korea.army.mil>
To: 'Korean studies' <korean-studies at mailbase.ac.uk>
Date: Friday, January 28, 2000 2:56 AM
Subject: Se habla Han'gul?


>As a civilian employee of USFK for nearly two decades, I am accustomed to
>hearing some Americans in the military community butcher the Korean
>language.  A frequent offense is the use of "Han'gu^l" to mean the Korean
>language; the worst offenders compound the infraction by pronouncing it
>"Hahn-GOOL."  Perhaps these perpetrators wish to show off what little
Korean
>they think they know, and can't be bothered to learn "Hangungmal" -- the
use
>of which would be silly, anyway; how often do we use "Deutsche" or
>"Nihonggo" in an otherwise English sentence?
>
>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, to endorse what I perceive as a clear misuse of
>the language.  The on-post weekly Seoul Word carries a regular feature now
>titled "Korean Phrase of the week" (after I badgered them into changing it
>from "Hangul Phrase...").  The Korean language subhead underneath, however,
>still reads "Han'gu^ru^l paeupsida."
>
>My own limited, informal poll of reasonably well educated Korean
>acquaintances has turned up not a single one who says it is correct to use
>"Han'gu^l" to mean the Korean language, rather than the alphabet.  (To me,
>it is analogous to saying someone "speaks Cyrillic.")  I would like,
>however, to poll a wider range of sources.
>
>Thus my question to the List:  Do literate Koreans use "Han'gu^l" to refer
>to their spoken language, as opposed to the alphabet?
>
>-- If not, I will continue my quixotic quest to keep the AFKN airwaves and
>Defense Department discourse free of such abuses.
>-- If so, I promise to curtail any further curmudgeonly commentary on the
>subject, and to resign myself to the inevitable mongrelization of the O^mma
>Tongue.
>
>Thank you for your research assistance!
>
>Ken Kaliher
>
>P.S.  At least we're no longer subjected to volleys of "taksan" and
>"sukoshi" from the would-be linguists of the 1960s and 1970s who thought
>THEY were speaking Korean....
>
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