Seoul – Kim Hyeong-Bae, a South Korean linguist, had a problem: how to translate the word “Deepfake” in Korean.
A high -ranking researcher at the National Institute of Korean Language, a government agency of government areas, works in the Department of Public Language. His task is to search the many foreign words that exceed the everyday speech and bring it to the committee – referred to as the “new language group” – translated into Korean.
“Deeppake”, “ This is pronounced DIHP-Pay cow and appeared in newspaper headings with increasing frequency, was a textbook candidate.
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1. Korean suggestions of English words such as “email” and “email list” in the library of the National Institute of Korean Language in Seoul. 2. Kim Hyeong-Bae, a senior researcher, inspects an auxiliary sculpture of the book of the Korean alphabet in its original form, which is displayed in the institute. 3. Kim works in the public language department to search the many foreign words to find Korean equivalents.
A word for word translation would sound like nonsense, so Kim and 14 other language experts began in a video conference last autumn with the essential questions: How could the negative connotations of the word be expressed exactly in Korean? And was it necessary to use qualifications such as “counterfeits” or “artificial intelligence”?
One participant suggested “intelligent modification”, just so that another objection made: “It sounds like a good cause.”
At the end of the 15-minute discussion, the options were limited to five.
Later this month, the institute performed in a survey in which 2,500 respondents were asked to evaluate the suitability of each candidate. After that, an external committee ratified a winner: “Artificial intelligence-manipulated video”.
Then it was released into the world by entering the public glossary of the institute through revised foreign words.
Since the institute was founded in 1991, more than 17,000 so -called so -called so -called Loan – Almost everyone from Chinese, Japanese or English – were located in this way.
Other countries have tried to thwart the procedure of loanwords. The French Academy, which was founded in the 17th century to protect “pure” French, has been giving against anglicisms for decades. This is how the Spanish Royal Academy has. Even the British tried to string back Americanisms.
Most of all have lost fights.
Likewise, for Kim, the mission to combat five new ones every two weeks can use Korean idiom, such as pouring the water into a bottomless pot.
Kim Hyeong-Bae, a senior researcher, is looking for a book that describes loanwords in the library at the National Institute of Korean language in Seoul.
“We cannot revise after the occurrence of loanwords – we have to watch a little bit until it is clear that it is widespread, whereupon we can enter,” said Kim. “But until then it has spread everywhere.”
It also does not help that there are already so many of them that reflect Korea's long history of Korea foreign influence.
Until the invention of the Korean alphabet in 1443, the elites used the Korean dynastic kingdoms HanjaThe Chinese script, which is still the roots for many Korean words that Latin do for English.
Japan's colonization of Korea from 1910 to 1945 led loanwords including Gao, Japanese for “face”, adapted in Korean as “displayed” Gao “,” Which means to insert Airs.
Some words have been awarded twice, including why shadowPresent That means shirt and comes from a Japanese translation of “white shirt”.
Today is the English king. It is widely seen here as the language of cultural sophistication and A Western educationSay goodbye to companies, government officials and journalists who want to keep their speech more authority.
“The foreign languages who entered the country were always a tool and badge of the ruling class,” said Kim. “I think loan words can be understood in these terms – to signal their social position, to distinguish yourself.”
The sheer clip, in which English words revolve in and out of colloquial language, has made it more difficult to record the scale of the credit word. But it is clear that the phenomenon is not just the tweedy concern of Linguist.
To the latest loanwords (or locally-shaped spinoffs) that have reached the institute's chopping block: button, bundling, finfluencer (finance influencer), upsky, uppers, cross-selling and value-up.
A huge Korean dictionary is exhibited in the library of the National Institute of Korean Language in Seoul.
In a survey of Polling Company Hankook Research last year, more than three quarters stated that they often encounter foreign words in public speech, compared to 37% in 2022. .
Even for English native speakers, the transliteration of familiar words can be confusing in an alphabet with incomplete consonants – for example a precise “f” or “r” sound.
And in recent years, the absurd absurd of Loanwoards has been satirized in popular culture, whereby the language, which is subsequently unnecessarily described English as “Voguespeak” or “Pangyo dialect”.
The former is an indication of Vogue Magazinewhose Korean edition is considered particularly guilty, the latter for a city, which is known as South Korea's Silicon Valley, where a technology worker may be said a sentence like this:
“The Pi-Pi tea (PPT, slip) was a little luh-phy (rough), but the Nee-Juh (needs, requirements of consumers) were clear and I think a problem) AY-SEP (as soon as possible ). “
Repairing loanwords is a dream job for someone like Kim (59), whose obsession with the Korean language gave him what he describes as an occupational disease: every time he goes down the street.
As a child, Kim liked to look at words in the dictionary and to learn their etymologyA hobby that lasted until adulthood.
For Kim Hyeong-Bae, the mission to tackle five new loanwords every two weeks can use a Korean idiom to pour water into a bottomless pot.
(Jean Chung / for time)
In the past 20 years he has headed an online community with around 10,000 members, in which he published a regular column in which the origins of words were examined that aroused his interest. The last entry No. 1,038 examines Korean substitutes for “poncho”.
After receiving his doctorate in Korean linguistics, he taught at a university before realizing that he preferred to be in front of the area and to join the institute in 2007.
“I wanted to do something and bring about changes at the political level,” he said.
A stimulus point that he has developed over the years is the use of loanwords if the exact Korean word already exists.
In some Fallen-and Seufzer (page), the species on a restaurant menu-das Korean word (Gayaotdeuri) It has become so neglected that it has disappeared from the mainstream memory.
Others, like “woman”, reveal more interesting tensions.
A survey that the institute carried out in 2022 Hiee, Their roots are translated into “household man”.
Pedestrians in Seoul pass shops, whose names are in English.
(Jean Chung / for time)
Although he understands the reasons, Kim sees this as part of another trend to give up Korean words, simply because they feel old -fashioned and petrify them even further.
And as words and their meaning can impose A certain reality can also be true: the connotations of a word can Evolve next to the things it refers to. Etymologies are not a dictation.
“The underlying treatment of someone does not change just because they rename them,” he said.
“Employers do this all the time. Instead of trying to change the working conditions or advantages, only change the language in professional names. “
Kim is aware that some see his work as a little fusty and nationalist-“North Korea-like”, some of them mentioned.
Past attempts to clear up loanwords after Korea's independence Japan Had an element of ritual cleaning. The current approach of the institute is largely about keeping the citizenship accessible and fair.
“Language is a human right,” said Kim.
“Our task is to develop more easily alternatives to foreign words that could be difficult for some people so that there is no class of the population that is ultimately marginalized.”
Studies have shown that the older people And those without college education fight with loanwords and may switch off from state services or programs in which they are available.
This makes some battles more important than others. A priority is to translate loanwords with which public order or important news events such as “microcredit” or “voucher” as well as “voucher” as well as “voucher” as well as important messages. Pandemic terms Like “Booster Shots”.
At the same time, it makes no sense to force a loan word that is already firmly anchored, such as: Inteonet (Internet) or Dijiteol (digital).
Slang words such as Bilon (Villain, a humorous term for a public troublemaker) sits somewhere in a gray area.
Although the institute recently offered the Korean word for villain, work, Kim admitted that it may be a difficult sale.
This is how the language is: some of them stick, some of them, and nobody can really explain why.
Kim looks at the statue of King Sejong, who invented the Korean alphabet Hinge 1443 in the language institute.
“Some things they just have to accept,” he said.
“Deeppake” could be one of them. The word was revised once in 2019 via “High-Tech Manipulation Technology”. It was then probably doomed to fail by his words.
And in the weeks after the second attempt by the institute, “artificial intelligence-manipulated video”, it was not better-“Deeppake” is still plentiful.
Until then, Kim had already passed the next stack of vocabulary.