[KS] One Closing News of the Year: Five association of LOI's vow to restore hanja to the nation.(corrected)

JooBai Lee jblee6952 at hotmail.com
Wed Dec 31 19:41:42 EST 2003


Dear List,

During a gathering of the leaders of industry of five national associations
at Ritz-Carlton, Seoul, the members announced their decision to make hanja
testing mandatory for new employees beginning next year. (12/30/03)

In contrast to the strutting opposition to the attempts by the former
ministers of education and the former President Kim Young-Sam, the response
was more muted, if not disappointingly out of character and sheepish.

If anything, the less spirited protests of HanGyure and Ohmynews readers
were a mixture of moaning and whining, asking which characters they have to
study, simplified or traditional.

While only a day has passed, there has been but one formal opposition .

>From what I can surmise, only the new employees would be subjected to the
testing.  It also was not clear whether those many coming back to Korea
with H.S.D., A.B. and Ph.D. from America, or the freshly minted Ivy League
Ph.D.s and MBA's would also be subjected to the same. 

I would like to ask: Does this bode the end to the extraordinary language
experiment in Korea? 

And what about the issue of which to examine:  I would suspect that the
Japanese characters would be out of the question. Then, who can avoid
toadyism charges if simplified characters are adopted?   

What happened at the recent congress of university presidents of East Asia,
where the issue of the unification of characters in China, Taiwan, Korea,
Vietnam, and Japan was under discussion?  Did China or Japan concede to
Korea's concern and make the natural transition back to the traditional
characters?

Could we also be looking at the beginnings of the sinification of the
pronunciation of the Sino-Korean words, with tone and all, no final
consonants.

Or are the questions premature, not knowing whether the new exam-rod will
have a real bite?



Wishing all a Happy and Healthy New Year,

JooBai Lee

12/31/03


산업계에 漢字 바람 불까 ( 2003년 12월 30일 15:56 , 머니투데이, 사회 )

 
<http://kr.news.yahoo.com/service/news/ShellView.htm?ArticleID=2003123015562
437714&LinkID=9&NewsSetID=470>
http://kr.news.yahoo.com/service/news/ShellView.htm?ArticleID=20031230155624
37714&LinkID=9&NewsSetID=470

 
취업준비생들 "한자까지 공부하라고?"

 
<http://ohmynews.com/articleview/article_view.asp?menu=c10600&no=145877&rel_
no=1>
http://ohmynews.com/articleview/article_view.asp?menu=c10600&no=145877&rel_n
o=1


채용할 때 漢字 시험 경제5단체 새해부터

 
<http://news.joins.com/money/200312/30/200312301923434031500050105011.html>
http://news.joins.com/money/200312/30/200312301923434031500050105011.html


한글문화연대 "채용시험 한자채택 반대"

 <http://www.chosun.com/w21data/html/news/200312/200312310128.html>
http://www.chosun.com/w21data/html/news/200312/200312310128.html

경제5단체, 채용때 한자시험 권장

 <http://www.hani.co.kr/section-
004000000/2003/12/004000000200312301927466.html>
http://www.hani.co.kr/section-
004000000/2003/12/004000000200312301927466.html



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