• Journal of Korean Home Economics Education Association
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• v.29 no.1
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• pp.1-13
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• 2017

The objective of this study was to understand the dietary life of North Koreans through the examination of dietary life terms assembled and classified from the North Korean sources. In order to ascertain any contrasting aspects and also to improve the degree of understanding, the comparable terms from the South Korean sources were also assembled and classified accordingly. The North Korean sources were the two dictionaries and the two Web sites related with the dietary life in North Korea and those of the South Korean sources were the middle school Home Economics textbooks in South Korea. The major findings of this study on the dietary life terms of North Korea were as follows: 1) The majority of the classified dietary life terms was from the food sector; 2) There were terms which were indicative of the food supply situation in North Korea; 3) The terms related to the corn as the primary crop for the North's food production policy occupied relatively a large proportion of the assembled terms; 4) Chinese-and foreign-origin terms seemingly modified through the North's word purification project were found in the various different categories; 5) Some terms were difficult to understand without special interpretation; 6) There were terms related to the agriculture which were obsolete in the South; and 7) In the South's Home Economics textbooks there were a number of the dietary life policy terms of South Korea and foreign-origin terms. It is hopeful that this study may contribute to the mutual understanding in the field of the dietary life for the South and North Korean youths in spite of the language bifurcation due to the South-North separation.