GoKawiilOne of the linguistic shocks faced by North Korean defectors upon their arrival in South Korea involves the relationship between the words nakji and ojingeo. In South Korea, these words mean “octopus” and “squid” respectively, but in North Korea, the meanings are reversed.
One defector recalls inviting South Korean coworkers to have soju with ojingeo. The coworkers, expecting squid, were surprised to find themselves at a restaurant serving octopus. This episode illustrates how shared words with completely different meanings create unexpected linguistic barriers for North Korean defectors trying to adjust to life in the South.
Many South Koreans assume that since their North Korean compatriots use the same writing system — hangul — defectors should have little trouble communicating. But language isn’t merely a communication tool; it’s also a vessel containing the culture and mindset of the society where it develops.
After Korea’s division in 1945 and the adoption of conflicting ideologies, contact between the two sides ceased, causing the language gap to gradually widen. South Korea adopted the Seoul dialect as its “standard language,” while North Korea declared the Pyongyang dialect to be its “cultural language.”
Over the decades, South and North Korean dialects have evolved in different directions, creating considerable discrepancies. The linguistic challenges defectors face go beyond accent differences, including a complex mixture of words that sound the same but have different meanings, words that sound different but mean the same thing, and South Korea’s rapidly changing slang and foreign loanwords.
These linguistic differences create more than just communication difficulties for defectors — they impact their identity and psychological well-being. This analysis examines specific examples of linguistic differences encountered by defectors and the resulting challenges they face during settlement.
The linguistic maze of defectors’ daily lives
Homophones: the first stumbling block
One of the most confusing aspects of language for North Korean defectors is homophones — words that sound identical but have different meanings. For example, bongsa means “service” in North Korea but typically refers to “volunteering” (jawon bongsa) in South Korea. If a defector says “our store has good service (bongsa),” South Koreans might wonder whether the store relies on volunteers.
Another example is dongji (comrade), which in North Korea refers to members of a revolutionary group fighting for the same cause. In South Korea, the word simply means like-minded individuals. These examples show how identical-sounding words with different meanings create major communication barriers between defectors and South Koreans.
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