Arab News Japan

North Korea is now sentencing its citizens to the death penalty if they imitate South Korean accents or use their phrases.

The new law was introduced to combat South Korea’s influence on the communist country. The Pyongyang Cultural Language Protection Act, enacted in May, seeks to “purify” the Korean dialect.

The legislation states: “The state shall treat anyone who imitates or spreads the puppet language as garbage contaminated with puppet culture and as criminals. Anyone, regardless of the seriousness of the matter, shall face serious legal sanctions, including the death penalty.”

The law also prohibits Japanese vocabulary, unauthorized buzzwords, obscure words and ‘unethical’ abbreviations. The principle of the new rule is to have North Koreans avoid “using the puppet way of speaking.”

South Korean culture is becoming increasingly popular in North Korea, thanks to illegally imported films, television dramas and news programmes. The popularity of these programs has led to novel speech forms.

South Korean linguistics also use words derived from English, such as ‘paesyeon’ meaning fashion and ‘waipeu’ meaning wife. North Koreans are expected to avoid such words as it utilizes the “puppet way of speaking,” according to the Pyongyang Cultural Language Protection Act.

Women in North Korea should also stop using words like ‘oppa’ or ‘jagiya’ to refer to their husbands or boyfriends and should only use the word ‘dongji’ meaning comrade.

In April, 20 North Korean winter athletes were sentenced to work in prison camps after they were found to have used South Korean words during a game, the country said.