Good evening, this is Ben Torrey once again.
As you may remember, I began a series
last week on questions that we need to
be exploring before the opening of North Korea.
Last week I spoke about the issue of
land.
Tonight I want to look at the questions
about language.
When the doors to North Korea open and
God's people seek to go into that land
and to share the love of Jesus Christ,
there will be many barriers to understanding to
overcome, not the least of which is the
difference in language.
Many people of South Korea seem to have
an assumption that there is really no big
difference in language between North and South Korea.
While most everyone is aware that there are
some differences, they tend to think that surely
they're not that great.
The reality is a bit different.
The differences between North Korean language and South
Korean language is greater than most people realize.
For the average North Korean it takes about
three years or more before he or she
is comfortable conversing in South Korea.
The question before us then is how different
are the two and just what is the
nature of those differences?
How much of the difference is regional dialect
and how much of it is from developing
in different ways isolated from each other over
the past 60 years?
What has influenced the development of language over
the past several generations?
The better we understand, the easier it is
to avoid misunderstanding and to develop programs to
overcome the differences.
One major and easily understood difference is in
the area of vocabulary.
There are several aspects to this.
Some very common terms are different.
In the South, whenever people need to take
care of certain bodily functions, they use the
Hwajangsil, but in North Korea they use the
Isingsil.
In the South we all drink Nokja, but
in the North they drink Purunja.
Add to this the fact that many American
terms have made their way into the spoken
language of South Korea, while in the North
there has been a consistent effort to prevent
this from happening.
Think for a moment about any conversation you
may have had in Korean recently.
How many English words did you or the
other person use without even thinking?
A young Korean-American friend of mine with
a great concern for North Korea was in
China recently.
He and some friends went into a North
Korean restaurant in Beijing.
He turned to the waitress, a North Korean,
and asked her for a menu pan, using
a combination of English and Korean word.
She reacted quite strongly, telling him that they
did not have anything like that there.
They used a charimpyeo.
In North Korea they refer to a goalkeeper
as a munjikki, a donut as a karakjipang,
and so forth.
The vocabulary difference increases when you think of
the rapidly changing slang and other language influenced
by the Internet and youth culture of the
South, something that is virtually unknown in the
North.
There is still another phenomenon influencing the vocabulary
of South Korea.
That is the constant invention of new words,
often created from English or some other language,
but still used only in the South.
One example is the short form of digital
camera, dikka.
I consider this to be a purely South
Korean word since it's not used anywhere else
in the world.
Another one is handphone.
Although this is starting to get some currency
abroad, the most widely used in the U
.S. is still cell phone.
As great as the vocabulary difference is, there
are other aspects of language that we also
need to consider and research.
One area of special concern is how language
is used in official propaganda and ideological statements.
Much of the superficial appearance and language of
juche ideology is similar to certain aspects of
Christianity.
Similar terms are used to refer to Kim
Il-sung in the North and to God
in the South.
How is such language used to convey fundamental
moral or spiritual meaning in this context and
how is it perceived by the hearers?
Will this affect how North Koreans respond to
preaching and teaching about the things of Christ?
If so, we certainly need to understand this.
Otherwise we could be saying one thing and
the North Korean could be hearing something very
different.
There is another issue that is subtle that
can cause enormous problems without being recognized.
It has to do with the way people
use language.
It relates to thought processes.
Because this issue is poorly understood, it often
leads to major misunderstanding, false assumptions, and serious
breakdowns in communication.
Numerous North Koreans have confirmed to me that
they sometimes find it more difficult to communicate
with South Koreans than with Americans.
This is not a vocabulary issue.
It has to do with the way language
is used.
South Koreans are famous for ambiguity and indirectness
in conversation.
Many Westerners living and working in Korea find
this to be most frustrating because we Americans
tend to speak bluntly and want to get
right to the point.
We find it tedious and confusing to have
to talk around a subject and constantly to
be watching the other to see how our
words are affecting them.
In fact, we rarely do that which comes
so natural to the South Korean.
There is no good English word for the
Korean term nunji because it just is not
something that Westerners do.
North Koreans are much like Americans in this
way.
They tend to be blunt and to the
point.
They also experience the same confusion and frustration
that the American experiences.
On the other hand, South Koreans often find
this North Korean directness to be offensive.
They get angry.
I have a co-worker who commented to
me that dealing with me has been helpful
training for dealing with North Koreans.
In this case, we were talking about telephone
use.
He commented that a certain North Korean friend
would call on the phone and launch right
into what was on his mind, get to
the point, and then cut the conversation short
just like I do.
At first, it was very difficult for my
co-worker to take but he began to
realize that the issue was not the other
person's rudeness or thoughtlessness but a cultural difference
similar to the one between him and me.
A few years ago, many churches opened their
arms to the increasing flood of North Koreans
coming South, only to drop ministries to refugees
after a year or so, frequently citing rudeness
and ingratitude as the reasons.
This is very sad to me because I
am sure that the North Koreans were neither
rude nor ungrateful, at least for the most
part.
It was the way they used language among
other cultural factors.
It came across as rude and ungrateful to
the South Koreans reaching out to them, who
ended up being offended, not realizing they were
dealing with a cultural gap.
We should ask why there is this difference
and where did it come from?
Was it the influence of Marxist egalitarianism, heavy
Soviet or Chinese influence over the years, or
something else?
Understanding this would make it much easier to
overcome the differences and not let it interfere
with the relationships that we seek to build
or with extending the love of Christ.
It might be helpful for you who listen
to this program to give some thought as
to how you use language and what cultural
differences there are wrapped up in differences of
language.
With that thought, I will say good night
until next week.