Yelee An 안예리
Seoul: Yeokrak 2020
Reviewed by: Eunjin Jung (PhD Candidate, Korea University, HYI Visiting Fellow)
The presence of a national language and writing system does not guarantee the capacity to express all forms of knowledge. Logical and reasoning-based language activities demand appropriate lexical, grammatical, and stylistic background. In the late 19th century, Korea was facing such a linguistic challenge. For a long time, vernacular Korean was used for daily communication and literary Sinitic took responsibility for academic purposes. Amid the pressures of global invasions and Korea’s growing aspirations for enlightenment, language emerged as a central issue. It was an urgent mission to establish Korean as a national language, formulating standardized norms, and discovering an optimal writing style. In the meantime, language, which had long been taken for granted, sparked a variety of questions.
Language Questions of Modern Korea is a must-read not only for those who wish to understand the sharp yet profound linguistic discussion surrounding the Korean language and Hangul during the era of a new dawn, but also for those seeking a vivid example of la questione della lingua—the issue of standardizing language and determining literary prestige to shape national identity and achieve political unity.
This book consists of three chapters with simple but explicit titles: Our Language, Ideal Language, and Scientific Language. The first chapter, Our Language, examines the initial shift in perception of Korean from a vernacular language to a national one. It details how Koreans came to view their language as a symbol of national identity and Hangul as a national writing system. This shift signaled a departure from the long-standing tradition and the initiation of experiments to develop a new Korean writing style.
The growing self-awareness of language led to a focus on grammar. Recognizing that language follows certain rules developed into the idea that there are “correct” and “incorrect” usages, emphasizing the need for shared norms to unify the Korean language. This notion led efforts to establish a “standard language” and “standard orthography” as an ideal language.
Language standardization was regarded as a measure of civilization, promoting the belief that language needed to be scientific. At the time, the term “scientific” was more of a metaphorical rhetoric referring to rationality and logic, rather than the scientific field itself. While intense debates arose over the standardization of orthography, linguists cited “science” to support their arguments. The newly emerging discipline of linguistics also rooted its principle in scientific investigation. Consequently, a scientific language served as both a method and a logical foundation for constructing an ideal language.
What makes this book stand out is the author’s ability to go beyond previous studies that focused on the processes and outcomes of linguistic standardization or writing style innovation. The author offers a multilayered perspective on language that led to such conclusions. The discussions on language during that period not only laid the foundation for the modern Korean writing style and orthographic principles, but also shaped Korea’s linguistic ideology today. This book, therefore, serves as an excellent guide for gaining a deeper understanding of linguistic issues in Korea and the history of the Korean language.
The author, Yelee An, was a Visiting Fellow (2010-2011) at the HYI and is currently an Associate Professor of Korean Linguistics at the Academy of Korean Studies. This book received the Park Seung-bin Korean Linguistics Award in 2021.