“Korea” in South Korean: “Hanguk” By Alek Sigley. In the last instalment of this series examining the linguistic differences between the languages of North and South Korea, we looked at the origins of the North Korean word for Korea, “Chosŏn”. As touched upon previously, in South Korea, a different word, “Hanguk” (한국; 韓國), is used to refer to Korea. The “kuk” in “han-guk” comes from a Chinese character meaning “country” or “nation”, thus “Hanguk” can be read as “the country of the Han”. But who are the Han (韓; note that they are not the same “Han” as in Han Chinese, which is a different character; 漢)? In this instalment we’ll explore the origins of the word “Hanguk”, and deal with the question of why it is that South Koreans refer to their country by a different name to their brethren in the North. Through the process we will discover… [Read More]
Archives for March 2017
How to Speak the North Korean Language: Part 1
Why Study the North Korean Language or Why Pursue Language Study in North Korea? By Alek Sigley. At Tongil Tours we pride ourselves on being the only North Korea tour operator whose staff have in-depth knowledge of North Korean history, culture and society. Such knowledge is grounded in our study of the Korean language—we all speak fluent Korean. We’ve taken university courses and degrees in Korean, been on Korean television talk shows, and translated North Korean short stories into English. We strongly believe that to truly understand a society you must learn its language, and that to be good North Korea guides one needs to possess a wealth of knowledge on all aspects of Korean history, society, and language. Thus, we were very excited to run our first language program at a North Korean university last year—the inaugural Pyongyang Summer Language Program. Last year’s program at Kim Hyong Jik University… [Read More]
