By Alek Sigley. I have a very lovely friend who is a professor of Korean studies in Australia and has come on our trips to North Korea twice. Her background is Anglo-Australian, but while a teenager she went on Rotary exchange to Daejon in South Korea and learnt Korean there. Afterwards she studied in Yonsei University in Seoul. Now she speaks Korean fluently. But since it was South Korea where she studied her Korean, the version of Korean she speaks is distinctively South Korean. On her two trips with us she would speak to the local North Koreans in Korean. This for the most part endeared her to them. It opened up possibilities for her to have interesting conversations with some of the people we met who weren’t guides or translators. But there were a couple of occasions where differences between the languages of North and South Korea caused things… [Read More]

By Alek Sigley Terms of Address in North and South Korea In this next instalment in our guide on how to speak the North Korean version of Korean, we’ll look at something very every day and practical—terms of address. This is generally one of the first things beginners learn when opening up their fresh, first level Korean language textbooks. But just like the Korean terms for referring to “Korea” as a country which we looked at in the previous instalments, historical circumstances and the separation of the two Koreas has manifested itself in different linguistic habits when it comes to basic terms of address in the two Koreas as well. Comrades Big and Small The most salient of these differences might be the North Korean usage of the words tongji (동지) and tongmu (동무), which may be translated as “comrade” in English. Much like in the China or Russia of… [Read More]

Using the North Korean and South Korean words for Korea, “Chosŏn” and “Hanguk” By Alek Sigley. Now that we’ve explained what the North and South Korean words for Korea are (“Chosŏn” and “Hanguk” respectively), and where they derive from, let’s look at the practical usage of the words in North and South Korea. As mentioned earlier, these different words for “Korea” also mean that by extension the words for concepts such as “Korean people”, “Korean peninsula”, the Korean language, traditional Korean clothing and housing, and words used to describe the other half of the peninsula are different across North and South Korean. Here are some of the major differences resulting from these different words for Korea in North and South Korean: Meaning North Korean South Korean Korea (as a whole) Chosŏn/조선/朝鮮 Han’guk/한국/韓國 Korean language Chosŏnŏ/조선어/朝鮮語 Han’gugŏ/한국어/韓國語 Korean language 2 (less formal) Chosŏnmal/조선말/朝鮮말 Han’gungmal/한국말/韓國말 Korean people Chosŏnin/조선인/朝鮮人 Han’gugin/한국인/韓國人 Korean people 2… [Read More]

“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]

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]