‘한글’이란 단어의 오용․오인 문제에 대하여 (On the Problem of Abuse or Misuse of the Word Hangul)

서지정보

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· 저자명 : 이복규

초록

남북한 국어사전에서는 ‘한글’을 모두 ‘우리 글자(문자)’ 즉 ‘훈민정음’의 현대적인 명칭으로 규정하고 있으나, 오늘날 ‘한글’이란 단어는 오용․오인되고 있다. 신문과 인터넷 기사에서 자주 보이는 ‘한글소설’, ‘한글본’, ‘한글판’ 등의 용어에 쓰인 ‘한글’은 ‘우리 글자’가 아니라 ‘우리 글’이며. ‘한글이름’, ‘한글학회’, ‘한글맞춤법’에 쓰인 ‘한글’은 ‘우리말(한국어)’이다. 고등학생 및 대학 입학 수험생, 국어교사, 국문과 교수와 강사 들을 대상으로 설문 조사한 결과는 우리의 기대와 크게 다르다. ‘우리 글자’라고 응답한 경우는 학생 20.5%,, 교사 50%, 교수 62%에 그쳤다. 그릇된 인식이 ‘교수→교사→학생’ 이런 경로로 이어지는 악순환이 계속되는 것이라 판단된다. ‘한글’의 개념에 대한 인식이 정상화되도록 관련기관에서 일정한 조치를 취해야 한다.

영어초록

The polysemous use of Hangul with its meaning extended to the Korean language itself has triggered this research. As a result of examination, the findings are as follows: First, Hangul has been identified with ‘the written form(characters) of our Korean language’ both in North and South Korean dictionaries. Originally, when Hangul was created, the word was intended to refer to the newly developed written form(characters) of our language. However, the word Hangul is being abused or misused so much that it comes to mean beyond its legitimate denotation in a variety of areas.
Analyzing the terminology or the phrases often found in the newspapers and on the Internet leads to the categorization of two cases: the legitimate use and the deviant use implying ‘our language in general.’ Such phrases as Hangul-soseol, Hangul-bon, and Hangul-pan already mean ‘our written language’ instead of ‘our characters.’ Hangul as in Hangul-ireum, Hangul-hakhoi, Hangul-matchumboep, Hangul-hakja, Hangul-sajeon, Hangul-seonggyeong mostly refer to ‘our language’ itself.
It is even more surprising to find the results of a survey regarding the question of what Hangul means, which was administered to the highschool students or the graduates-to-be and the Korean Language teachers charging the 12th graders. Most of the students referred to Hangul as ‘our written language,’ ‘our language in general’ or ‘almost everything in relation to Korean language.’ It may not be so surprising in that their mental lexicon is not very different from that of the media. Nevertheless, it is very shocking that by a substantial rate the highschool teachers think of Hangul as meaning beyond ‘the written form of our language.’ They responded to the survey saying that they taught their students according to their mistaken conception of Hangul, which concerns us because of the possibility of expanded reproduction.
To resolve this problem, the author suggests the following: First, if the dictionary definition is correct while the general population goes astray there must be visible efforts to get the problem solved. In the national grade-school curriculum the meaning of such words as ‘national language(Korean)’ and ‘Hangul,’ together with the relationship between these two concepts should be overtly taught. Especially, the Korean language teachers should be able to draw a fine line between the much-confused concepts. At the same time either the National Language Institute or the related organizations will need to enforce their authoritative power in ways that purify their abuses or misuses.
Second, if the general population is correct in their conception of Hangul while the dictionary definition is too narrow the dictionaries should be amended.
Third, as I write this article I have found that there is no such word that corresponds to ‘yeongmun’ or ‘ilmun.’ Hence a new chinese two-syllable word needs to be created. Since there is no such word for ‘the written form’ of our language, Hangul is extended to cover this extension and go further up to meaning ‘Korean language in general.’

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