Head of the State = Enemy (at least in Korean)
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I am reading The Korean Language by Ho-Min Sohn (Cambridge, 2001),
where there are many interesting discussions about the origin and
evolution of the language. A long section is devoted to the differences
between North and South Korean languages. On page 85, Sohn noted that
"One word innovated in North Korea is wensswu 'enemy' which was derived from the Sino-Korean word wen-swu
'enemy' (South Korean form) to avoid homonymic clash with the same form
(with different Chinese characters) that refers to the 'head of the
nation'. "
I wonder what characters they were…
October 19th, 2004 at 10:37 am e
Wen-swu for the “head of State” must be 元首. But what about “enemy”?