Baeguk

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Baeguk's 'Grammar Police' Wage War on KRAY
5560.11.6

KRAY (real name: Rhee Narachan), one of Baeguk's most celebrated entertainers and rappers, is under fire this week, becoming a subject of ridicule in a scathing PSA issued by the Committee for the Standard Baegukese Language (CSBL), the nation's long-reviled no-fun-allowed 'Grammar Police'.

The reason?

The CSBL complains that his new hit single, 'Paradise' (Baegukese: 樂園) is 'disrupting the education of Baegukese youth and clouding their ability to speak the Standard Baegukese Language properly'. 

In his song, the word for "Paradise" is used for a total of 12 times. In every case, KRAY pronounces the word for Paradise (樂園) as "Nagweon" (낙원). In their PSA, the CSBL maintain that the characters "should and must always" be pronounced "Ragweon" (락원), with an "R" sound at the front. 

The CSBL cautions that this is improper language as it breaks the Initial Consonant Rule (頭音法則), in which speakers of Standard Baegukese are required to enunciate every consonant beginning a word as it is spelled. This is not the first time that KRAY has been chastised for violating grammatical laws. One of his earlier hits, "Hot Goodbye" (뜨거운 離別), was also criticized for mispronouncing the word for 'Goodbye' (離別), conventionally pronounced 'Ribyeol', as 'Ibyeol' .

This is because some dialects of Kyomal, most notably in the deep south where Rhee hails from in his hometown of Bulgoeul, frequently entirely "drop" the initial (like from 'Ribyeol', to 'Ibyeol') or otherwise soften the "R" sound to an "N" (like from 'Ragweon' to 'Nagweon'). In fact, the CSBL says that Rhee mispronounces even his own name! - always opting to call himself "Ee" (이) instead of "Rhee" (리), as his surname (李) is properly pronounced.

Many on social media took to popular sites like Kofitalk to protest the 'ludicrous' intervention of the CSBL, which is increasingly seen as a nuisance due to its' constant efforts to petition anyone from professors to newscasters to actors to musicians to even idols in efforts to get them to speak "Proper" Baegukese. One citizen from Yidaburi, a small deep southern mining town located close to the Mioksan Mountains, expressed her thoughts to The NamDo as such:

One thing the CSBL doesn't understand is that we citizens like unorthodox accents. Satoori [regional dialects] is fun to listen to and I think it really says a lot about our culture more than if we all spoke in the same voice.

In general, while use of Standard Baegukese is widely favored in the cities, rural communities have found the government's enforcement of official state grammar to be sometimes overbearing and intrusive. As regional communities continue to use thair own dialects, one wonders how effective the CSBL's pleas will be. KRAY himself has not publicly responded on the matter, and did not comment on it to The NamDo.