Paper short abstract:

A vernacular education has started in Buton Island in eastern Indonesia, where a local dialect called Cia-Cia is taught while adopting Korean Hangul to transcribe it. This presentation will consider the project not only linguistically but also from multiple-social perspectives.

Paper long abstract:

This presentation will consider a unique vernacular education project which has started in 2009 at a small village in Buton Island in eastern Indonesia, where a local dialect called Cia-Cia is taught at some elementary schools while adopting Korean Hangul to transcribe the dialect. Some major newspapers such as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Asahi, etc. shortly carried the news. These news attracted not a few academic interests, and some linguistic papers have pointed out that Hangul is phonetically not appropriate for transcribing the Cia-Cia.

After overviewing these linguistic discussions, this presentation will consider the project not only linguistically but also from multiple-social perspectives as follows; a) What is the social and political background of this phenomena? b) Who are the key figures of the introduction of Hangul, and what are their purposes? c) How have the local politics and educational systems in present Indonesia in the era of democratization and decentralization encouraged the adoption of Hangul? d) What is the influence of Hangul adoption upon the identity and historical rivalry among sub-ethnic groups in the Buton region and vice versa? e) How are the Hangul dissemination movements in Korea in the last decade? etc.

Through the discussion, this presentation would examine the social meaning of the adoption of foreign character, taking account of the relationship among the language, politics and human lives as a whole.