Seoul, South Korea 1982

One of the most difficult things for a Westerner moving to Korea was learning the language.  Most of the world’s major languages use a Cyrillic alphabet (or variant), but Korean uses a semanto-phonetic compound. Each hangul stroke or letter describes a syllable or one sound. The strokes or letters are grouped into blocks to form words. These blocks are then arranged horizontally from left to right or vertically from top to bottom as writing. Commissioned by King Sejong and completed in 1443, this orthography made reading and writing Korean possible for the illiterate masses—previously one would have had to learn Chinese and many of its characters to be literate. The difficulty of Korean is compounded by vocabulary and endings that reflect differences in age, status, rank, profession, and relationship between two speakers as well as four levels of speech ranging from polite formal to intimate. Mom and Dad were also taught the rudiments of a fifth level of speech, reserved for God and the king—a form they used especially in prayer.   Continue reading “{South Korea} Language & Gender” →