President
"If we make a close study of dialects, we may collect good words of our language which are still useful."
The main element of the vocabulary composition of Korean dialects is their native words, and Chinese and foreign words account for a small proportion.
Some of these dialectal words are a cause of confusion in language life and hinder the cultural refinement of language, but there are good vocabulary that accords with our people's thoughts, feelings and tastes.
In the so-called "standard language" of the past, many words that are in conformity with the thoughts, feelings and tastes of the people have been excluded from the normative vocabulary and treated as dialects. Thus, good words that are popular and often used by people have been excluded from the normative language.
Thanks to our Party's correct policy on language after liberation, many good words were selected from dialects and converted into cultural ones, which caused changes in the vocabulary composition of the cultured and dialectal languages.
In other words, while the cultural language has enriched its composition by introducing good proper words that meet the standards of noble and civilized language life among the dialectal words, only uncultured, backward words have been left in the dialects and their range of use is rapidly decreasing.
The dialectal words that have been transferred to cultural language can be broadly classified into three categories.
① "Standard"-Inverted Vocabulary
This is the category of vocabulary originally created by the introduction of original vocabulary of dialectal language into the cultural language, while the vocabulary that belonged to the "standard" lexical structure is converted into dialect for several reasons.
-Characterizing Mark-Inverted Vocabulary
《마디풀》(from "standard language" to dialect)-《돼지풀》(from dialect to cultured language)
《왕개미》(from "standard language" to dialect)-《말개미》(from dialect to cultured language)
《귀머리》(from "standard language" to dialect)-《귀밑머리》(from dialect to cultured language)
…
There are many instances of a certain object being named using the marks such as its shape, size, and use.
《돼지풀》 is a vocabulary that indicates its specific use while 《마디풀》is a pan-mark. 《말개미》 is a prefixed vocabulary that means "a large species" of some animals and plants, such as in the cases of《말벌》, 《말나리》, and 《귀밑머리》 is a good vocabulary that expresses objects clearly and accurately compared to the original "standard word".
-Vocabulary whereby Chinese ideographs have been replaced by native words
《길경》(from "standard language" to dialect)-《도라지》(from dialect to cultured language)
《찬장》(from "standard language" to dialect)-《가시장》(from dialect to cultured language))
《간수》(from "standard language" to dialect)-《서슬》(from dialect to cultured language))
…
《도라지》, 《가시장》, 《서슬》 are all proper words that have been widely used by the people from olden times.
-Vocabulary whereby the uncultured words have been replaced by the cultural.
《뱀딸기》(from "standard language" to dialect)-《땅딸기》(from dialect to cultured language)
《닭의밑씻개》(from "standard language" to dialect)-《닭의장풀》(from dialect to cultured language)
《개똥벌레》(from "standard language" to dialect)-반디벌레》(from dialect to cultured language)
…
《땅딸기》, 《닭의장풀》, 《반디벌레》 are all the vocabulary introduced into the cultural language in consideration of the uncultured manner that the original vocabulary has.
②Vocabulary with detailed meanings
This is the category whereby the lexical elements of a dialect that represent a delicate and diverse meaning that the original "standard" vocabulary cannot represent are introduced into the composition of a cultured language vocabulary.
《사무럽다》-there's something avaricious and fierce about nature and behavior
《갑삭하다》-very light
《가쯘하다》-even without any layers
《그쯘하다》-fully equipped without any deficiency
《씁쓸하다》-a bit bitter
…
③Vocabulary that reflect the legislative consequences of inner structural development
An important linguistic feature of dialects is conservatism.
However, some of the dialectal words were sensitive to the legislative consequences of the inner structural change of Korean. Conversely, there are "standard" vocabulary that are less popular because of being conservative to change. In this case, the lexicon of the dialect was introduced into the cultural language.
《거머리》(from "standard language" to dialect)-《거마리》(from dialect to cultured language)
《마상이》(from "standard language" to dialect)-《매생이》(from dialect to cultured language)
《분디나무》(from "standard language" to dialect)-《분지나무》(from dialect to cultured language)
…
《거마리》replaced 《거머리》, which had remained intact without recognizing the destruction of vowel harmony, 《매생이》replaced 《마상이》, which had avoided the umlaut, 《분지나무》replaced 《분디나무》, which had resisted the palatalization.
In this way hundreds of proper words in dialect have been transferred to the vocabulary of cultural language, thus making it enrich it composition with original and popular words which have been used by the people for a long time and have high expressive power, cultural traits and universality.
This is entirely a proud result of the correct policy of the WPK on preserving pure Korean language and further developing it as required by the times.
Thanks to the WPK, under the wise leadership of the Party, Pyongyang cultured language has been being gathered together into a systematic whole with excellent parts of the national language and assimilated positive parts of dialects used traditionally in the local areas so that it has been being developed.
