Multilingual Seoul

One sees a rapid increase in languages around Seoul other than Korean and English. Here are two notable bits of signage.

One is a mobile phone store with a sign in Chinese aimed at the increasing Chinese market in Korea. I am told that Chinese students have often more disposable income than Korean students at Korean universities. Have not conducted a study yet.

The other sign is for an Indian culture event. The poster does not assume a readership of Hindi, or maybe it does. In any case, Koreans previously had no tolerance for the Hindi language. That environment is changing quite rapidly.

2 thoughts on “Multilingual Seoul”

    • I am an Indian who knows Hangul too. You are right. The sign is in korean but looks like Devanagari script (Multiple languages like Marathi, Hindi and Nepali use this script). I must say that the way this has been done is brilliant! I was fooled too. (cuz I thought the script might be in other Indian language scripts like Bengali or Gujarati which look similar to Devanagari, until I noticed it was really in Hangul after reading your comment). Brilliant imitation!

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