{"id":3471,"date":"2015-11-06T18:33:24","date_gmt":"2015-11-06T18:33:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/korean\/?p=3471"},"modified":"2017-12-04T07:31:40","modified_gmt":"2017-12-04T12:31:40","slug":"north-and-south-korean-language-split-can-they-understand-each-other","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/korean\/north-and-south-korean-language-split-can-they-understand-each-other\/","title":{"rendered":"North and South Korean Language Split: Can They Understand Each Other?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Over sixty years after North Korea and South Korea agreed to a ceasefire (along with the United States and United Nations participants), the two countries have taken different political pasts, clearly. \u00a0But this has transferred into the linguistic fear as well, with North Korean defectors struggling to adjust to South Korean\u00a0hangul<\/em>. \u00a0Imagine trying to adjust to your central tongue. \u00a0But those diverging political pasts, especially with the growth of Western influence and globalization, also are reasons why the two countries have major differences. \u00a0And the lack of outside engagement plays a large role as to why the two countries have a hard time understanding each other.<\/p>\n

In short, people from North Korea (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, or DPRK) and South Korea (Republic of Korea, or ROK) can understand each other. \u00a0 But the dialects, or\u00a0saturi<\/em> \uc0ac\ud22c\ub9ac, are much different–the way they are in different parts of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and North Ireland, and between the American Deep South with, well, the rest of the US. \u00a0And North Koreans will have trouble understanding Western words that have crept into the South Korean version. \u00a0Furthermore, North Koreans have a stress on certain constants and vowels, producing what South Koreans feel as an archaic and unsophisticated version of the language. \u00a0However, these analyses are usually not purely linguistic arguments, just like the differences didn’t result strictly due to regions, but rather more likely from linguistic norms derived from cultural and social adaptation (or lack thereof).<\/p>\n

As globalization moved in East Asia, the ROK adopted words such as ice cream, internet (and many other computer related words like keyboard), and service \uc11c\ube44\uc2a4 (meaning “complimentary”), to name a few. \u00a0But in the DPRK, this has not been the case. \u00a0From a purely linguistic standpoint, it would be like traveling back in time nearly a century and trying to have a conversation. \u00a0(However, as you will see below, you can talk about modern day words; it would, though, be an entirely different word.)<\/p>\n

From the North Korean style, they believe they speak a purer form of the language, much like your great-grandparents would tell you had you traveled back in time.\u00a0 For a language which has a lot of pop culture, K-drama, and hierarchical aspects, as well as heavy on tones, a North Korean speaking in South Korea can lead to a lot of ridicule and a major culture shock<\/a>, requiring a crash course on their own native language upon arrival in the ROK.<\/p>\n

One example is the South Korean word for lotion (\ub85c\uc158), a straight adoption of the English word. \u00a0In North Korea, it is \uc0b4\uacb0\ubb3c, or skin water. \u00a0This is a microcosm of how different the most reclusive and secluded country is compared to a the G20 nation, highlighting growing differences between the communist DPRK and the capitalistic ROK from a linguistic point of view.<\/a><\/p>\n

The differences in pronunciation and spelling<\/a> are usually a difference between a ROK Westernization and those same products or ideas literally translated from the idea into the DPRK version. \u00a0There is definitely a political motivation<\/a>. \u00a0Here are a few more examples of the growing gaps<\/a> between the two:<\/p>\n