South Korea calls for ‘language purification’ campaign on Korean alphabet day
As Hangul Day is observed, Prime Minister Chung Hong-won urges Koreans to clean up language usage
South Korea’s prime minister called for a national “language purification” campaign on Wednesday as the country observed Hangul Day marking the invention of the Korean alphabet more than five centuries ago.
“We witness the rampant usage of slang, profanities and even verbal violence in our daily lives,” said Prime Minister Chung Hong-won at a ceremony marking the 567th birthday of Hangul, which was invented by King Sejong of the Joseon Dynasty.
“To remedy this bad culture, we need a national language purification campaign,” he added.
Chung’s remarks come as many Koreans bemoan what they see as a language crisis resulting from abbreviated speech on the internet, adoption of foreign words, widespread use of slang among youngsters and incorrect conjugation of honorifics.
The government was also to blame for incorrect usage of the language, said civic group Hangul Munhwa Yeondae. Out of the 3,000 press releases issued by South Korea’s 17 government ministries, the National Assembly and the Supreme Court from April to June this year, each document had on average nearly three violations of the national language law, it said.
The legislation, enacted in 2005, requires official documents to be written entirely in Korean and, if necessary, include Chinese characters or foreign words in parentheses.