Sejong mayor sees Korean studies as solution for demographic crisis

The growing popularity of the Korean language could help address Korea's demographic crisis, Sejong City Mayor Choi Min-ho said Wednesday.

Speaking at the Global Business Forum, held at Simone in Uiwang, Gyeonggi Province, Choi said Koreans should be more open to building a multicultural society, and that Hangeul could play a key role.

“It is good that Hangeul is called the pride of Korea. But it could also be something more that helps with Korea’s low birth rate,” he said.

Choi stressed that Koreans need make more efforts to accept the country being a multicultural society, and spreading the Korean language is one way to create a stronger sense of community.

“(In a multicultural society) what's most important is the recognition of a shared cultural community. Regardless of skin color or nationality, we need to help people feel they're Korean if they live in Korea,” Choi said.

“For that, people need to share a language. Koreans should study their language to refine it and make it more systematic,” the mayor added.

The city with the Government Complex was named after King Sejong the Great, who promulgated the Korean writing system, Hangeul.

Choi served as the head of the National Agency for Administrative City Construction in 2011, which was responsible for the planned city, and worked to enhance the city’s link to Hangeul, naming around 1,100 roads in the city with words of Korean origin, according to the mayor.

Choi also mentioned author Han Kang, who won this year's Nobel Prize in literature.

“It is a very welcome (development), and translating Korean literature into other languages is also important. But now we should also support people of foreign nationality to write their own literary works in Korean,” the mayor said.

“People abroad with high levels of literary and cultural knowledge can learn Korean and write literary work in Korean. I hope Korean might be the language in which they could express their intellectual and cultural world,” he added.

To achieve this, Choi mentioned the creation of global competitions like the Scripps National Spelling Bee in the United States, saying, "English is a global language, so Americans have no problem if a non-US national wins (the spelling bee).”

But he places even greater emphasis on the enhancement of state-led Korean language study and education, which can lead a systematic effort in boosting the spread of the Korean language overseas.

“We need a Hangeul culture research center run by the central government. Our national language should be managed by the central government, not by local or private entities,” he said.

“Such a center would decide all policies concerning the Korean language, which is now managed by several separate ministries, and the place can also be for foreign nationals to experience and learn the language,” he added.

Concluding his speech, Choi said the promotion of the Korean language could be another way for Koreans to contribute to the world.

“Korea’s leap from one of the world’s most impoverished countries to an economic powerhouse is attributable to Hangeul," according to Choi. "We had no resources, but we had a system of knowledge written in Hangeul. I will search for ways for Korea to benefit the world with Hangeul characters.”