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________________________________________________________________________

THE LANGUAGE POLICIES AND PRACTICES OF

THE NORTH KOREA: INSIGHTS AND LESSONS
FOR LANGUAGE PLANNING

English Department
Tarlac State University

This study analyzes the language practices and policies of the North Korea to obtain
insights and lessons for ongoing language planning of North Korea. The characteristics of
language policies and practices of the said country examine by this study are [1] the
profiles of the language policies and practices, [2] their socio-historical and political
contexts, [3] their underpinning motivations, [4] their implementations and their
structural/organizational mechanisms, [5] their implications on nationalism and
multiculturalism, [6] their implications on the development of human and intellectual
capitals, and [7] their implications on regional integration and globalization.

INTRODUCTION

This paper investigates the strengths and gaps of the language policies and practices of
North Korea to obtain some insights and lessons that could be of value to the country that
grappling with issues and challenges of being multicultural and multilingual, as well as
those countries that are gearing for regional integration/cooperation and globalization.

THE LANGUAGE POLICIES AND PRACTICES OF NORTH KOREA

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 A Profile of the North Korea Language Policies and Practices

National language
The present national language of the North Korea is Chosŏnmal (Korean). Korean is like
Mongolian and Manchurian and has a sentence structure like Japanese. According to
“Countries and Their Cultures”: “Technically, North Korea uses the same Korean
language as the one spoken in South Korea. However, there are few differences between
South Korea and North Korea, both written and spoken word. The formal name used for
the language spoken of South Korea is Hangugeo, while the North Korea, it is called
Chosŏnŏ. The cultural and sociopolitical division of more than half a century, however,
pushed the languages in the peninsula far apart, if not in syntax, at least in semantics.

When North Korea faced the task of building a new national culture, it faced a severe
problem of illiteracy. For example, over 90 percent of women in North Korea in 1945
were illiterate; they in turn made up 65 percent of the total illiterate population. To
overcome illiteracy, North Korea adopted the all-Korean script, eliminating the use of
Chinese characters. “North Korea inherited this modern form of Korean vernacular script
consisting of nineteen consonants and twenty-one vowels. The abolition of the use of
Chinese characters from all public printing and writing helped achieved nationwide
literacy at a remarkable speed. The United States government estimated that North Korea
had a 90 percent literacy rate by 1979. At the end of the 20th century, it was estimated that
99 percent of North Korea's population could read and write Korean sufficiently.

Official language
The official language of the North Korea is Pyongan dialect spoken in the capital of
North Korea which is the Pyongyang. North Korean standard language or Munhwaŏ
(Korean: 문화어; Hanja: 文化語; lit. "cultural language") is the North Korean standard
version of the Korean language. Munhwaŏ was adopted as the standard in 1966. The
adopting proclamation stated that the Pyongan dialect spoken in the North Korean capital
Pyongyang and its surroundings should be the basis for Munhwaŏ; however, in practice,
Iksop Lee and S. Robert Ramsey report that Munhwaŏ remains "firmly rooted" in the
Seoul dialect, which had been the national standard for centuries. Most differences
between the North and South Korean standards are thus attributable to replacement of
Sino-Korean vocabulary and other loanwords with pure Korean words, or the Northern
ideological preference for "the speech of the working class" which includes some words
considered non-standard in the South.
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International language
Immediately following Korea’s liberation from Japan in 1945 and until just before the
official establishment of the North Korean government, it was possible for secondary
schools in North Korea. to teach both Russian and English to their students, even though
the North Korean educational system was already heavily influenced by both the Soviet
Union and Soviet-backed politicians headed by Kim Il Sung. However, after the official
government of North Korea was established in 1948, Russian was designated as the sole
jeil oegugeo (first foreign language) and the teaching of English in secondary schools
was prohibited because of the Cold War, which had just recently begun around the world.
Kim Il Sung officially ruled North Korea from 1948 to 1994. Because his reign spanned
many decades, his policy (and that of his regime) toward foreign languages naturally
changed due to factors inside and outside of the country. At the beginning of his rule,
Russian was a target language that every North Korean was expected to learn; it was the
language of the powerful ‘big brother’ communist country whose ideology, culture,
science and technology were to be imitated and researched. Only Russian, accordingly,
was allowed to be taught in secondary schools.

English was designated as an additional jeil oegugeo, its popularity among North Korean
students grew gradually through the 1960s and 1970s, as the international prestige of
English
rose and the relative status of Russian was downgraded. The latter is attributable to the
Soviet
Union’s loss of its status as the sole communist power, which resulted from China’s
gradual rise
and the Soviet Union’s domestic economic difficulties that began in the 1970s. In the
1980s,
English finally became the most popular and sought-after foreign language in North
Korea (Kim, 1990). After the dissolution of the Soviet Union at the end of 1991, Russian
was downgraded to a second foreign language and was taught in secondary schools to a
small percentage of students
(Cho et al., 2015: 30). After Kim Jong-un (Kim Jong Un, hereafter), the current leader of
North Korea, rose to power in 2011, more changes in education policy were made to
bolster English education and to help increase the English proficiency of North Korean
students and citizens.

Jeil oegugeo (first foreign language(s)) of North Korea and the ratio of English and
Russian classes in secondary schools.
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 Jeil oegugeo Leader(s) Approximately Years
percentages of
English and Russian
classes
Russian Kim Il-sung 100% 1948~

Russian & English Kim Il-sung 50% vs. 50% 1964~

English & Russian Kim Il-sung 70% vs. 30% 1980~

English Kim Il-sung & Kim 80% or more 1992~

Jong-Il (Russian are still
taught 20% or less)
English Kim Jong-un 100% 2013~

Status of the regional languages

The South Korea has Seoul dialect, and the speakers often use borrowed words like
English, while the North Korea has Pyongyang dialect and the leader of the North Korea
have encouraged the citizen of North Korea not to use any borrowed words, so
Pyongyang is mainly in use. North Korean dialects are different from the dialects spoken
in the south. Dialects of Korean, some of which are not mutually intelligible, are spoken
throughout North and South Korea country and coincide with provincial boundaries. The
national dialects roughly coincide with the dialects of Pyongyang and Seoul.

 The Pyongan dialect is the Korean variant spoken in the northwestern Korean
Peninsula, as well as neighboring Chinese regions. The dialect has influenced the
Standard Korean used in North Korea. This dialect is widespread in Pyongyang,
the province of Chagang in North Korea, and the Chinese province of Liaoning.
An eight-vowel system is featured in the Pyongan dialect, while various terms
used in the dialect are distinct from other Korean dialects. These are just a few of
the terms where the North Korean and South Korean languages differ, and you
can already see in the examples that the North Korean terms are quite traditional.
This is primarily caused by the urging of the leaders in North Korea to keep out
loanwords from their language to maintain its purity and to use the Pyongan
dialect.

 The Hamgyŏng dialect is the Korean variety spoken in northeastern Hamgyŏng

Province, now further divided as the North Korean provinces of North
Hamgyŏng, South Hamgyŏng, and Ryang-gang. However, not all Hamgyŏng
speaks the dialect. The Korean variety spoken south of a bend of the Tumen
River, on Korea's border with China and Russia, is classified as a separate Yukjin
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 dialect which is significantly more conservative than the mainstream Hamgyŏng
dialect. The far southern counties of Kŭmya and Kowŏn, while within South
Hamgyŏng's administrative jurisdiction, speak a dialect which is usually not
classified as Hamgyŏng because it lacks a pitch accent. The dialect is now spoken
outside of Korea, in both China and Central Asia. In the late 19th and early 20th
centuries, in response to poor harvests and the Japanese annexation of Korea,
many Koreans, including Hamgyŏng speakers, emigrated from the northern parts
of the peninsula to eastern Manchuria (now Northeast China) and the southern
part of Primorsky Krai in the Russian Far East. The descendants of these
immigrants to Manchuria continue to speak, read, and write varieties of Korean
while living in China, where they enjoy regional autonomy. In the
1930s, Stalin had the entire Korean population of the Russian Far East, some
250,000 people, forcibly deported to Soviet Central Asia,
particularly Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. There are small Korean communities
scattered throughout central Asia maintaining forms of Korean known
collectively as Koryo-mar, but their language is under severe pressure from local
languages and Standard Seoul Korean and has been expected to go extinct within
the early 21st century. The most conservative forms of Hamgyŏng dialect are
currently found in Central Asian communities, because the Korean language's
lack of vitality there has put an end to natural language change. Among the
communities where Hamgyŏng remains widely spoken, the Chinese diaspora
dialect is more conservative than the modern North Korean dialect, as the latter
has been under extensive pressure from the state-enforced North Korean standard
language since the 1960s.

 The Hwanghae dialect is a dialect of Korean spoken in North Hwanghae

Province, South Hwanghae Province in North Korea, as well as the islands
of Baengnyeongdo, Yeonpyeongdo and Daecheongdo in Ongjin County in South
Korea. It may also be spoken among former Korean War refugees in cities such
as Incheon. In the Hwanghae dialect there are nine vowels (ㅣ·ㅔ·ㅐ·ㅡ·ㅓ·ㅏ·ㅜ
·ㅗ·ㅚ). Like the neighboring Pyongan dialect, the sound of 어(eo) and 으(eu)
sounds closer to the 오(o) and 우(u). The medieval Korean vowel of ㆎ, as well
as 의 is often pronounced as 에 (e.g., 나베, butterfly and 글페, two days after
tomorrow). Difference in phonology is visible between northern areas, which
contains influence from the Pyongan dialect and southern regions, which contains
some influence from the Gyeonggi dialect.

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  The Gangwon dialect is spoken in South Korea's Gangwon Province and
in North Korea's Kangwŏn Province. Although they are large provinces by area,
few people lived in the Gangwon Province. As a result, people living in the
western side of Gangwon (Yeongseo) did not develop a highly distinctive dialect.
However, the part of Gangwon that stretches on the eastern coast of
Korea's Yeongdong region did develop a distinctive dialect. This is because
the Taebaek Mountains bisect the Gangwon Province, and the people on eastern
Gangwon are isolated from the high mountains.

Status of other foreign languages

Most schools in North Korea teach English and Russian. Even if students are enrolled in
the same year, some students study English while some others study Russian. This goes
on to their university years, where some students continue to study English and others
continue to study Russian at universities.

These days the foreign language that is growing the most in popularity among North
Koreans is Chinese. Up until the late 1990s, Chinese was not at all a popular language in
North Korea. But since the early 2000s, as the Chinese economy has grown dramatically
and its influence over North Korea has grown and grown, learning Chinese has become
even more popular than English. That is why the most popular choice for foreign
languages among North Koreans is Chinese. Currently, many people in North Korea
study Chinese by themselves. The reason Chinese ranks alongside English as the most
popular language in North Korea is because Sino-North Korean relations have become
strengthened and deepened over the years, as there are more economic and cultural
exchange between the two countries.

Languages in the public sphere

North Korea’s language education policy has been strongly controlled by the
government. In fact, every language policy has been regulated, enacted, and proclaimed
by its supreme leaders, Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il. The view on language in North
Korea is formed within the framework of Marxism-Leninism and materialism, which sees
language as a tool. This perspective has been combined with North Korea’s own
ideology, Juche, and resulted in founding its own Juche language theory. In this regard,
the language is a powerful weapon for mobilizing the masses as well as a means of
boosting national pride for its people. The language policies are enacted and put into
practice to strengthen, propagate, and advocate its regime. Therefore, the policy making
processes are rigorously leader-centered; only the great leaders, Kim Il Sung or Kim Jong
Il can define a word and name the place or things for their nation.
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Kim Il Sung’s theses in 1964 and 1966 are the foundations of North Korean language
policies. Both these emphasize the importance of keeping its native language and show
strong disapproval of using Chinese characters in reading and writing. Refining words
into native tongue was one radical campaign led by the government that changed all the
foreign words including the words using Chinese spellings into Korean native ones.

South Korea has a lot of loanwords from Japanese colonial times and from Anglophone
countries. Many words such as [seat] belt, ice [cream], office, and other nouns that have
been borrowed from English have been incorporated as common Korean words,
remarkably like how Japanese have adopted many of Western words into their own
language. However, North Korea has been very intentional about keeping its language
pure by trying to produce uniquely Korean substitute words for foreign innovations. For
example, seat belt is commonly called "ahn-jeon belt" (= safety belt) in, but "geol-sang
kkeun" (= slip-on rope) or "pahk tti" (= probably an abbreviation of "buckle band") in
North Korea, and ice cream is called "ice cream" in South Korea, but "eoh-reum bo-
soong-yi" (= ice "peach flower"), and so on.

While everyone in North Korea gets to – or rather, has to – study a foreign language
throughout their school years, it’s students from good family backgrounds (under
the Songbun caste system) and from the top of the social hierarchy who are most
motivated to learn one in-depth prior to entering university. These students know that
they can apply their knowledge of foreign languages to their job after they graduate from
their universities, so they are more motivated to learn one than other students.

Otherwise, people are less likely to be motivated to learn a foreign language because they
cannot use this knowledge in the real world. They do not attribute any special meaning to
becoming fluent in a foreign language and they would not make extra effort or sacrifice
to master one.

Unless they become a diplomat or businessperson who goes to a foreign country on a trip,
North Koreans would not have chances to use their knowledge of foreign languages. As
you know, most North Koreans do not have the freedom to travel to a foreign country
without permission from the government, so it is understandable that ordinary North
Koreans are less likely to be enthusiastic about mastering a foreign language.

Language programs
For language education, Russian had been the first foreign language taught in school for
many years. The change was made in early 2000s, when North Korea realized the
globalization trend and the importance of English language. In 2002, North Korea
allowed the first native English speaking teacher trainers (Schulman, 2009) to visit

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Pyeongyang and began to stress English education. English is now taught at most of the
middle school as the first foreign language. The purpose of English teaching was,
however, limited to the government’s own benefit. In other words, English is seen as a
means for socialist construction, taught for political purposes (Kaplan and Baldauf,
2005), a tool for the regime to strengthen its hold ‘We learn English for our
revolution’ (Schulman, 2009).

North Korean school years consists of 11 years in total: five years of elementary school
and six years of high school. Up until 2011, it was only compulsory for high school
students to study foreign languages. But since Kim Jong Un came to power, students
have been required to learn foreign languages from elementary school.

After Kim J-I’s sudden death at the end of 2011, Kim J-U was announced as the ‘Great
Successor’ by the Workers’ Party (nodongdang) (Yan & Schubert, 2011); he assumed
absolute power in N.K. as the ‘supreme leader of the party, the army, and the people’.
Unlike his father, who took the ‘military first’ approach, Kim J-U emphasized that N.K.
needed to strengthen both its national defense and its economic power, proclaiming a
‘dual track’ policy (Wee, 2018). One of the first things his government undertook for this
purpose was a reformation of N.K.’s education system. Kim J-U had two goals in this
endeavor: 1) economic development by advancing science and technology and 2)
strengthening socialist values by suppressing growing capitalistic individualism among
his people.

Socio-Historical and Political Contexts

Korean is one of the world's oldest living languages, and its origins are as obscure as the
origin of the Korean people. Nineteenth Century Western scholars proposed several
theories that linked the Korean language with Ural-Altaic, Japanese, Chinese, Tibetan,
Dravidian Ainu, Indo-European, and other languages. Korean is a distant relative of the
Ural-Altaic family of languages which includes such diverse languages as Mongolian,
Finnish, and Hungarian. Linguistically, Korean is unrelated to Chinese and is like, but
distinct from Japanese. Early historical records indicate that at the dawn of the Christian
era, two groups of languages were spoken in Manchuria and on the Korean Peninsula:
The Northern or Buyeo group and the southern or Han group. During the 7th Century,
when the kingdom of Silla conquered the kingdoms of Baekje in southwest Korea and
Goguryeo in the north, the Silla dialect became the dominant language on the peninsula. 

Following the emergence of the Goryo Dynasty in the 10th Century, the national capitol
was moved to the city of Kaesong and the Kaesong dialect became the national language

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standard. The Joseon Dynasty, founded at the end of the 14th Century, had its capital
moved to Seoul. The new capital's geographic proximity to Kaesong, however, did not
lead to any significant changes in the language.

This rule ended in 1910, with the Japanese annexation of Korea. As Japan’s colony,
Korea was under a cruel Japanese rule for 35 years (1910-1945), a time when Koreans
struggled to preserve their culture. During the Japanese rule, the teaching of Korean
history and language was not allowed in schools, people were asked to adopt Japanese
names and use Japanese as their language. The Japanese even burned down many
documents pertaining to Korea’s history.

Japan was on the verge of surrender in 1945, and the USSR was advancing ahead
through Korea, crushing the Japanese army when the news of Japan’s surrender broke
out. The US at that point did not have a base in Korea and feared full takeover of the
peninsula by the Soviet forces. The absence of US troops was mainly due to a
miscalculation of when Japan would surrender. To restrict the USSR from seizing the
entire peninsula, the US suggested a temporary division of the Korean peninsula
between the US and USSR.

The US was asked to review and suggest a dividing line on the Korean map. Eventually,
both the USSR and the US agreed on a naturally prominent thirty-eighth parallel to mark
the division. This allowed both superpowers to gain dominance to the North and South,
respectively. Though the divide was meant to be temporary and provisional, the different
and opposing political ideologies of both Korean leaders would not allow for
reunification under a new government.

Officially, there are two standard varieties of Korean in Korea: the Seoul dialect in South
Korea and the Pyongyang dialect in North Korea. The dialects are distinguished and
regulated by each country's national language policy.

Regional dialects correspond to province boundaries. Thus, South Korean regional

dialects are Kyongsang, Chungcheong, Cholla, and Cheju Island. The North Korean
regional dialects are Hamkyong, Pyongan, Hwanghae. Some of the dialects are not easily
mutually intelligible.

Korean (South Korean: hangugeo; North Korean: chosŏnmal) is the native language for

about 80 million people, mostly of Korean descent.[a][1] It is the official and national
language of both North Korea and South Korea (geographically Korea), but over the past
74 years of political division, the two Koreas have developed some noticeable vocabulary
differences. Beyond Korea, the language is recognized as a minority language in parts
of China, namely Jilin Province, and specifically Yanbian Prefecture and Changbai
County. It is also spoken by Sakhalin Koreans in parts of Sakhalin, the Russian island

401
just north of Japan, and by the Koryo-saram in parts of Central Asia. The language has a
few extinct relatives which—along with the Jeju language (Jejuan) of Jeju Island and
Korean itself—form the compact Koreanic language family. Even so, Jejuan and Korean
are not mutually intelligible with each other. The linguistic homeland of Korean is
suggested to be somewhere in contemporary Northeast China. The hierarchy of the
society from which the language originates deeply influences the language, leading to
a system of speech levels and honorifics indicative of the formality of any given
situation.

Modern Korean is written in the Korean script (Hangul in South Korea, Chosŏn'gŭl in

North Korea), a system developed during the 15th century for that purpose, although it
did not become the primary script until the 20th century. The script uses twenty-four
basic letters (jamo) and twenty-seven complex letters formed from the basic ones. When
first recorded in historical texts, Korean was only a spoken language; all written records
were maintained in Classical Chinese, which, even when spoken, is not intelligible to
someone who speaks only Korean. Later, Chinese characters adapted to the Korean
language, Hanja, were used to write the language for most of Korea's history and are still
used to a limited extent in South Korea, most prominently in the humanities and the study
of historical texts.

North Korean vocabulary shows a tendency to prefer native Korean over Sino-Korean or

foreign borrowings, especially with recent political objectives aimed at eliminating
foreign influences on the Korean language in the North. In the early years, the North
Korean government tried to eliminate Sino-Korean words. Consequently, South Korean
may have several Sino-Korean or foreign borrowings which are not in North Korean.

 the separation of the two Korean states has resulted in increasing differences among the
dialects that have emerged over time. Since the allies of the newly founded nations split
the Korean peninsula in half after 1945, the newly formed Korean nations have since
borrowed vocabulary extensively from their respective allies. As the Soviet Union helped
industrialize North Korea and establish it as a communist state, the North Koreans
therefore borrowed several Russian terms. Likewise, since the United States helped South
Korea extensively to develop militarily, economically, and politically, South Koreans
therefore borrowed extensively from English.

The differences among northern and southern dialects have become so significant that
many North Korean defectors reportedly have had great difficulty communicating with
South Koreans after having initially settled into South Korea. In response to the diverging
vocabularies, an app called Univoca was designed to help North Korean defectors learn
South Korean terms by translating them into North Korean ones.

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Underpinning Motivations

The Juche language theory was developed primarily out of two concepts Kim Il Sung
held about language—language as a powerful tool for reeducating humans and language
as the most important symbol of ethno-nationalism (C-H. Choe, & C-S. Pak, 1999/2000).

Implementation and Structural/Organizational Mechanism

In this paper, implementation is conceptualized using the three types of language
planning:

1. Status planning,

2. Corpus planning,

3. Acquisition

Status Planning is concerned with increasing the number of domains or functions in

which a language is (officially) used. This in turn increases the language’s prestige; the
more domains a language occupies, the more attractive it is to potential users. Status
planning is often an authoritative, top-down affair (though it can also be bottom-up), and
in many cases it is used to promote a language in a domain in which elites are able to
maintain or expand their power as native speakers (Cooper 1989). In the North, Korean
was already used in all domains of society at the time of these prescriptions. However,
the political climate created a need for a new standard dialect to replace the notion that
the Seoul dialect was still the standard, as it was before the Korean War and up to these
prescriptions (Kumatani 1990). But choosing a Northern dialect as the new standard was
not the only problem; in Korean, the single term pyojuno means ‘standard language.’
Thus, the word ‘standard language’ alone carried indirect reference to the Seoul dialect.
Kim was concerned that the ambiguity of using the same term for ‘standard language’ for
two different dialects may cause confusion and mislead people to believe the Seoul
dialect is still standard (Kim 1966). To avoid this problem Kim coined the term
munhwao, or ‘cultured language’ to be used it in place of pyojuno ‘standard language.’
Kim declared the Pyongyang dialect the best representation of munhwao ‘cultured
language’ since Pyongyang is the center of the revolution as the nation’s capital, and thus
munhwao ‘cultured language’ will be the lan- guage of the revolution. This was a
significant move, for it was this decision to differentiate Northern speech from that of the
South that began an overhaul of language in North Korea. This initiated a policy of

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prescription centered on Pyongyang and the revolution of Juche. As the following section
shows, this policy marked the beginning of establishing linguistic self-reliance and self-
determination.

Corpus planning. Once the domains of a language have been increased, there is often a
need to expand the lexicon to fulfill the demands of the new domains. Though corpus
planning also involves other activities, such as orthography design or revision, corpus
planning in Kim’s prescriptions focused on coining new terms. Like the case of status
planning above, rather than creating new terms to fill any void in the lexicon, Kim
stressed the need to create terms to replace those which were already in use. In a rather
bold attempt, Kim sought to erase historical traces of foreign influence from the
language; in other words, Sino-Korean terms and loanwords were to be eliminated. The
following is a list of criteria for replacing foreign and Sino-Korean words with pure
Korean counterparts:

Political Ideology and Language Policy in North Korea

1) If a pure Korean term is synonymous with one of Sino origin, use the Korean term and
“cross [the latter] off from the dictionary”,

2) use purely Korean names for places (towns, landmarks, etc.) and discontinue the use of
their Sino-Korean names,

3) domestic products must be renamed using only pure Korean words,

4) coining of new words will be done strictly in pure Korean,

5) only legitimate words (i.e. pure Korean) can be used to name children,

6) new and existing words for foreign scientific concepts will be translated into pure
Korean,

7) military command words should be converted to pure Korean, with stress placed on
the final syllable,

8) Chinese characters should not be allowed to appear in school text- books in any form,

9) a National Language Standardization Commission will be established to oversee this

transition.

At the time of these prescriptions, the only dictionary in print in North Korea was the
1962 Choseonmal Sachen ‘The Korean Dictionary.’ This of course was published before
the LPLP prescriptions, and it did not conform to the new mandates of munhwao. It was
during the first talk with the linguists when Kim, referring to the 1962 dictionary,
proclaimed: “this Korean dictionary looks like a Chinese-Korean dictionary (Kim 1964).”

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Thus, the new policies gave rise to the need for an ideologically fit dictionary. Kim then
ordered the compilation of a 10,000-word dictionary free of foreign terms. Amazingly,
the first edition of Hyontae Choseonmal Sachen, The Modern Korean Dictionary, was
published in 1968. A second edition was released in 1973 titled Choseon Munhwao
Sachen, Cultured Korean Dictionary, and a third edition appeared in 1981. These
guidelines for corpus planning represent a drastic attempt to purify the language. Yet, to
rid an entire language of loanwords is a quixotic goal at best. As expected, even the most
current version of the North’s Korean – English diction- ary contains loanwords from
Russian and English, as well as Sino-Korean terms (Unknown 2002). Still, when
compared to a South Korean dictionary the difference in the number of loanwords and
pure Korean words is noticeable (Lee 1990). This in part was accomplished through
Acquisition planning and North Korea’s peculiar publishing system. Acquisition
Planning Furthermore, everyone should acquire the spirit of using our language correctly
through ideological mobilization and a mass campaign. (Kim Il-sung 1966)

The goal of acquisition planning is a simple one: increase the number of users of a
language. To do so, users must be provided with an opportunity to learn the language, for
example through lessons and materials. At the same time, they must be provided with an
incentive to learn, be it self-motivation or compulsory. As for materials, the mandates
above required that all literary work, including textbooks, be rewritten. Future authors too
would have to abide by the prescriptions above. This sounds like quite an undertaking,
but there is an important concept pertaining to publication in North Korea worth
mentioning here. All authors, publishers, and publishing houses are held accountable to
the Korean Workers’ Party (KWP), which is the organization in charge of propaganda.
The main publisher in North Korea, Pyongyang Publishing House answers directly to the
KWP; in fact, the Pyongyang Publish House is housed within a smaller branch of the
KWP. Should the KWP decide which words are acceptable for print, the publishers have
no choice but to agree. It may seem that texts published before these prescriptions would
be problematic, but this was not an issue. In order to promote the legitimacy of the new
regime, the KWP found it advantageous to destroy or at least rework all literature and
publications written before Kim Il- sung’s rise to power. Kim himself mentions the need
to revise previous literary works to make them more compatible with modern times (Kim
1966). That said, the ability of the party to require authors to follow Kim’s prescriptions
undoubtedly expedited the transition of acquiring the new munhwao ‘cultured language’
standard. The motivation to acquire the new munhwao ‘cultured language’ standard was
compulsory, and like most other social campaigns, the one for acquisition plan- ning
began with the children. Kim estimated some 5,000 to 6,000 words are necessary for
daily use and are common in primary education. He placed an emphasis on training
teachers and revising elementary materials first in hopes that children would learn to

405
correct their parents’ speech. He also suggests sending copies of the revised elementary
textbooks to universities for their use as a standard. Finally, if these prescriptions were
not enough to convince the popula- tion to switch to the ideologically fit munhwao, Kim
recommends “If in the future the people should continue to use any of the words
eliminated from the dictionary, we could then rehabilitate them (Kim 1966).”

Implications on Nationalism and Multiculturalism

In North Korea's linguistic practice, Kim Il Sung's words are frequently quoted as a
gospel-like reference point. People learn the vocabulary by reading publications of the
state and the party. Since the print industry and the entire publishing establishment are
strictly state-owned and state-controlled, and no private importation of foreign-printed
materials or audiovisual resources is permitted, words that do not conform with the
interest of the party and the state are not introduced into the society in the first place,
resulting in efficient censorship.

The vocabulary that the state favors include words relating to such concepts as
revolution, socialism, communism, class struggle, patriotism, anti-imperialism,
anticapitalism, the national reunification, and dedication and loyalty to the leader. By
way of contrast, the vocabulary that the state finds difficult or inappropriate, such as that
referring to sexual or love relations, does not appear in print. Even so-called romantic
novels depict lovers who are more like comrades on a journey to fulfill the duties they
owe to the leader and the state.

Limiting the vocabulary in this way has made everyone, including the relatively
uneducated, into competent practitioners of the state-engineered linguistic norm. On the
societal level, this had an effect of homogenizing the linguistic practice of the public. A
visitor to North Korea would be struck by how similar people sound. In other words,
rather than broadening the vision of citizens, literacy and education in North Korea
confine the citizenry into a cocoon of the North Korean-style socialism and the state
ideology.

Juche is a central theme in educational policy. According to Kim Il Sung, "in order to
establish Juche in education, the main emphasis should be laid on things of one's own
country in instruction and people should be taught to know their own things well." In his
1983 speech to education ministers of nonaligned countries, Kim also emphasized that
juche in education was relevant to all Third World countries. Kim asserted that although
"flunkeyism" should be avoided, it might be necessary to adopt some techniques from
developed countries. *

406
According to the “World Education Encyclopedia”: “The Party's ideological doctrine and
"Juche Doctrine" are the unique guiding principles that the North Korean educational
system must follow in its operation. The initial idea of Juche stated by Kim Il-Sung is
that the human being is the prime actor as the only determinant of creating history (Kim
Il-Sung's collection of writings, 6: 277). The Juche idea emphasizes the independence of
people as a collected identity of human beings with the capacity of creating its own
history. [Source: Chong Jae Lee, “World Education Encyclopedia,” The Gale Group
Inc.,2001]

“This Juche idea implies that North Korea must pursue an independent course of action
from the influence of other countries in politics, economy, and national defense. It also
implies that people must realize the revolutionary ideals with consciousness and
revolutionary action. However, in the practice of the Juche idea, "Juche Doctrine"
emphasizes that the great leader must guide people. Critics of "Juche Doctrine" indicate
that there is a logical gap between the original Juche idea and justification of the
guidelines by the great leader. "Based on these guiding principles, the state has to
develop a general school system that provides basic and common education and a
recurring educational system for lifelong learning for workers in various occupations. A
general school system must contribute to the development of basic science, social
science, and technologies" (Constitution, Article 46).

North Korea’s officialization of the Korean language from the colonial language of
Japanese was a natural and simple transition since Korea was a linguistically unified
society with a strong linguistic nationalism.

Implications on Human and Intellectual Capital

Education and jobs are available in North Korea today. Since with available resources,
North Korea however does not rely on partnership with other country. Mostly males are
in professions while females attend school and at a certain time return to the home. Most
of them stay in the home whiles the others have a chance to work. Since North Korea's
main capital resources are rare metals, it employs 64% of its workforce. This is one of
their main exports and dependency in making their own materials and less of imported
items. Manufacturing and mining are the largest contributor to its GDP.

North Korea is a country trying to improve and invest. However, it is a "up and down"
slide in development. From the 1900's healthcare was a big threat in the country. $1 a
year per person for their health care is the least in comparison of every country in the
world according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

407
Malnutrition served a big toll during the time. Today education can be a hand-on-hand
ability for most of North Korea today. Engineering, welding, and tech is taught since it is
the only skills that can be used to benefit their development of a country. Technology is a
less when it applies in getting their natural resources today. The only thing that will be
keeping North Korea developing would be their mine fields of minerals. It is the main
capital resource being invested keeping the country standing.

 RUSSIA – Russia’s government has stated that there were about 30,000 North
Korean workers in the country in 2017, and that the most were repatriated by the
end of 2019. However, significant numbers of North Koreans may now be
working in the country illegally.
 China – An estimated 50,000 North Koreans worked in China in 2017 in multiple
sectors. While the Chinese government has claimed to have repatriated North
Korean workers, significant numbers reportedly remain in China on alternative
types oof visas.
 Zambia – Several North Korean companies have reportedly been engaged in
construction projects in Zambia.
 Libya – At the beginning of the Libyan civil war in 2011, there were an estimated
20 North Koreans working in the medical and construction sectors in Libya; these
workers were reportedly barred from returning home during the conflict.
 Mongolia – In May 2018, the Mongolian government said that it had expelled
645 DPRK nationals since 2016 and was working to organize an orderly
repatriation of the remaining workers. An estimated 2,000 North Koreans were
previously working in Mongolia.
 Mozambique – There are reportedly ongoing military ties between North Korea
and Mozambique. North Koreans also reportedly work on Mozambican fishing
boats and operate medical clinics in the country.
 Nigeria – North Korea workers have reportedly operated in the IT and the
medical sectors in Nigeria.

Implications on Regional Integration and Globalization

Recently, both North and South Korea's usage rate of the regional dialect have been
decreasing due to social factors. In North Korea, the central government is urging its
citizens to use Munhwaŏ (the standard language of North Korea), to deter the usage of

408
foreign language and Chinese characters: Kim Jong-un said in a speech "if your language
in life is cultural and polite, you can achieve harmony and comradely unity among
people.

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Country: North Korea

School Name: Tarlac State University
Name: Caina Patricia P. Bangsil

410
 North Korea also known as Democratic People's Republic of Korea. The North
Korea’s national language is Chosŏnmal, and their official language is Pyongan dialect,
spoken in the capital of North Korea which is the Pyongyang. The Bangladesh and North
Korea have their own language planning and policies, but the North Korea’s language
policy and practices is much better that the Bangladesh have.

I. North Korea uses only one language.

The North Korea’s leader encouraged its citizen not to use any other languages,
and use Munhwaŏ (the standard language of North Korea) instead, to stop the usage of
foreign language and Chinese characters. That’s why Kim Jong-un said in a speech "if
your language in life is cultural and polite, you can achieve harmony and comradely unity
among people.

II. North Korea’s goal is to have a unity and preserve their language.
North Korea’s language education policy has been strongly controlled by the
government. In fact, every language policy has been regulated, enacted, and proclaimed
by its supreme leaders, Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il. The North Korea’s view on
language is formed within the framework of Marxism-Leninism and materialism, which
sees language as a tool, and resulted in founding their own theory which is the Juche
Language Theory. The Juche language theory was developed primarily out of two
concepts Kim Il Sung held about language—language as a powerful tool for reeducating
humans and language as the most important symbol of ethno-nationalism. This theory
translates as “self-reliance,” is an odd blend of several different ideas. Its core idea is that
North Korea is a country that must remain separate and distinct from the world,
dependent solely on its own strength and the guidance of a near-godlike leader. From its
inception, Juche has meant whatever the North Korean government needed it to mean.

III. North Korea do not use loan/borrowed words.

According to Kim Il Sung’s theses in 1964 and 1966 are the foundations of North
Korean language policies. Both these emphasize the importance of keeping its native
language and show strong disapproval of using Chinese characters in reading and writing.
Refining words into native tongue was one radical campaign led by the government that
changed all the foreign words including the words using Chinese spellings into Korean
native ones. Instead of creating new terms to fill any void in the lexicon, Kim stressed the
need to create terms to replace those which were already in use. In a rather bold attempt,
Kim sought to erase historical traces of foreign influence from the language; in other
words, Sino-Korean terms and loanwords will be removed.

In conclusion, North Korea uses only one language to deter the usage of any
foreign language to achieve unity, preserve and purify their own language. Government
in North Korea, which interprets language as an ideological “weapon,” has remained the
same since that state’s foundation, unlike South Korea, which has had various and

411
changing political voices on the same subject. Moreover, since its inception from the
foundation of the North Korean state, North Korea language planning policy has been
touted as the “teaching” of the charismatic “Great Supreme Leader Kim Il Sung.” This
language policy has developed and thrived in conjunction with Kim Il Sung’s signature
ideology, Juche. In the process of the creation of the North Korean nation-state, North
Korea’s official ideology and language policy, bound up with a popular ethno-
nationalism, have been generally well accepted by language users in that society. After
the death of Kim Il Sung in 1994, the country’s language planning policies have been
conducted consistently and systematically by his political successors with the same
ideological motivations. Lastly, North Korea do not use any borrowed/loan words and
make a new word instead to replace the existing foreign language they are using, in short,
they will refine their language.

412