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Indonesian tribe to adopt Korean alphabet
A small Indonesian tribe which has no written version of its language has decided to adopt the Korean alphabet known as Hangeul, a scholar involved in the project said on Thursday.
That makes sense. Of a sort. I guess.
How utterly, utterly, utterly cool! I'd love to know what the Korean connection is that led to this.
It is the first case of Hangeul, a phonetic alphabet, being used by a foreign society, said Seoul National University professor Lee Ho-Young.

Lee told AFP the Cia-Cia tribe in Bau-Bau city on Buton island in southeast Sulawesi has adopted the script to transcribe its aboriginal language. He said the city on July 21 began teaching students the alphabet based on textbooks created by the Hunminjeongeum Research Institute, a linguistic society in Seoul. 'The Cia-Cia are now able to preserve their native language,' said Lee, an institute member who played a key role in creating the textbooks, describing the case as 'historic.'
Green tea for everyone!
The books explain the history and culture of the tribe, which numbers around 60,000. 'I hope this will be a stepping stone for the spread of Hangeul abroad,' Lee said.

The decision 'reflects our efforts for years to spread Hangeul abroad. The tribe also wanted to promote economic and cultural exchanges with our country,' he added.

The institute has promised to start work in November on a cultural centre for the tribe, to train language teachers and to support cultural exchanges. It has been trying for years to spread the Korean alphabet to minority tribes across Asia who lack their own writing system. Indonesia uses the Roman alphabet for its national language Bahasa Indonesia.
"Bahasa" means "language" in Indonesian (and Malay). In the language game we usually refer to bahasa Indonesia as "Indonesian."
Koreans are intensely proud of their 24-character Hangeul alphabet, which was introduced by King Sejong the Great around 1443 to supersede the use of Chinese characters.
Presumably it's sufficiently better suited to representing the sounds of the Cia Cia language than is the Latin alphabet to make up for the difficulties engendered by having to abruptly switch alphabets when traveling to Bau Bau city in Cia Cia land on the Isle of Button...
I suspect that the choice was dictated by a personal connection. Isn't the Cyrillic alphabet named after St. Cyril?

Posted by: Fred 2009-08-07
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=276010