SEOUL, Oct. 14 (Yonhap) -- Seoul National University (SNU), South Korea’s top-ranked university, said Friday it will offer its first Japanese studies course next year, breaking a longstanding taboo stemming from Japan‘s 1910-45 colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula.

SNU officials said the university will next year establish the department of East Asian studies, which will include the comprehensive study of languages and cultures of four regions -- Japan, East Asia, India and the Middle East.

The department plans to enroll 20 students annually, they added.

It will be the first time that the nation’s most prestigious university has offered a Japanese studies major since its establishment in 1946. Only after 2004, the university set up the Institute for Japanese Studies for research purposes.

“Although research on Japan has not been enough, establishment of related departments has been delayed for several reasons,” Byun Chang-ku, dean of SNU‘s College of Humanities, said. “Opening the department of East Asian studies is meaningful in regard to SNU offering a Japanese major for the first time.”