| Description |
Kim Il Sung's language purification policy, calling for the elimination of all loanwords, was born out of the juche (self-reliance) ideology. Promoting language purity was a way to unite the North Korean people in a feeling of cultural superiority over the traitors in the South whose relationship with the US, the North's enemy, showed no signs of weakening and whose relationship with Japan, the former colonizer, was being reestablished. What might have been the nonlinguistic function of Kim Il Sung's language purification policy - calling for the elimination of all Chinese loanwords, which constitute approximately 50% of the Korean language? Could it have been a performance to promote nationalism, rather than a plan to purify the Korean language, and what might have been the significance of such a performance? In relation to this main line of inquiry, how are Kim's language policies similar to the language policies of other communist states, particularly the USSR and China? What was the significance of events in South Korea in the 1960s that might have influenced Kim to make these pronouncements on language policy? How are Kim's language policies holding up today? I examine two speeches by Kim Il Sung in 1964 and 1966 that contain the extreme language policies. In the 1980s, Kim's successor, Kim Jong Il, approved the reinstatement of many loanwords that had been removed from the language under the purification policy. The fact that Kim Il Sung's loyal son recognized the impracticality of applying his father's policies suggests that one aim of these policies, if not their exclusive goal, was something other than their actual application. Kim Il Sung's focus on the purging of loanwords was a reflection of his desire for North Korea to prove its cultural purity and its cultural superiority over the South. I argue that the language policy speeches of the 1960s served as a platform for Kim Il Sung to carry the ideology of juche to his people and to unify them in the feeling that North Korea's language and culture was superior to, what he regarded as, the tarnished language and culture of South Korea. |
