William O'Grady | Jejueo: Korea’s Lost Language

Wagner Special Lecture

William O'Grady
Professor, Department of Linguistics, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa

William O’Grady is a professor in the Department of Linguistics at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa. He is well known for his writings on syntactic theory and language acquisition, as well as for his work on Korean and Jeueo, on which he has authored and co-authored several books and numerous articles, including Categories and Case: The Sentence Structure of Korean, The Handbook of Korean Vocabulary, The Sounds of Korean, and Jejueo: The Language of Korea’s Jeju Island.

Chaired by Hi-Sun Kim, Senior Preceptor in Korean; Director of the Korean Language Program, Harvard University, Harvard University

Abstract:
Modern Jeju Island is rich in history and culture, all the more so because it is home to a unique language, Jejueo, about which little is known even within Korea, where its very existence is officially denied. My talk will document the sad history of Jejueo, including its origin, its relationship to Korean, its unique vocabulary and language, the people who still speak it, and the ongoing attempts to suppress it.

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To attend this event online, please register here.

Generously supported by the Edward W. and Namhi Kim Wagner Memorial Fund at the Harvard Korea Institute