The Koreanic Language family includes Korean and Jeju, also known as Jejueo which derives from South Korea, Jeju island.
Jeju island is inhabited by a population of 695,519, yet it is estimated that only 5,000-10,000 people are able to speak the Jejueo language.
By 2010, Proficiency levels for Jejueo were severely decreasing and fluent speakers were over 75 years old [¹]. In the same year, UNESCO classified Jejueo as a critically endangered language.
The start of the language’s decline can be traced back to the Jeju 4-3 massacre, which was an uprising that began on April 3, 1948. An estimated 14,000-30,000 people were killed, roughly 10% of Jeju’s population at the time, and an additional 40,000 more fled from the islands- the results of a tragedy that would also severely affect the development of Jejueo. [²][³][⁴]
Despite Jejueo not being mutually understandable with Korean, which linguists claim is the difference between languages and dialects, the Korean government remained to consider Jejueo as a dialect for decades.[⁵] In 1955, a national curriculum was put into action. This new education system was purely Korean based and governments promoted its use. As Modern Korean was used in schools and public areas, Jejueo remained spoken at home or by elders.[⁶]
However, more recently (2011), the government has been encouraging students to learn Jejueo as a non-mandatory extracurricular activity. Though not widespread or massively successful, it is a step in the right direction.[⁷]
As for locals, younger generations have expressed a disinterest in learning the dying language. According to Korean news articles, such as The Korean Times, the Jejueo language was not seen as “sophisticated” as the modern Korean language. [⁸][⁹]
This doesn’t account for all locals since throughout the years, organisations and linguists have been coming together to help preserve Jejueo.
On Jejuweekly.com, an article was written about Professor William O’Grady who called for action at the Jeju National University Foreign Language Institute on October 30th of 2013.[¹⁰]
Bibliography:
Saltzman, Moira. “Jejueo talking dictionary: A collaborative online database for language revitalization”, (Accessed November 12, 2021)
Choi, Ha-young. “Korea’s Jeju Massacre: Bringing America’s role to light”, nknews.org, April 7 2015, (Accessed November 12, 2021)
[3]https://learningenglish.voanews.com/a/the-tragic-history-of-south-korea-s-jeju-island/4509004.html
Yoon-jee, Lee. “The Tragic History of South Korea’s Jeju Island”. Shad, Susan. Grow, George, VOA, August 5 2018, (Accessed November 12, 2021)
“Jeju Uprising”. Newworldencyclopedia.org, (Accessed November 12, 2021)
L. Shields, Steven. “Studying Jeju island’s endangered language”. The Korea Times, December 31 2019, (Accessed November 12, 2021)
Yang, Changyong, et al. “JEJUEO: The Language of Korea's Jeju Island”. University of Hawai'i Press Honolulu, 2020. (Accessed November 12, 2021)
Yang, Sejung. “Teaching Jejueo on Jeju Island제주어 교육”, March 22, 2017, (Accessed November 12, 2021)
“Jeju language explained” everything.explained.today. (Accessed November 12, 2021)
[9] The Korean Times
Southcott, Darren. “Jeju language must be saved, says linguist” Jejuweekly, November 8 2013, (Accessed November 12, 2021)
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