Abstract
This article aims to investigate the meanings and social backgrounds of a unique vernacular education project that started in 2009 in a small village located on Buton Island in eastern Indonesia. In this project, the local dialect, called Cia-Cia, is taught in some elementary schools while Korean Hangul is adopted to transcribe the dialect. Some linguists have asserted that Hangul is phonetically less appropriate than the Roman alphabet for transcribing Cia-Cia. In addition to an overview of these linguistic discussions, this article will consider the project from multiple socio-historical perspectives and discuss the historical rivairy among the different ethnic societies in the region, the language education system and local identity politics in present-day Indonesia under decentralization, and the "globalization of Hangul" movement in Korea.
