Hanbono: Korean Slang Grows Among Japanese Gen Z — SkimNews
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- Hanbono—a portmanteau of Hanguko (Korean) and Ilbono (Japanese)—is the name for increased use of Korean words or altered versions in Japanese Gen Z popular culture, advertising and everyday conversation.
- BTS released Love Yourself: Tear in 2018, the year Blackpink performed in Tokyo and Osaka and experts said the practice of directly borrowing Korean words picked up noticeably.
- The Covid-19 pandemic increased Japanese exposure to K-pop and Korean culture; “hyung,” an affectionate term for an older male, and the female variant “unni” began circulating more widely, with no direct Japanese equivalents.
- Japan colonised South Korea for about four decades, stripped Korean of official status, required legal documents and school textbooks in Japanese, and closed Korean-language newspapers.
- Korean Language Society Persecution was the name given to the 1942 arrests of scholars who studied and disseminated Korean texts by Japanese colonial authorities.
- South Korea restored Korean-language literacy after liberation in 1945, when scholars established a standardised language; the government later formalised those efforts in the 2000s through the Basic Act on the Korean Language and created institutions to expand Korean education globally.
- Lee Sang-chul, 64, a director of the Korean Residents Union in Japan, says “dambae” and “pacchigi” were once secret slang among friends in a historically marginalised Korean community; he says younger users now judge culture “on their own merit” without nationality lines.
Why it matters: For Japanese advertisers and Gen Z users, Korean has become a usable informal code: “gwenchana” appears in commercials, while “hyung” and “unni” circulate among peers. The exchange now runs opposite to Japan’s four-decade colonial rule, which stripped Korean of official status.
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