The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, in collaboration with the National Institute of the Korean Language, announced on the 28th that they have refined 40 foreign words that are frequently used in daily life but may be somewhat unfamiliar. The ministry is running a ‘New Words Meeting,’ involving media, academia, and youth, to reduce communication difficulties arising from excessive foreign language use by replacing foreign words that have high public significance or are closely linked to citizens’ lives with Korean equivalents. The candidates prepared in the New Words Meeting undergo a receptivity survey of 3,000 citizens and a review by the National Language Deliberation Council’s Language Purification Subcommittee before being finalized.
In the recent deliberation, the alternate terms ‘Independent AI’ or ‘Domestic AI’ were chosen as replacements for ‘Sovereign AI.’
The standardization of specialized terminology by central ministries also took place. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs revised ‘initiative’ to ‘concept’ and ‘partnership’ to ‘cooperative relationship’ or ‘companion relationship.’ The Ministry of Personnel Management changed ‘HR’ to ‘personnel,’ ‘pool’ to ‘candidate group,’ and ‘one-stop’ to ‘all-inclusive.’
Feedback from the public suggested that terms like ‘green tech’ should be revised to ‘eco-friendly technology,’ ‘sim cloning’ to ‘illegal sim duplication,’ ‘public program’ to ‘mass participation activity’ or ‘citizen participation activity,’ and ‘agility’ to ‘pet obstacle course.’
Furthermore, some refined terms have already become part of the language, such as ‘black ice,’ which has been adapted to ‘road frost,’ ‘blood sugar spike’ to ‘rapid blood sugar increase,’ and ‘sinkhole’ to ‘ground subsidence.’
The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, along with the Institute of Korean Language, plans to continue swiftly updating foreign words, inform the public, and actively promote the easy public language policy through online media such as social media.