[News Today] KOREAN COURSE TITLE IN JAPAN

[LEAD]
The K-pop and K-drama craze has boosted interest in Korean language studies, with over half of Japanese universities now offering courses. However, many top schools refer to these classes as 'Joseoneo', a term that was commonly used during the Japanese colonial era. This term has stirred quite a bit of controversy.

[REPORT]
Keio University is a leading private university in Japan. It offers around 130 Korean language-related classes.

But one class name shown here is marked as 'Joseoneo Intensive 1'. Instead of 'Korean', it says 'Joseoneo', meaning the Joseon language.

It's no different at other major Japanese schools of higher learning such as Osaka and Hitotsubashi Universities.

It's the same with the University of Tokyo, a national university, whose Korean language class is also titled 'Korea Joseoneo'.

Naruse Aoi/ Student at Waseda University
When I first heard the word, it felt so out of place. My family also said the term refers to North Korean language.

In the 1990s, Japan's academia used the expression Joseoneo as a collective term for the language used on the Korean Peninsula.

This explains the term's lingering use at many Japanese universities to this day.

Against this backdrop, Korean students at Waseda University have propelled a change to replace the term 'Joseoneo' with the English word 'Korean'.

Park Hyuk-jae/ Korean student council president, Waseda Univ.
We argued that if a class is not teaching separate qualities of South and North Korean tongue, it's right to use the expression 'Korean'.

Over 100-thousand students are believed to be learning Korean in Japan.

Given that Japan's university entrance exam known as the Center Test adopted the official term 'Korean' way back in 2002, it's time that efforts are needed for Japanese universities to revise the referencing of their Korean language classes.