The last twenty years has seen a rise in interest and demand for the Korean language due to cultural and commercial globalisation and the Internet/Communications Revolution.
The Korean Wave and Korean language
International interest in Korean culture such as dramas and music has increased tremendously, especially in Asia, leading to what has been termed the “Korean Wave”. Related to this, there has also been an increase in foreign students studying in Korea. Demographically, there has also been an increase in marriages between Koreans and foreigners. With the increase in international cooperation and business, the South Korean government has been striving to standardize the names of locations, people, and other proper nouns in Hangul. Also, there was a need for more up-to-date Korean dictionaries, as most were made during the 1990s.
With such demand, the South Korean government established the concept of “Sejonghakdang” to provide integrated and standardised information and service for learning the Korean language as well as to coordinate and expand the institutes where people can learn or teach it. The Sehonghakdang will be developed as the brand commonly used by all Korean language education institutes.
