Korean news report from summer 2009 on using Hangul for the Cia-Cia language in Indonesia

Here's a news report from summer of this year (August, I think) on the Cia-Cia language, a language that received some attention this year for its decision to use Korean hangul as its official script. The orthography for the language is as follows:

Consonants	ㄱ	ㄲ	ㄴ	ㄷ	ㅌ	ㄸ	ㄹ	ᄙ*	ㅁ	ㅂ	ㅸ	ㅍ	ㅃ	ㅅ	ㅇ**	ㅈ	ㅉ	ㅎ
romanized	g	k	n	d	dh	t	r ~ gh, l		m	b	v ~ w	bh	p	s	null, ’, ng	j	c	h
IPA	[ɡ]	[k]	[n]	[ɗ]	[d]	[t]	[r ~ ʁ, l]		[m]	[ɓ]	[β]	[b]	[p]	[s]	[-, ʔ, ŋ]	[dʒ]	[tʃ]	[h]
Vowels	ㅏ	ㅔ	ㅗ	ㅜ	ㅣ	ㅡ
romanized	a	e	o	u	i	null

What's interesting about this is that hangul is now a more accurate representation of the way the language is actually spoken than Korean itself, because though hangul is generally pretty easy to read it isn't a perfect representation of Korean - 조건 (term) for example is actually pronounced 조껀, the ㅎ in 싫어 (hate) is silent, so is the ㄹ in 흙 (earth), and so on, so some people actually do make spelling mistakes in Korean as well. That's what happens when a writing system is adopted but then the spoken language changes over time.

Also note that the woman in the news broadcast pronounces it as Bahasa Jjiajjia (since ㅉ in Korean is like a doubled j) but ㅉ actually represents a tʃ (English ch) sound in Cia-Cia. Chia-chia, not jjia-jjia.




Most languages choose to go with the Latin alphabet when devising a script, but the Korean government seems very taken by the idea of a language choosing to use hangul and so they are now receiving some preferential treatment from the Korean government including a trip from Dec. 21 to 26 to Seoul for nine people from the tribe (I assume the Korean/Seoul city government is paying for this) where they will hold a meeting with the mayor. Going with the Latin alphabet likely would have simply earned them a visit from a few dusty scholars and little else (certainly no media attention), so the extensive hands-on support and attention they are receiving from Korea after choosing to use hangul probably makes it worth it.

Here's the location of the city.


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