[KS] uri

Owen Miller owenski at gmail.com
Tue Jun 22 12:28:01 EDT 2010


I wouldn't like to step to far into the territory of the linguists on this
list but I really wonder whether the case can be made empirically that the
pronoun we is more frequent in Korean than in other languages. While I'm
sure that John Frankl is right about its enforced use (as a result of
ideological norms of national and familial collectivity that probably have
relatively recent *historical roots), this doesn't mean that it isn't used *
*frequently **in similar ways in other languages. *

The use of the 'national we' is not uncommon in the UK, although perhaps
uncommon enough that it makes me wince when I hear it. For example, teaching
the First Opium War last year I found myself feeling strangely uncomfortable
when the students spontaneously started discussing how terrible it was that
'we' had done this bad thing to China.

In certain British English dialects 'we' is also very commonly used in the
way that Ross King describes above (exclusive first-person plural pronoun)
in non-national contexts. For example, the Geordie English pronoun 'wor', as
in 'wor lass <http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/wor_lass>'.

It strikes me that the Korean discourse on the use of 'uri' is probably
something of a self-reinforcing feedback loop:

Encourage the use of a word in official discourse so as to strengthen
national collectivity --> discover that word is used frequently --> find
that this is evidence of strong national collectivity --> further encourage
use of word etc etc.

Best,
Owen Miller

On Mon, Jun 21, 2010 at 5:55 PM, Dr. Edward D. Rockstein <ed4linda at yahoo.com
> wrote:

> Of course, the usage of koku [a Sino-Japanese loan word] you describe has
> antecedents in Chinese usages such as  guoyu national language, guoshinational history,
> guowen national writing system or national literature, ddeung ddeung, nado
> nado, deng deng.
>
> Dr. Edward D. Rockstein
>
> ed4linda at yahoo.com
>
> ”  Politics is the womb in which war develops. ” — Karl von Clausewitz
>
>
> --- On *Mon, 6/21/10, tokita <tokita at flc.titech.ac.jp>* wrote:
>
>
> From: tokita <tokita at flc.titech.ac.jp>
> Subject: Re: [KS] uri
> To: "Ruediger Frank" <ruediger.frank at univie.ac.at>, "Korean Studies
> Discussion List" <koreanstudies at koreaweb.ws>
> Date: Monday, June 21, 2010, 9:12 AM
>
>
> I know Japanese much better than I know Korean, but clearly the Korean uri
> has its equivalent in Japanese language and usage. The Japanese equivalent
> of uri has indeed been very frequent in recent decades as an aspect of
> Nihonjinron (theories or discourse of Japanese uniqueness), but is probably
> declining in the younger generation. The Japanese equivalent actually
> uses archaic forms of the pronoun. Some examples:
>
>
>
> Japan is expressed as not only Nihon, but as waga kuni (our country; cf the
> softer watashitachi no kuni).
>
> The Japanese are not only Nihonjin, but wareware Nihonjin (we Japanese).
>
> My or our house can be wagaya (cf watashitachi no uchi).
>
>
>
> Then there is the use of koku (country, nation):
>
> Japanese literature is koku bungaku (recently the use of Nihon bungaku is
> starting to replace this); Japanese history is kokushi (now changing to
> Nihonshi); Japanese (national) language is kokugo: what is taught to
> Japanese in schools is kokugo and what is taught to non-Japanese is Nihongo.
>
>
>
> The use of our and national instead of the country name conveys a somewhat
> closed country, nationalistic mentality, and as Japan is becoming more
> internationalized this seems to be going out of favour. These are only my
> impressions, but others may know of research on this linguistic phenomenon.
>
>
>
> Alison Tokita
>
> Tokyo Institute of Technology
>
>
>
> *----- Original Message -----*
> *From: Ruediger Frank <ruediger.frank at univie.ac.at>*
> *To: Korean Studies Discussion List <koreanstudies at koreaweb.ws>*
> *Date: 2010-06-21 16:29:59*
> *Subject: Re: [KS] uri*
>
> And here comes something even less directly related, yet not completely
> unrelated: In Russian, there is a similar way of saying "we" when actually
> meaning "I", for example "me and my mother" would literally be "us with mom"
> (my s mamoj). In other words, this is not necessarily a purely Korean
> phenomenon. I guess Russian is not the only example. What about "we won"
> (wir haben gewonnen) meaning "our team has won" in German (at least)?
> Cheers,
> Rudiger
>
>
> on Montag, 21. Juni 2010 at 02:54 you wrote:
>
>
>   Thank you, Ross, for that very interesting piece.
>
> Perhaps this is not directly related, but I witnessed some very interesting
> aspects of "uri" while raising my daughter in Korea. Not only my daugher but
> all of her "pure Korean" friends as well naturally used the words "I/my"
> almost exclusively. I saw and heard all of them say in Korean "my house," my
> school," "my Mommy/Daddy," etc. Of course, they were quickly
> corrected/reprimanded by parents and teachers until they capitulated and
> began to use "we/our" almost exclusively where they had once felt that
> "I/my" was more natural. In a word, "uri" is not somehow "organic" to
> Korean-ness or Korean language but rather externally injected and enforced.
>
> JMF
>
> --- On *Sun, 6/20/10, Ross King <jrpking at interchange.ubc.ca>* wrote:
>
> From: Ross King <jrpking at interchange.ubc.ca>
> Subject: Re: [KS] uri
> To: "Korean Studies Discussion List" <koreanstudies at koreaweb.ws>
> Date: Sunday, June 20, 2010, 12:34 PM
>
> I discuss this a bit in this chapter:
>
> 2007a. Language and national identity in the Koreas. In: Andrew Simpson
> (ed.), Language and national identity in Asia. Oxford: Oxford University
> Press, pp. 200-235 (references in back of book):
>
>
> "10.5.1.4 Korean as an Embodiment of National Characteristics
> One important genre of the class of popular South Korean works on Korean
> language is
> what might be called the ‘lexical fetish’ category, and within this one
> finds an
> interesting sub-genre a kind of psychoanalytical ‘pop etymology’ that
> attempts to
> read Korean national traits from lexical semantics.
>      For example, Ceng Howan (1991) is titled ‘The Imagination of Korean:
> the Nation’s
> Emotions and Consciousness as seen through the Origins of Korean
> Vocabulary’, and
> there are many other works of a similar orientation, linking national
> characteristics to
> aspects of the Korean language. One particular word that attracts constant
> attention is
> the first-person plural pronoun wuli ‘we; our’. This is the first member of
> the most
> common designation for ‘Korean’ in much of this literature: wulimal
> literally ‘our
> language’, and is given special discussion in many essays, bringing to mind
> Silverstein’s
> (2000: 115) reminder that ‘nationalism is an imaginative sense of
> Bakhtinian ‘‘we-voicing’’
> ’, serving to distinguish the in-group as nation from outsiders. Though
> this
> general sub-genre is much less in evidence in the North than in the South,
> the everpresent
> first-person plural pronoun interestingly shows up in works produced in
> the North, too, for example ‘Wuli ‘‘we’’ the pronoun of love and faith’ (MH
> 2003
> Vol. 2: 213)."
>
> MH = Munhwae haksup, North Korea's popular/populist language planning
> journal.
>
> The Silverstein reference is:
>
> Silverstein, M. (2000), ‘Whorfianism and the Linguistic Imagination of
> Nationality’, in P.V.
> Kroskrity (ed.), Regimes of Language: Ideologies, Polities, and Identities
> (Santa Fe, New Mexico: School of American Research Press; Oxford: James
> Currey), 85138.
>
> One can also find various little pseudo-etymological essays in popular
> South Korean works about language:
>
> Chen, Soyeng. 1994. Pukkulewun alilang: wulimal eyseyi [Shameful arirang:
> Essays on
> Korean]. Seoul: Hyenamsa, has an essay on 'the cozy blanket of wuli';
>
> Pak, Kapchen (1974/1982). Ewen swuphil: mal uy kohyang ul chaca
> [Etymological essays: in
> search of the hometown of language] and Pak, Kapchen (1995). Caymiissnun
> ewen iyaki [Fun etymologies] both have a little essay on 'wuli'.
>
> Yi, Otek (1995/1996, vol. 3) (a very conservative, ultra-nationalist
> language ideologue) has this: "5.4. Wuli cip and na uy cip" (which, if I
> recall correctly, says what you would expect re collectivism vs.
> individualism).
>
> Si, Cengkon, Ceng Cwuli, Cang Yengcwun and Choy Kyengpong. 2003. Hankwuke
> ka salacintamyen [What if Korean were to disappear?]. Seoul: Hankyeley
> Sinmunsa, in Chapter 5, has a section on "Teasing out the meaning of ‘wuli’
> in ‘wulimal’".
>
> Anyway, 'wuli' is a favorite of Korean language ideologues, and there are
> also fanciful etymologies connecting the pronoun to the Korean word for
> 'fence' (cf. wulthali).
>
> Imho, wuli is a great example of a 1st-person plural pronoun in a language
> that does not have the occasionally-found inclusive/exclusive grammatical
> distinction for "we" (i.e., two different pronouns for "we," where one is
> "we = including you, my interlocutor," and "we = excluding you, my
> interlocutor), but nonetheless ends up _functioning_ like an exclusive
> 1st-person plural pronoun because of Korean ethnonationalism.
>
> RK
>
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
>
> > Date: Sun Jun 20 00:52:16 PDT 2010
> > From: "will pore" <willpore at gmail.com<http://us.mc332.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=willpore@gmail.com>
> >
> > Subject: [KS] uri
> > To: "Korean Studies Discussion List" <Koreanstudies at koreaweb.ws<http://us.mc332.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=Koreanstudies@koreaweb.ws>
> >
> >
> > Dear List:
> >
> > For any comparative Asian linguists, Ural Altaic linguists (?), or, maybe
> even Korean linguists on the list, I would like to inquire if a pronoun
> similar to the Korean we (i.e. uri) occurs with the same
> frequency/prominence in any related languages to the same degree that it
> does in Korean. Should we accept the assertion that I nearly always have had
> that the prominence of that pronoun in Korean is due to a particular Korean
> mindset alone? I have never read a discussion of this phenomenon by a Korean
> language scholar, however. I am not presenting this question merely as a
> random thought of mine or as a puzzle for the illumination of others on the
> list, but as part of a larger study.
> >
> > I will greatly appreciate any authoratative replies.
> >
> > Regards,
> >
> > Will   -- William F. PoreAssociate ProfessorGlobal Studies ProgramPusan
> National University
> --
> Ross King
> Professor of Korean and Head,
> Department of Asian Studies,
> University of British Columbia,
>
> and
>
> Dean, Korean Language Village,
> Concordia Language Villages
>
> Mailing address:
> Ross King, Department of Asian Studies, UBC
> Asian Centre, 1871 West Mall
> Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z2
> CANADA
>
> vox: 604-822-2835
> fax: 604-822-8937
> http://www.asia.ubc.ca/people/faculty/ross-king.html
>
>
>
>
>


-- 
Dr Owen Miller
Research Associate, Robinson College
University of Cambridge
Teaching Fellow, Japan and Korea Dept.
School of Oriental and African Studies
tel:  +44 (0) 7780 009 338
e-mail:  om4 at soas.ac.uk // om248 at cam.ac.uk
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