Hangul Evolving Beyond Korea into a Global Language

1. Korean Language Registered in Oxford Dictionary with 1.18 Million Words
2. Min Hyungbae: "Strengthening Policy Support to Elevate the Status of Korean"

Min Hyungbae, member of the Democratic Party of Korea.

Hangul has continuously reflected the changes in Korean society, enriching the language while also establishing itself as a core foundation in the era of artificial intelligence (AI), expanding its influence worldwide.

On October 9, Min Hyungbae, a member of the Democratic Party of Korea representing Gwangsan-eul in Gwangju, analyzed audit materials submitted by the National Institute of the Korean Language. The analysis confirmed that Hangul is evolving into a truly global language through the influx of new vocabulary, the establishment of language infrastructure for the AI era, and efforts to refine foreign words.

The Korean language is rapidly expanding its vocabulary in step with the pace of social change. Through a neologism research project conducted from 1994 to 2019, a total of 30,127 new words were collected. This project has continued through the "Woorimalsaem" database, which adds about 9,000 new words each year, and now lists approximately 1.18 million registered words. Recently, the constant influx of new slang reflecting the times, such as "gansiktem" (snack item) and "gassaengreo" (someone living a diligent life), serves as an indicator of the vitality of the Korean language.

The Standard Korean Language Dictionary has also incorporated more than 2,300 new words over the past three years, such as "gapjil" (abuse of power) and "ganpyeon-gyeolje" (simple payment). As of August this year, the dictionary has expanded to a total of 425,256 words, faithfully serving as an authoritative indicator of the language.

The construction of corpora in preparation for the AI era is also in full swing. A corpus is a database of real language materials collected from newspapers, conversations, literary works, and more, serving as the foundation for AI to properly understand Korean and Korean language culture. From 2020 to August this year, a cumulative total of 3.12 billion word tokens have been compiled, and 91 types of corpora have been created and distributed more than 40,000 times to industry and academia. These resources are already being used in services such as Naver's HyperCLOVA X, SK Telecom's A.Dot, and Kakao Entertainment's webtoon translation models. The government aims to build a cumulative total of 200 types of corpora by 2027.

Efforts to replace foreign words and difficult expressions with simpler Korean equivalents are also ongoing. For example, "netizen" has been replaced with "nurikkun," "IC" with "nadeulmok" (interchange), "untact" with "bidaemyeon" (contactless), and "reusable cup" with "dahoeyongkeop" (multi-use cup). The National Institute of the Korean Language has carried out these language refinement projects through the "Malteo" website (public participation), the Language Refinement Committee, and the New Words Group since 2004. As of August this year, 986 refined words have been finalized. Including refined words compiled in the purification materials collection since 1977, the total reaches about 21,000.

Thanks to these efforts, the Korean language is gaining global attention. The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) has registered a total of 48 Korean words, including Kimchi, Chimaek, Pansori, Daebak, as well as Hangul and Hallyu. This is a symbolic example showing how deeply Korean has permeated the daily language of people around the world.

Min Hyungbae stated, "Hangul is a vessel that holds the identity and culture of our society and a force that enables communication with the world." He emphasized, "On the occasion of the 579th Hangul Day, we will continue policy support to further enrich Hangul and promote the widespread use of the Korean language around the world."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.