N.Korea Cracks Down on S.Korean-Style Speech

North Korea's rubberstamp Supreme People's Assembly has enacted a law to protect the Pyongyang dialect -- the North Korean standard language -- in an effort to stem the insidious spread of South Korean culture through the use of language.

The new law aims to "root out anti-normative elements... and protect and actively preserve the Pyongyang dialect," the official [North] Korean Central News Agency said Thursday.

That means the regime will crack down on usages that have obviously been gleaned from South Korean films and TV dramas.

One North Korean defector from Pyongyang explains how this works. "I used to absorb myself in South Korean soap operas for several days because they normally have at least a dozen episodes," she said. "I found myself talking like a South Korean at the end."

Back in 2021, the National Intelligence Service said the North Korean regime was cracking down on young North Koreans wearing South Korean-style clothes or talking in the South Korean style, including younger wives calling their older husbands "oppa."