#Koryo Saram

[maggiecheungs]

"My son, you came into this world for one reason: revenge."

REVENGE (1988) dir. Yermek Shinarbayev

[safije]

Koryo Saram - Korean Diaspora of the Soviet Union

In the late 1800s thousands of people mostly from Northern Korea went to East Russia to escape famine. Decades later another mass migration from Korea to Russia happened as people fled from Japanese invaders and were attracted by the Bolshevik's promise of free land for peasants. The Korean community thrived in the Soviet Union during the earlier years with many becoming high ranking Communist Party officials, but by 1937 even the family of these high ranking officials would be rounded up and shipped off in cattle trains to Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan during Stalin's ethnic deportations. Some people did not survive the harsh conditions of this trip and their corpses would be left unburied at the train stops. Despite all of what they endured in the past, today majority of the Koryo Saram still live in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan where they've kept their traditional Korean customs mixed with the cultures of Central Asians, Russians and other ex-Soviet nationalities.

[deathlygristly]

This is a really interesting episode of the Dark Side of Seoul podcast, with an interview with a woman whose ancestors moved from Korea to Uzbekistan. The group of Koreans who migrated are known as Koryo Saram.

[chrysocomae]

[k-star-holic]

Jung Dong-won, "The King of Baking Table Tennis" ('earth exploration life')

Source: k-star-holic.blogspot.com

[teleportzz]

i think i need to start making something very clear, as i should have done a long time ago.

Ukraine hasn't stopped needing your help and listening to our voices hasn't stopped being important

i think i've been way too patient and understanding with non-ukrainians following me. but i'm tired and angry and hurting and i've been carrying this burden, as all ukrainians have, for a very long time.

i am officially completely done with all those posts fucking "comparing" ukraine and palestine. i've tried to be understanding. i know you're trying to say that ukrainians get slightly better press coverage in the west due to white privilege, but our press coverage in the west is still dogshit. our genocide and colonization is still reduced to a "war" ukraine is still described as a "post-soviet state" and ethnic minorities in ukraine are still never mentioned. crimean tatars, koryo-saram, romani-ukrainians, jewish ukrainians, muslim-ukrainians, and many other communities have been disproportionately targeted by ruzzia's relentless violence and you still say nothing of their unique struggles and experiences. not to even mention how, although ukrainian diaspora in north america, like myself, have white privilege, ukrainians in europe face discrimination from both ruzzia and western europeans. they are not privileged

we are called slurs and subjected to other ethnically and culturally motivated violence by ruzzians very frequently when we try to tell our stories. ukrainian diaspora try to use our privilege and knowledge of english to advocate, but we are always shut down by ruzzians because we are always somehow either "too western" or "too ukrainian" to know what we are talking about.

and it really doesn't help that SOMEHOW none of you seem capable of caring about more than one genocide at a time. those posts comparing ukraine to palestine is all you have to say about us as our printing houses are being destroyed and our babies are being taken away and raised as ruzzians. weird! i don't seem to have this problem! caring about multiple genocides at a time and advocating for the liberty and power of all oppressed people is second nature to me. maybe because i don't have the privilege of only caring about one genocide at a time.

like sorry but i'm officially done. comparing which genocide is """""worse""""" is such a horrible and incomprehensibly evil thing to do. victims of genocide are standing together in solidarity. westerners with no connection to these issues do not have a seat at this table

[quark-nova]

Still baffled that some people will try to justify ethnic cleansing or deportation in some circumstances. Like, no, even if their government is shitty or they share an ethnicity/language with a war enemy, that never justifies deporting hundreds of thousands of families away from their homes.

This isn't aimed at one specific group, there are quite a few that should hear this. And concerningly this also holds true in some leftist circles.

"Stalin did nothing wrong" tankies who actively try to justify the deportations of the Mekshetian Turks, of the Crimean Tatars, of the Koryo-saram, of the Volga Germans. Because "sharing an ethnicity with people colonized by an enemy" justifies labelling thousands of people as potential spies and deporting them to Kazakhstan according to them.

Fringe "Palestinian liberation" folks who pollute a perfectly legitimate (and needed) movement by forgetting the whole point of self-determination and instead calling for Israeli Jews to be deported back to Europe. (Yes I'm always ashamed to see the fraction of Palestinian liberation discourse that gets polluted by antisemitic shit)

On the other side, fringe "landback" folks who cheer on Palestinians being deported and expelled from Area C (even though that was never close to what landback was ever supposed to mean).

Yes, I've seen all of these in (different) leftist (or at least self-proclaimed leftist) circles and I'm ashamed. At some point you just have to realize that you're talking about other human beings, and that these are just ways of perpetuating state oppression and dividing people even more, which is the opposite of what leftist thought should stand for. We can do better, much better.

[sovietpostcards]

Hi, really love your blog since I love seeing all the items from daily life. I was wondering if you happened to have anything about Koryo saram? I know they mostly lived in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan but I don't know if they ever appeared on any stamps, cards, etc. in any capacity during the Soviet era.

I don't think there's anything like that. I've seen postcards of Korean art, books of Korean folk tales, but they had nothing to do with Koryo saram and everything with Northern Korea.

173 000 ethnic Koreans were deported from Russian Far East to Central Asia in the 1937-38, rehabilitated in the 1950s, but until late 60s it was all very hush-hush. 70s and 80s made it possible for ethnic Koreans to make a career and a name for themselves.

Notable Soviet Koryo saram are Viktor Tsoi (musician, "Kino"), Yuli Kim (poet), Anatoly Kim (author).

Notable dish: Korean carrot salad was created by Koryo saram as a substitution to kimchi and is now a super popular salad found in every Russian supermarket.

I studied Korean for a year when I lived in St Petersburg (years ago) and most of our group were descendants of Central Asian Koreans. All of them were called Kim and Lee and one was called Цой/Tsoi (derived from 최).

[crazysodomite]

My meager koryo saram swag is all i have. 😔

[star-the-gremlin]

Instead of Ari Yoon being from Korea, maybe she could be ethnically Korean but born and raised in Russia? According to google, there is a group like that called Koryo Saram

I actually had an idea to fix my lil dumbassery situation

cause I do wanna keep the "moved to another country to get rid of shitty parents" thing

Maybe at first the parents agreed that she can stay and study there but then they changed their mind and wanted her to come home but since she didn't want to go back she made a deal that if she doesn't find a place to live before she finishes school then she'll come back

hows that

[collettivotongil]

Le lingue coreaniche

Origine delle lingue coreaniche

Il coreanico è una famiglia linguistica che raggruppa la lingua coreana, la lingua di Jeju e la lingua Yukjin. L'origine delle lingue coreaniche attuali si può trovare nel coreano antico parlato nello stato di Silla. L'origine delle lingue coreaniche è oggetto di dibattito tra esperti linguisti, i quali hanno teorizzato negli anni diverse appartenenze linguistiche - queste lingue:

Fanno parte della famiglia delle lingue altaiche (turco, mongolo e manciù-tunguso). Questa teoria, formulata nel XVIII secolo, non è ad oggi dimostrabile per via delle differenze linguistiche.

Fanno parte della famiglia delle lingue nipponiche (giapponese e ryukyuano).

Fanno parte della famiglia delle lingue dravidiche (parlate nel sud dell'India e in Sri Lanka) ma la teoria è poco affidabile.

Hanno un'origine che si può cercare nella famiglia delle lingue austronesiane (parlate in Madagascar, gran parte del Sud-Est Asiatico, dai nativi taiwanesi e sulle isole del Pacifico) ma anche qui la teoria è poco affidabile.

Si sono originate per proprio conto, nonostante le somiglianze con il giapponese (dovute agli intensi scambi culturali e al colonialismo). Questa è la teoria sostenuta dalla maggioranza dei linguisti esperti.

 

Coreano

Il coreano è una lingua parlata da più di 80 milioni di persone. E' la lingua ufficiale della Corea (del Nord e del Sud) ma è anche riconosciuta ufficialmente nella Prefettura di Yanbian e nella Contea di Changbai in Cina. Inoltre, è parlata anche dai coreani di Sakhalin e dai Koryo-saram (Russia e Asia Centrale), nonché dalla maggior parte della diaspora.

L'alfabeto coreano si chiama hangeul (한글) in Corea del Sud o joseongeul (조선글) in Corea del Nord: fu ideato nel 1443 da una commissione istituita dal sovrano Sejong il Grande. L'alfabeto è composto da 19 consonanti e 21 vocali, comuni per tutta la Corea.

Prima dell'invenzione dell'alfabeto coreano, venivano utilizzati gli hanja (i caratteri cinesi) che, però, erano inaccurati nel riprodurre i suoni del coreano e difficili da imparare per la gente comune. Ancora oggi, soprattutto al Sud, l'utilizzo degli hanja permane limitatamente in ambiti specifici (come sui giornali o in ambito culinario) o per ragioni stilistiche.

L'alfabeto coreano viene utilizzato non solo nel resto delle altre lingue coreaniche ma anche nella lingua Cia-Cia parlata in Indonesia. Dal XXI secolo, grazie alla globalizzazione e alla diffusione della cultura coreana nel mondo, l'apprendimento del coreano si è diffuso in tutto il globo.

 

Dialetti del coreano

Nella penisola coreana sono presenti diversi dialetti della lingua coreana che differiscono l'uno dall'altro per pronuncia e lessico ma non tutti sono intellegibili tra loro. Essi si possono suddividere in cinque aree dialettali:

Hamgyong: nord-est, al confine con Russia e Cina.

Pyongan: nord-ovest, compresa la capitale della nord Corea Pyongyang.

Centrale: parlato nella parte centrale della Corea, compresa la capitale della sud Corea Seoul - e può essere diviso in ulteriori cinque sub-dialetti.

Gyeongsang: sud-est, comprese le città di Busan, Daegu e Ulsan.

Jeolla: sud-ovest, compresa la città rivoluzionaria di Gwangju.

Al di fuori della Corea, tra la diaspora, si sono formati altri dialetti del coreano quali: il Koryo-mar (basato sul dialetto di Hamgyong ma con prestiti lessicali dal russo); il coreano di Sakhalin; il coreano degli Zainichi (influenzato dal giapponese); e il coreano in Cina (simile al dialetto di Hamgyong ma con forti prestiti lessicali dal cinese).

 

Differenze nord-sud

La lingua coreana si è differenziata tra la Corea del Nord e la Corea del Sud a causa del lungo periodo di tempo in cui la il Paese è stato separato dopo il conflitto.

Tra il coreano parlato al Nord e quello del Sud ci sono alcune differenze nell'ortografia e nella pronuncia, e differenze sostanziali nel vocabolario più recente: mentre il Sud tende a prendere in prestito molto dall'inglese (gli inglesismi imposti nel parlato comune hanno prodotto un fenomeno curioso che hanno contribuito alla formazione del Konglish), il Nord usa parole di origine russa o formula parole composte.

Ad esempio, in Corea del Sud la parola gelato si traduce con 아이스크림 (aiseukeulim) dall'inglese ice cream, mentre in Corea del Nord si traduce con 얼음보숭이 (oreumbosungi) ovvero letteralmente "cosa di ghiaccio soffice".

 

Lingua Jeju

La lingua di Jeju è una lingua di derivazione coreanica, parlata sull'isola di Jeju. Nonostante sia erroneamente classificata spesso come dialetto del coreano, gli esperti lo categorizzano come lingua a sè. Infatti, la lingua di Jeju non è intellegibile con i dialetti della penisola coreana.

La lingua conserva molte parole del coreano medio ora perse nel coreano standard. Jeju potrebbe avere anche un substrato di origine giapponese.

L'UNESCO ha designato questa lingua come lingua in pericolo di estinzione poiché i suoi parlanti nativi sono ormai anziani e per l'influenza del coreano. Sforzi sono quotidianamente compiuti per recuperare e salvare questo idioma.

Lingua Yukjin

La lingua Yukjin è un'altra lingua di derivazione coreanica, considerata spesso un dialetto del coreano. Si parla nella regione storica dello Yukjin, nel nord-est della Corea e in alcune comunità in Cina e in Asia Centrale.

Lo Yukjin mantiene un lessico molto arcaico, e preserva diverse forme del coreano medio - come una minore influenza patriarcale sulla lingua di origine neo-confuciana. Inoltre è possibile osservare prestiti lessicali di derivazione jurchen o mancese, cinese o, in alcuni casi, russa.

[oroichonno]

I found this leed, a likely sway on Koryo-Mar. One thing's for sure, it's distinct & is almost only spoken among the elder lines/generations Jaegaseung people (whose heritage language is lost) & Jaejung dongpo (ethnic Koreans in my southern neighbour's country) plus about 1 in 10 of Koryo Saram (from ex-Soviet countries including from my northern & western neighbours & excluding Sakhalin Koreans, who instead speak from one based off a landspeech/dialect from southern parts [Jeolla & Gyeongsang] of South Korea despite writing by North Korean standard). Not quite the same thing as the Hamgyong landspeech, but it's closer to Korean than is Jejuan, even though neither are really mutually understandable with Korean landspeeches or especially the North or South standard leeds. Apparently, a wordbook (dictionary) bestands/exists between Korean & Yukjin, but do feel free to show us any such works on it that do.

[k-star-holic]

Jung Dong-won, 'Uzbekistan's earth exploration life'

Source: k-star-holic.blogspot.com

[ohsalome]

via @olekshyn on Twitter

[diaryofanangryasianguy]

04/25/17

Korean Americans from Russia form Thriving Community in New York

In parts of Brooklyn and Queens in New York City, you would be more than likely to meet a group of people, called Koryo Saram, Koreans from the former Soviet Union, who immigrated to the United States about twenty years ago.

Their history goes way back. During the 1880’s, facing a famine in their country, Koreans moved to Far East Russia seeking better opportunities. There was another big wave of Korean migration into Russia in 1910 after the Japanese annexation of Korea. While the Koryo Saram community grew in Russia, Stalin’s suspicion of them grew too. Russia was at war with Japan, and Stalin believed there was no difference between Koreans and the Japanese. Stalin forced the Korean community out of Russia and sent them into central Asia.