말모이 | MAL•MO•E: The Secret Mission
개봉 Released
감독 Directed by
역사배경 History
주연 Cast
2019.01.09
엄유나 Eom Yu-na
1942 조선어학회 사건
1942 Korean Language Society Incident
유해진 Yoo Hae-jin
윤계상 Yoon Kye-sang
Roughly translated to “collecting vocabularies”, MAL•MO•E: The Secret Mission is a fictional treatment of both the work of the Korean Language Society and the 1942 Korean Language Society Incident. The society aimed to publish a dictionary in Korean to protect the ethnicity of Koreans and Korean language against Japan.
Literal meaning: "Create a surname (shi) and change (your) given name).
The title of the movie - “Mal_Mo_E” - is the real name of the Korean dictionary put together by the members of Joseoneo Hakhoe, or the Korean Language Society, for 13 years, from 1929 to 1942. This gathering of Korean words was done in secret as the Japanese Empire, during its colonial rule of Korea (1910-45), had forbidden Koreans from learning the Korean language and from using Korean names in an attempt to squash national identity, forcing them to pledge allegiance to the Japanese emperor.
The Korean Language Society was founded on 31st August 1908 by linguist Ju Si-gyeong, who in 1911, he began collecting Korean words in different dialects in an effort to prevent the Korean language from vanishing. Sadly, Ju died three years after he began compiling his dictionary. The mission was suspended until the Korean Language Society resumed it in 1929.
On October 1, 1942, the police, having concluded that the Korean Language Society was an independence movement group. began to arrest members on charges of violating the Public Security Act. Following torture, a confession was obtained that the Joseon Language Society was an organization whose purpose was the independence of Korea from Japan. However, at that time, the society was engaged in researching the Joseon language, establishing spelling rules, and compiling a dictionary of the Korean language. Members did not engage in group activities that would violate the (Japanese) Public Security Act. More than thirty of the group were arrested and imprisoned by the Japanese and two died in prison.
The Korean Language Society did not resume activities until Korea re-gained independence after Japan surrendered to the Allies in 1945. On Sept. 8, 1945, a few weeks after liberation, a worn-out wooden box was discovered in the former Seoul Station. Inside the box were around 26,000 pages of the Mal Mo E. It’s possible a society member hid the box in the station. According to historical records, there are 164,125 words in the first Korean dictionary, published after liberation.
The headquarters of Korean Language Society in Jongno-gu, Seoul, Republic of Korea.
