Languages change all the time, and Korean is no exception. In the age of social media, words that go viral quickly become mainstream, but other changes happen slowly and are hard to notice. I started learning Korean in 1983, and the 41 years since then have revealed a number of interesting changes.

The most obvious change is the decline in the use of Chinese characters. In the early 1980s, Chinese characters were much more common in newspapers, books and street signs. Newspapers used vertical text, and headlines and proper nouns were often in Chinese characters. Some brand names used Chinese characters, which at the time conveyed a sense of sophistication.

Chinese characters have long been controversial in South Korea. In an attempt to instill nationalism in Koreans, Park Chung-hee banned the teaching of Chinese characters in schools in 1970 in favor of a Hangeul-only policy. This sparked a firestorm of criticism that led Park to allow the teaching of Chinese characters again in 1972, but only as an elective called "Classical Chinese" in middle and high school. This meant that the generation that entered elementary school after 1970 knew fewer Chinese characters. As they began to enter society in the late 1980s, they found Chinese characters to be a hard-to-read nuisance rather than a sign of sophistication.

The success of Korea's 1987 democracy movement brought sweeping social changes that continued into the 1990s. A wave of national sentiment in the wake of democratization led to a renewed Hangeul-only language policy. As a result, newspapers and magazines reduced the number of Chinese characters and switched to horizontal text in the early 1990s. At the same time, the “English boom” that spread rapidly in society made English the prestige language both for learning and as a source of brand names.

Chinese characters have not disappeared completely, but their use is now mostly limited to humanities scholars who need them for their research. Classical Chinese is still taught as an elective in schools and remains a subject in the “second foreign language” category on the university entrance exam, but interest continues to decline. In 2024, only 2.2 percent of students took the Classical Chinese exam. Proponents of teaching Chinese characters argue that it helps students learn Korean vocabulary and provides a bridge to learning the neighboring Chinese and Japanese languages. These arguments have merit, but they have not been able to muster enough public support to change the policy.

Another change, although much less obvious, is the change in the use of language levels. Korean today has three levels of spoken language: formal polite, informal polite and intimate. In everyday speech, the informal polite ending “-yo” and the intimate “banmal” levels are most commonly used. The formal polite ending “-nida” is generally used in more formal situations such as meetings and public speaking.

In the 1980s, it was common to hear older people using the intimate level when speaking to young adults. As South Korea urbanized and social anonymity increased, the intimate level became more restricted to family and friends. It is now considered rude to use it in most other situations. In organizations, people in senior positions used it with subordinates, but this has diminished as the workplace has become more egalitarian. It is still common for strangers to use it with children, but this is also disappearing.

The more restrictive use of the intimate level has helped the informal polite level to expand its range. It has long been the most common in everyday discourse between strangers, but it has replaced the intimate level in most workplace situations. The formal polite level has become more restricted to formal settings, further expanding the range of the informal polite level.

As the range of informal polite has expanded, mixing of levels has become more common, especially with the intimate level. Strangers usually remain at the informal polite level. Coworkers who spend time together but do not consider themselves friends prefer the informal polite level, but often mix in the intimate level to indicate familiarity or for emphasis. Likewise, shopkeepers and regular customers may do the same. On the formal side, speakers may mix in the formal polite level to create distance and a sense of objectivity.

These are not the only changes in Korean since the early 1980s, but like all language changes, they are products of the rapid changes in South Korean society. The pace of change may slow, but language will always change with it.

Robert J. Fouser

Robert J. Fouser, a former associate professor of Korean language education at Seoul National University, writes on Korea from Providence, Rhode Island. He can be reached at robertjfouser@gmail.com. The views expressed here are the writer’s own. -- Ed.