Korean Job Discussion Forums

chaz47 · Joined: 11 Sep 2003

What is the relation between Koreans calling themselves the Great Han Race and the Han majority(?) group in China?

Was Korea founded by a splinter group of Chinese who migrated onto the penninsula and began their ethnocentric ways?

I have wondered this for awhile now but thought of it recently because of my studies. I have flipped back and forth studying Hangeul and Hanja for about a year. Now I am at the point where I recognize several Hanja but can no longer write them, although I can now string together a few sentences in Hangeul.

Oddly enough I was searching for differences between the Hanja for Han (the dark, angry feeling of resentment that supposedly inspires the Korean "toughness") and the modern Chinese character for Han (descending tone... Similar emotion). It's difficult to pin down as both languages have so many homonyms and Korean has done away with the tonality of Chinese... but the Korean Hanja is composed of two characters one the (abbreviated?) radical for "heart/emotion" and the other for "stillness/no movement"...

I'll stop with my terrible description of the characters there... I am sure there are many far more knowledgable than me that could step in now and explain this better.

So I was thinking that it would be a good idea to start writing my sentences with as much Hanja as possible, that way I can keep them fresh in my memory and begin building my visual vocabulary for Chinese characters.

I was talking about this one of my Korean coteachers and she says that only nouns can be written as Hanja in a Korean sentence. I think it has something to do with verb conjugation, is this true?

If it is true, how did all the Yangban write Hanmun back in the days before Hangeul? Did the grammar of Korean change along with the alphabet? Did Hanmun have a word order like Chinese and English (subject-verb-object)?

I hope this is somewhat coherent.

tzechuk · Joined: 20 Dec 2004

The HAN as in Korea is different from the HAN as in China.

ajgeddes · Joined: 28 Apr 2004 Location: Yongsan

I think he is asking how did Koreans write using only Chinese characters if they can't do it now.

The language has probably evolved and with basically a duplicate of every word in Korean, the sino word and the Korean word, I imagine this also plays a role. Really, I don't know, but this could be an answer.

Let me send out a call. MITH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

mithridates · Posted: Tue Nov 28, 2006 7:17 am Post subject:

Hi!

韓 <-- Korean Han
漢 <-- Chinese Han
恨 <-- Nobody understands our secret emotion Han

There are some other points that I might touch on in a bit (doing something at the moment).

doggyji

VanIslander · Posted: Tue Nov 28, 2006 10:30 am Post subject:

Ancient conversation of a China man trying to subjugate and a Korean willing to be half-assimilated on his own terms:

CM: (stated with authority) "You have been defeated. Now recognize China as a the centre and ruler of the world."
K: "Sure."
CM: "You are now member of the great Han people."
K: "Okay."
CM: "Now that you are Chinese, you have to learn to write our way."
K: "Uh... no, we are not Chinese, we are Korean. We'll learn your writing system as we haven't had one of our own."
CM: "But you are Han now."
K: (nods)
CM: "Han Chinese!"
K: "Uh... no, ... Han Korean."
CM: "Whatever. Just send us your riches once a year. We'll do the vassal state thing instead."

(I imagine this done as a comedy skit done in the tradition of Wayne & Shuster)

chaz47 · Joined: 11 Sep 2003

I just read up on Koguryo. Anyone care to share their views on this "textbook war" between China and Korea?