kangmi: learning korean

In 1946, Hangul Day was designated a national holiday in commemoration of the 500th anniversary of Hangul’s distribution. Some 20,000 dignitaries celebrated the day at Toksu Palace.

In August 1990, however, the government decided to exclude Hangul Day from national holidays together with Armed Forces Day on Oct. 1, to reduce the number of national holidays. Since then, Hangul Day has remained a commemoration day.

However, academics and others demanded Hangul Day should be upgraded again to a national holiday and a national feast. Last November, the National Assembly passed a revision bill to re-designate the day as a national holiday.

But the government did not make it a legal day off, considering the increased number of holidays following the adoption of the five-day workweek.

I assume that calling Hangul Day a holiday is a misnomer, since residents of Korea do not enjoy an actual day off.

Whatever the case may be, happy Hangul Day! Remember that whatever your feelings about the load of hangul propaganda you’ll hear on the day, it really does make your life easier.

“In the international world, with all sorts of international contracts and exchanges, unifying the Romanization standard is crucial. I am actually very late in submitting the bill now. The law should have been set up years ago,” Kim said in an interview with The Korea Herald.

He became more aware of the need for a single standard after the Dec. 26 tsunami tragedy,

“Since Koreans spell names (in English) so differently without any rules, the government had a hard time sorting out Korean names from the victims of the tragedy. This shows that the present situation is not only confusing but can also be dangerous.”

People have to remember that to foreigners, changing one letter can make a totally different word, said Kim. “Imagine how confusing it would be for us if an American called Kennedy sometimes spells his name Kennedy and sometimes Kenady. We would think that they mean two different people, wouldn’t we?”

As Kim says, the differences in the Romanization of Korean words have confused foreigners.

The southern port city Busan is still written as “Pusan” in many cases. Incheon, site of the international airport, was previously Inchon and Gimpo, the domestic airport in Seoul, used to be Kimpo.

Kim’s bill would make the government set a new English lettering standard after thorough research on how Korean words are currently Romanized.

“Because the government’s 2000 version was not mandatory, it became useless,” said Kim. “Therefore, the new version should be set with the majority’s approval and the government should enforce the public to use it.”

Kim asserted that the general names of cities, towns, regions and public organizations should follow the government’s new standard, but individuals and private organizations should be given more time - at least three to five years - in changing their names.

“If some persist on writing their names differently for an understandable reason, their claims should be accepted. But personally, I don’t see the reason to insist on keeping such and such spelling for the names when it is a process to help the whole nation,” he added.

Kim emphasized that both government effort and public cooperation were needed in order for the nation to set a firm principle and become well adapted in the global world.

“Korea is only proving how underdeveloped it is by delaying the English lettering unification process,” said Kim. “English has become more important than Chinese for a long time now. How come we are so strict about Chinese lettering and so generous when it comes to Romanization?”

Even if one has to go through some inconvenience, everyone has [sic] cooperate in the process both for individuals’ and the whole nation’s benefit, he said.

There’s unified romanization, and there’s romanization on which everyone can agree. Neither is easy to achieve.