Reflections on the Study of national Language in Korea

국어학 연구의 성격과 태도에 대한 반성

The issues concerning the nature of the attitude toward the study of national language may vary from country to country, depending on the national or racial characteristics. The problem domains and the methodologies dealing with them may vary accordingly. Ever since the Korean language was equipped with a writing system in the year of 1443 through King Sejong's long-cherished desire, investigations have been constantly made into the real nature of the language itself in pursuit of a better method for representing the spoken language in written form. This is how the study of the Korean language began to take shape. Among such investigations are Hunmin-jeong-eum(the Korean script: 1446) compiled by Jiphyon-jon, the royal office of schloarly researches, Doongguk-jeonghun-yokhun (the orthodox script of Korean: 1448), Hongmu-jeonghun-yeokhun(interlinear gloss for the Chinese script of the Ming Dynasty: 1455), An Orthodox Approach to Written Korean (1909) by the institute of the National Script, Re Standardized Spelling System (1933) by Chosun Language Society, An Authorized Dictionary of Standard Korean (1936), How to Write Borrowed Words(1940), and A Grand dictionary of Korea (1947-57). Chu Shi-Gyung's Phonetics of the Korean Script(1908), Korean Grammar(1910), and Sound Patterns of Korean(1914) were all written in this vein; so was Choi Hyun-Bae's Uri-mal-bon (the rudiments of Korean Grammar: 1929/1937). All these achievements in the study of the Korean language are the end-products of the constant endeavor to solve the issues related to the spoken and written farms of the Korean language. And this is how the uniqueness and autonomy of the language study in korea have been established. It should be borne in mind, however, that, in seeking solutions to the problems inherent in the Korean linguistic studies of foreign countries. On the contrary, they have been very active in accommodating such results. While they have set up their problem domains on the basis of the korean language, they been progressively open-minded in looking for the solutions to the problems at hand.