MAINTENANCE
&
REVITALIZATION
WHAT'S THE DEAL?
Jejueo, in Korean 제주어 (Je-ju-eo), is a Koreanic language spoken mainly in Jeju Island (33°22'N 126°32'E), South Korea. It is also used by some ethnic Koreans in the Osaka area of Japan, who fled there in the late 1940s and early 1950s at a time of harsh military oppression on Jeju Island (ELP).
The most recent research say that between 5'000 and 10'000 speak the language in a population of around 100'000 people. Moreover, most of its fluent speakers are aged over 75 and its transmission is declining (ELP). Considering these numbers were given between 2010 and 2014, it would be safe to say that the number of speakers has lowered along with the death of Jejueo elderly speakers.
If Jejueo was first seen as a dialect, most recent studies defend the opposite idea. Indeed, Jejueo has been shown to be a distinct language from Korean and a member of the Koreanic languages' family (Campbell 2018). According to William O'Grady's argument, Jejueo was first thought to be a dialect because of political reasons: "The speech of a bigger or more powerful community is a language, whereas the speech of a smaller or less influential group is a dialect". However, O'Grady emphasizes that the key factor to make the right distinction is intellegibilty. Yet precisely, Jejueo is not understood by Koreans from the mainland (O'Grady 2015; C. Yang, S. Yang & W. O'Grady 2017 & 2018). An experiment made in 2019 revealed that the comprehension rate was lower than 10% (qtd in S. Yang 2019).
In 2010, Jejueo was officially classified by UNESCO as a "critically endangered" language, the last step before extinction of a language (see UNESCO degree of endangerment).
Recent findings all underline that fully fluent Jejueo speakers are older than 70 or 80. An experiment led by Yang Se Jung in 2020 showed that participants aged between 13 and 27 were actually more proficient in English than in Jejueo, underlining the dangerous decline of Jeju language.
WHAT HAS BEEN DONE?
If Jejueo has be proven to be a language, it is still perceived as inferior compared to the standard Korean spoken in the capital. A research on Korean dialects even show that Jejueo was perceived as the most non-standard speech (Koreans from the mainland tend to see Jejueo as a dialect and not a language). Moreover, South Korea has advocated a "one nation, one language policy", increasing the use of the standard Korean in professional and educational context (Yang 2019).
The obvious and dangerous decline of Jejueo led to various maintenance and revitalization initiative. In 1995, a first Jejueo-Korean dictionary was published although not made commercially available. Another large-scale Jejueo-Korean dictionary was published in 2007. Others existing dictionaries are focused on specific aspects such as idioms, shamanic terms, Jeju literature (Slatzman 2017). The most recent project was 'Jejueo Talking Dictionary', a free online multimedia database, where one can search for specific words from English to Jejueo, from Korean to Jejueo or from Jejueo to the other two.
A report made in June 2019 by Al Jazeera revealed practical actions that were taken by Jeju Island. Children now have mandatory Jejueo classes. All official documents are issued in both standard Korean and Jejueo to emphasize the importance of this language and give it a place in a governmental context. The same report showed that cultural activities, such as concerts, are organized to keep this language alive.
In the interview of Kang Myung Ae , the speaker says that a lot of efforts have been made to teach Jejueo in school and speaks of a 'Jejueo contest'.
Despite all these measures, Jejueo is still critically endangered. When asked if they understood a Jejueo sentence, young speakers would systematically try to transcribe it in standard Korean, underlining this conception of Jejueo as a second language. At present, it seems like Jejueo is still on the decline and needs other means to survive.
WHAT SHOULD BE DONE?
To this day, South Korea's Cultural Heritage Administration has registered 121 aspects designated for preservation. However, Jejueo is surprisingly not included in that list. UNESCO has recognized Jejueo as a language and added it to the endangered languages in 2010. Would adding Jejueo to Korea's Cultural Heritage help its maintenance or revitalization? This change would certainly bring focus on this language and favour financial help from the government. However, I think this focus, if certainly not detrimental, would only be ephemeral. The recognition by an international entity did not slow this decline. Would the revision of Korea's Cultural Heritage list make a big change for Jejueo survival?
William O'Grady, who did a lot of research on Jejueo and strongly supported the creation of Jeju language schools, argues in his article 'Integrating Analysis and Pedagogy in the Revitalization of Jejueo' that "the only realistic option for critically endangered languages is to develop school-based programs". Indeed, one can learn a language more easily if he can learn it in school. The creation of these schools would undoubtedly be an answer to Jeju inhabitants willing to learn the language. With a school-based program, if one wants to learn he can do so easily. Still one can wonder: is there someone who wants to learn Jejueo? Won't they become indifferent as years go by?
In my opinion, it is where the desicive factor stands: the will to learn, the will to speak, the will to save. This will can be brought to life or freed by changing the attitude towards Jejueo; both on the Jeju people and the mainland Koreans'part. An assessment given to Jeju people in 2017 unveiled that even young speakers were aware of the importance of Jejueo to the community identity and hoped for high results in their understanding of Jeju language. At the same time we saw that Jejueo was definitely considered non-standard and informal. Thus, one could feel unwilling to use a language that would give signs of rurality and interfere with their social and professional emancipation.
That is why the perception of Jejueo should be changed so that it is seen as a positive cultural marker instead of a marginalizing language. How could we do that? In my opinion, the key shift would be to bring it back into fashion so that Jeju people would proudly use that language and young speakers would be eager to learn it.
In a country where entertainment is quite developped, where K-pop celebrities are seen everywhere on various advertisements and where a plethora of movies and dramas are produced every year, the promotion of Jejueo would not be hard if the right people are willing to make the change.
Nowadays, there are in fact famous Korean singers that are from Jeju. These stars could promote Jeju language by using it in different settings such as interviews, advertisements or even songs. Because of the 'non-standard' connotation that goes with it, this project may be hard to undertake but if the right people are willing to do it, it could, in my opinion, easily change the perception of Jejueo. And Jeju people, especially young speakers, would proudly or at least more easily use this language if they saw famous entertainers do so. In an era where hashtages can make the new trends, where fans can get signifanctly influenced by their favourite celebrity, I think this project is realistic.