[KS] Korea Linguistic Association

[W.Choi at lse.ac.uk]

Dear Professor King,
 
Thank you for your most helpful email, especially the reminder about other linguistic societies during the 1920s.   
 
My curiosity of the Ohakhae stems though from the desire to look at linguistic organisations that actively engaged in maintaining Korean nationalism/identity during the colonial era.  In this vein, I have only come across this group and deduced that they must have played a more politically conscious and active role than others.  The primary question that I am keen to research is how did such an organisation helped to moderate and form Korean nationalism in the long-term and short-term.  In this light, would you have any suggestions where I ought to look?  
 
I absolutely agree that colonial period materials must be looked at.  Instead of the Chosen Sotokufu, ie, at the top level, I believe that looking into accounts of lower-level Japanese administration, local and individual records might add an important and interesting level of analysis.  If you or any others deem it also sensible and have any idea where to find them, I would be very grateful to be pointed in the right direction.  
 
My email address is w.choi at lse.ac.uk if anyone replying to the present email thinks that this topic has already clogged enough inboxes.  Thank you all for your patience.
  
Finally, for those any interested, the website is http://www.hangeul.or.kr/
 
Best wishes,
Lia
IH Dept. LSE

________________________________

From: Koreanstudies-bounces at koreaweb.ws on behalf of jrpking
Sent: Sun 3/5/2006 4:28 AM
To: Korean Studies Discussion List
Subject: Re: [KS] Korea Linguistic Association



Dear Lia:

One of the reasons you're not finding much in your searches for the "Choson Ohakhae" (apart from, perhaps, the typo of "Ohakhoe") is that after 1945 it changed its name to the Hangul Hakhoe, which has an excellent website that will lead you to all kinds of source materials, as will any search in either hangul or in romanization in just about any database for that name.

With specific respect to this question:

> I was slightly concerned that although this was published by Hankuk Munwhasa, its original print was in Pyongyang.  Would you, or anyone else have an idea of what this implicates?  My suspicion is that this could be a distorted view and history of the Ohakhae. 

It is a partisan account, yes (and the reprint is part of a much larger ongoing attempt to obtain and reprint all North Korean publications in the field of linguistics, as part of the general and increasing anxiety about linguistic divergence), but not any more so than the many, many accounts that have come from South Korea and which, for example, lionize Ch'oe Hyon-bae while more or less erasing both Kim Tu-bong and Yi Kung-no from the record, when in actual fact, these latter two were at least as, if not more significant as grammarians and 'philological incendiaries' than Ch'oe Hyon-bae. But Kim and Yi, like many of the more talented intellectuals in language and literature at the time, chose to go north, leaving Ch'oe in a more or less undisputed leadership position in the south, where the society remained.

Please note also that the Chosonohakhoe (colonial period precursor of the Hangul Hakhoe) -- again, _pace_ most South Korean accounts -- was not the only game in town when it came to grammar, orthography, linguistic research, language activism, etc., during the colonial period. Pak Sung-bin's rival society is also written out of most accounts of the period, as are the even earlier linguistic societies launched by, e.g., the Japanese colonial police and in which later 'stars' of the Chosonohakhoe published some early papers.

So we need to balance both SK and NK retrospective accounts of these societies and their activities during the colonial period, but more than that, of course, we need to look at the colonial period materials themselves, most of which have been reprinted. (Pak Sung-bin's society published a journal called _Chong'um_ ('Correct Sounds') which needs to be read in conjunction with _Han'gul_).

Cheers,



--
Ross King
Associate Professor of Korean, University of British Columbia
and
Dean, Korean Language Village, Concordia Language Villages




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