해방 후 한국어 항공용어의 제정 노력

Abstract

This research is to trace the efforts in the legislation of aeronautic terms during the colonial period, under the United States Army Military Government in Korea (USAMGIK), and after the foundation of the Republic of Korea government. Since aeronautics was introduced after colonization, it was where the influence of Imperial Japan was the biggest among various fields of science and technology. Imperial Japan proceeded several times to establish the terms of aeronautics. The establishment of the terms accelerated the growth of the field of aeronautics in Korea during the colonial period. After the Liberation in 1945, Korean aviation industries organized the Korean Aviation Association (KAA) for the aviation construction, along with the effort to polish the terms of aeronautics. As the size of the civilian aviation was insignificant, the Air Force supervised the legislation of the terms. Kim Seokhwan, the leading figure in the legislation after the liberation, continued the legislation process while serving in the various organizations under the Air Force. In the initial moments of the Korean War, when the ROK Air Force was dependent on the support from the United States, most of the aeronautic terms used in operations were translated in accordance with the past experiences, which had been mostly established by Imperial Japan. The ROK Air Force resumed the legislation of the terms during the stalemates in the Korean War, but it was difficult to abolish the terms which had already become customary. On the other hand, the absolute number of the academic professionals was scarce compared to the technical, it was challenging to fully understand and reorganize the terms in the aeronautics related to other scientific fields. As a result, the Science-Technical Terms Legislation Committee approved the utilization of the customary terms in the legislation considering the reality that the Air Force faced. This result was not because of the absence of the will of clearing the remnants of the colonial period, but because of the chaos after the liberation and the lack of the professionals. Thus, it must be evaluated not on the result but on the effort in the process.