Today is Hangul Day - that time of the year where Koreans are supposed to take a moment to ponder the brilliance of their alphabet - and what better way to celebrate it than with this Dong-A piece lamenting the destruction of the language at the hands of online users. I’m at a loss for what to say about this - yes, much of what passes for Korean on the ‘Net is virtually unintelligible to those unfamiliar with the jargon - shit, there’s even an online translation service that renders online “Alien-speak” into standard Korean. And if it’s true that online jargon is making it’s way into children’s Korean classes - I have seen some pretty ugly example of compositions written by Korean elementary and middle school kids - then that’s something to worry about. But like I am with any language, I’m a but suspicious of the “Language Nazis” who try to enforce their versions of linguistic orthodoxy on the rest of us. Personally, if kids want to continue using their online language on the ‘Net, fine with me - it’s not my place to correct their grammar. If the little ones are turning in monstrosities as homework, then it’s the responsibility of the teachers to ensure that students understand that online jargon has no place in the classroom, but monitoring the chat rooms and message boards doesn’t seem to be the way to go.
(Hat tip to Gatorlog)
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5 Comments
Agree with you that the Nazis at ??흹?쨍??짯쨍챈흹? went overboard (a long time ago). And they did their part in foobaring the language too. ??째?쨔? for ?짧?≥???? ???????짠??for ??쨀?짼째?짠???? ???????????짚 vs ???????????짚??
But the way kids speak and write Korean is a clear symptom of the status of education in Korea. Parents gave up (or rather, mothers; fathers don’t care anyway), “professors” never cared enough to have to give up. Some of the students I had didn’t write proper Korean, had zero general culture, and now they’re ??????. C’mon… Some, Americans especially, might not agree with me, but I am really convinced that this is (partly) the result of not having a central government ruling over the education system. If all profs were civil servants, recruited and trained, after graduation from college, by a specialized institution, the situation would be much better. Especially if the recruitment was competitive.
Three-year old Korean kids with yellow hair? C’mon, what are the moms thinking?
I disagree with you somewhat on the “government control” thing, both for ideological reasons AND I tend to agree see the Korean education system in much the same light as Karel Van Wolferen sees the Japanese educational system - it’s a training program for civil servants and middle managers, not a “learning” process. The Ministry of Education has done enough damage to young minds, and I wouldn’t want to give them the opportunity to do any more. But I think you’re right on target in saying that many people just don’t care anymore, and that’s never a good sign. Still, I guess it’s possible to go overboard on this - as a product (mostly) of the American educational system, our (the American) public school system (from grades 1-12, anyway) leaves much (possible more) to be desired.
Ditto the yellow hair - what the fuck ever happened to ??쨍????????? around here, anyway? A friend of mine - whose blog you can find over at Flying Yangban - has a theory on this, however. In Korea, you have a relatively large number of young housewives with few outlets for their creative energies. Hence, they end up turning those energies on their sons’ coifs - with truly horrorfying results.
I’d bet you disagree…
Haven’t met yet an American who would agree here. But you see, my view on this subject is that while any government may fuck up, sometimes big time, sometimes a little, but in the end, they can’t do worse than individuals left on their own. Education is too important to be left to individual initiative. We’ve all seen where unchecked initiative can lead, here, and elsewhere…
What is needed, I think, is a way of ensuring that everybody gets at least a fair chance at getting the same education. To this end, a central entity has to control the education programmes, the recruitment and the training of the teaching staff, ensuring regularly through inspections that they provide the service they were hired to deliver. The only way to do that is for the government to run the show. There IS a Ministry of Education, after all. We’ve seen in the past years that self-discipline doesn’t work (NYSE?).
Nice wisecrack about Americans; thanks for that. I guess I should diagree with you just to confirm whatever other opinions you hold about Americans. Unfortunately I happen to agree with you. Standardized education is supposed to be….well, standard. The government’s job is to ensure an equal and quality education for all. Parents and children, obviously, don’t know what a good education is (current situation in Korea and elsewhere is proof of that). The problem here is that, in Korea, the government has no authority; they make the policies and the prinicipals nod their heads and do what they want.
Rex, it was not a wisecrack: I am not that cheap. I was just speaking from experience. I guess I am happy to ‘meet’ somebody from across the pond who agrees with me
The problem in “the prinicipals nod their heads and do what they want” is that most of them are not from Public Service — and too many schools are private. I guess it is too late to change that, short of a revolution