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A question about the Korean language
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Sadebugo1



Joined: 11 May 2003

PostPosted: Mon Feb 09, 2004 7:20 am    Post subject: A question about the Korean language Reply with quote

On the one hand, I've heard that the Korean language is unique without any linguistic relative except for maybe some miniscule relationship to Turkish. Some of my students have told me this. On the other hand, I once read somewhere that a high percentage of Korean vocabulary is taken from the Chinese language. If this were the case, then couldn't an argument be made that Korean is related to Chinese at least from a lexical standpoint?

Can anyone give me the skinny on this?
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Howard Roark



Joined: 02 Feb 2003
Location: Canada

PostPosted: Mon Feb 09, 2004 4:18 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

The connection between Turkish and Korean is that both languages belong to the same language family tree - Altaic. They share some structural and grammar traits, the most significant probably being the verb occurring at the end of the sentence which is the opposite of English.

A basic Korean or Turkish sentence has the structure of subject-object-verb. However, in both languages the subject is often omitted.

Although the Korean and Chinese languages are not related in terms of grammatical structure, more than 50 percent of all Korean vocabulary is derived from Chinese loanwords, a reflection of the cultural dominance of China over 2 millennia. In many cases there are two words--a Chinese loanword and an indigenous Korean word -- meaning the same thing. The Chinese-based word in Korean sometimes has a bookish or formal flavor.

http://www.declan-software.com/korean.htm#Origins_


Last edited by Howard Roark on Mon Feb 09, 2004 4:22 pm; edited 1 time in total
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tomato



Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: I get so little foreign language experience, I must be in Koreatown, Los Angeles.

PostPosted: Mon Feb 09, 2004 4:20 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Hello, Sadebugo!

The Korean language does not seem to be derived from Chinese or to have a common ancestor with Chinese. There is no similarity in the grammar. Chinese is SVO (subject-verb-object, like English) whereas Korean is SOV (subject-object-verb).

There might be a remote relationship between Korean and Japanese. For some reason, there is an amazing similarity between the grammar of the two languages, but there are very few words which are similar--except for the words which both languages borrow from Chinese.

If you want to know if a word in the Korean language is borrowed from Chinese, just look it up in the Korean-English dictionary. If it gives the original Chinese symbols, it is a Chinese borrowing. Generally speaking, if it is a 4-syllable verb ending in hada, you can bet that it is a Chinese borrowing. Changing hada to han will usually make it an adjective. Leaving off the suffix will usually make it a noun.

The Japanese language tends to borrow the same words from Chinese that the Korean language does. They write the words in the exact same Chinese symbols which you see in the dictionary. The Korean people used to do the same until the practice was outlawed in 1973.

Instead of ending the verbs in hada, which is the Korean word for "do," the Japanese people end the verbs in suru, which is the Japanese word for "do." Moreover, there is little similarity between the Japanese pronunciation and the Korean pronunciation of the Chinese borrowings. The Japanese word for "study" is benkyoosuru and the Korean word is kongbuhada. I haven't studied Chinese, so I don't know which pronunciation is closer to the original.

There are many Chinese derivatives which are pronounced the same and written the same in Korean, but differently in Chinese. You might see a Korean word followed by Chinese symbols in parentheses. This is to remove the ambiguity.

For example, isang could mean "ideal," "more than, or "abnormality." If the meaning is not obvious by the context, you might see �̻� followed by the Chinese symbols in parentheses.

Latin borrowings in English tend to be the dignified-sounding words.
Chinese borrowings in Korean tend to be the dignified-sounding words.
Put these two premises together, and you find that Latin derivatives in English tend translate into Chinese derivatives in Korean. The words "responsibility," "opportunity," and "variability" translate into Chinese derivatives.

On the other hand, a Korean wishing to sound mod, groovy, or up-to-date will likely use many borrowings from the English language. The Korean word for "sexy" is sekshihan.
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Ilsanman



Joined: 15 Aug 2003
Location: Bucheon, Korea

PostPosted: Mon Feb 09, 2004 5:13 pm    Post subject: yes Reply with quote

This is my understanding of it. I am cloudy at it myself.

Way back in the day, before King Sejong created Hangeul, Korean used all Chinese characters. The people here were so illiterate. That's why he created Hangeul, the ingenius alphabet. Then all words in Korean could be written in Hangeul, making Chinese characters unnecessary.

Ok somewhere along the line, they actually outlawed Hanja use in Korean. A few years later, they published a book of all of the 'Korean Chinese' that could be used. As you may know, Korean Chinese is based on the old style, not the new simplified style of Chinese.

Any character used in Korean will most likely also be used in Japanese too. In all 3 languages, the meaning will be the same, but the pronunciation will be different.

Korean currently uses a lot of Hanja in newspapers and difficult books, as well as for their names. They use it because Korean has so many homonyms.

I am always interested in seeing Korean people's names written in Hanja. They seem to take pride in the meaning behind their name. Each sound can be written more than 1 way, I think 4 actually. 2 people with the same name can potentially have totally different meaning.
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Sadebugo1



Joined: 11 May 2003

PostPosted: Mon Feb 09, 2004 6:27 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Wow! Thanks so much for all your answers. It seems that some of you have made quite a study of the language. I know where to come now for any other questions. Thanks again!!
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the_beaver



Joined: 15 Jan 2003

PostPosted: Mon Feb 09, 2004 7:01 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Sadebugo1 wrote:
Wow! Thanks so much for all your answers. It seems that some of you have made quite a study of the language. I know where to come now for any other questions. Thanks again!!


Just an addendum. . .

Korean is Ural Altaic and is closely related to Japanese as well as Mongolian, Turkish and Finnish.

Although it had been invented hundreds of years before, Hangeul was not widely used until after the Japanese colonial period, and was adopted in a wave of nationalism.

The link to Chinese is in vocabulary and thought, rather than grammatical structure. Some estimates say that 70% of Korean vocabulary is derived from Chinese.
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Ilsanman



Joined: 15 Aug 2003
Location: Bucheon, Korea

PostPosted: Mon Feb 09, 2004 7:27 pm    Post subject: yes Reply with quote

and the other 30% stolen from English, German, Japanese, or various other languages.
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mithridates



Joined: 03 Mar 2003
Location: President's office, Korean Space Agency

PostPosted: Tue Feb 10, 2004 3:50 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I just checked and the encoding seems to show most of the Japanese pretty well...this is from my page.
Japanese and Korean were originally the same language, but we're talking about Korean from the south and Japanese close to Kyushu, not the two standard languages we have today. Up until 10 000 yrs ago when Japan and Korea were connected by a land bridge there was a lot of interaction but then the ice age ended and they became separated until about 300 BC when Baekjae crossed over again with boats (Japanese people didn't have good boats back then) and they started interacting a lot again. That's why a lot of the vocabulary looks different compared to other languages that have a common root. These words are by no means the entire list; there are hundreds more.


�� ������ �˷� ��...������ �� ������ ���⸦ ������Ʈ�Ҳ�...

�� - ��(��)

���� - ���ު�(�ط). �ǹ̰� �ణ �ٸ���. �Ϻ����� ���ު��� ���ٴ� ���̴�.

�� - ������ (薬). ������ �ϴ� ���� ���ؼ� ���� ��ĥ �� �־���. ������ ������� ���ߴ�.

���� - �ߪު�(̸��) �� ������ ���� ��ġ�� ���� ���� ���� �ɷ� ������.

�� ���� - ���ʪ�, ����ʪ� (�Ҫ�). Ȯ������ �𸣰ڴ�. ���ʪ��� �Ȱ��ٴ� ��.

���� - ���Ъ�(鞄). �̰� ������ �������� �𸣰ڴµ�...

��� - �����(�)

���� - ����(߾)

���� - ��� ����? ���ު���. ���� �Ϻ���� �����ε� �̹����� ����...���ު���� ���� (6����?)�� �ι�.

�����ſ� - �ʪ���� (�����)


�� - ����(ڤ��)



������� - �ڪ��ڪ�



�̹�(��󵵿��� '���') - ���絛(�ت�-������ '���ϴ�')



�ư� - ���������(������ )



��ι� - �����



�ֳ� �ֳ� ���� - ���ʪ����ʪ���~



���� - �����(곪�)



�븶�� - �Ī���('�μ�'���� ����)



�����ϴ� - ���ʪ���(�誷��)



������ - �����(ز)



�ܿ� - ���Ϊ���(楽����)
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Donghae



Joined: 24 Dec 2003
Location: Fukuoka, Japan

PostPosted: Tue Feb 10, 2004 5:15 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

If you're reasonably familiar with both Korean and Japanese you can notice as well as the obvious similarities in words of Chinese origin, some that although now look different, always (or nearly always) follow the same pattern; for example, Korean dong, whether it's "east", "winter", "same" or "move" is either tou or dou in Japanese. Korean hae in various meanings usually becomes kai in Japanese, to give just 2 of many possible examples. The use of particles is very similar too, as are quite a number of idiomatic expressions.

Interesting is the vast difference in relative success of each nationalities' attempts to learn the other's language. It OUGHT to be fairly easy both ways but whereas Koreans who learn Japanese usually pick it up to a decent standard very quickly, there seem to be very few Japanese who learn Korean and pick it up fast, even those who really want to.
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mithridates



Joined: 03 Mar 2003
Location: President's office, Korean Space Agency

PostPosted: Tue Feb 10, 2004 5:32 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I don't know about that...Japanese people pick up Korean quicker than any other language, and when taking high level Korean tests, the people around you will almost all be Japanese or Chinese. They do have the disadvantage of the more difficult pronunciation and the lack of Korean langauge education in Japan, but they are still way way quicker than those coming at it from a European language base.
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J.B. Clamence



Joined: 15 Jan 2003

PostPosted: Tue Feb 10, 2004 5:32 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

When it is said that languages are related, it means that they share a similar origin, and therefore usually share some similar structures. Thus, just because a language shares a lot of vocabulary with another language, that doesn't mean that those two languages are related. It is usually the result of cultural influence, not a linguistic relationship. Korean shares many words with Chinese because of the cultural influence China has had on Korea throughout the centuries. It does not mean that the languages are related, and they are not. For example, Persian contains many Arabic words as the result of cultural influence, but linguistically speaking, Persian is more closely related to English than it is to Arabic.

Although my Korean is extremely limited, my Turkish is pretty good, and I can say that Korean does bear some resemblence to Turkish. As was mentioned, they both have the subject-object-verb structure, but more interestingly, Korean does contain elements of the most distinguished feature of the Turkish language, which is the reliance on suffixes to modify meanings.

In Turkish, verb tense, possession, prepositions, and many other things are expressed in Turkish by adding a suffix to the end of a word. For example, the sentence "I am at your house" would be expressed in Turkish as one word, which is actually a word followed by several suffixes to add meaning:

"Evindeyim": ev = house; -in = your; -de = in, at; -im = I am

It seems a bit daunting at first, but it's actually very simple once you get used to it and appreciate the logic of the system. In the limited Korean I've come into contact with, I've seen some interesting resemblences to this kind of pattern. For example, in Korean:

cha- = sleep; chayo = I'm sleeping; chamyeonseo = while I sleep

It seems to me that suffixes are often relied upon for special meanings. It's very similar to the Turkish system. However, as I said, my Korean is extremely limited, so I have no idea how common this pattern actually is in Korean. Maybe someone who knows Korean can comment.
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the_beaver



Joined: 15 Jan 2003

PostPosted: Tue Feb 10, 2004 5:54 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Donghae wrote:
there seem to be very few Japanese who learn Korean and pick it up fast, even those who really want to.


Are you kidding? Japanese take to Korean like a duck to water. They almost always blow the other Korean language learners out of the water.

It's a mark of pride to me that I can keep up with them in class (granted, I've lived here a lot longer and have studied a lot more, but still. . .).
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Donghae



Joined: 24 Dec 2003
Location: Fukuoka, Japan

PostPosted: Tue Feb 10, 2004 6:18 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

mithridates wrote:
I don't know about that...Japanese people pick up Korean quicker than any other language, and when taking high level Korean tests, the people around you will almost all be Japanese or Chinese. They do have the disadvantage of the more difficult pronunciation and the lack of Korean langauge education in Japan, but they are still way way quicker than those coming at it from a European language base.



I HAVE come across some Japanese who are pretty good at Korean admittedly. But considering the linguistic advantages they have over those of European language background, I'm surprised that the number of good Japanese Korean speakers I've come across is about the same as the number of those of western origin. And that's in spite of the fact that I live in Japan, spend a lot of time in both countries (JPN & KOR that is), with people of both nationalities much more than westerners. I know what you mean about finding others around you at high level tests being mostly other East Asians, but (a) I'm not sure that sample gives a very accurate view of the whole picture and (b) I was comparing Japanese learning Korean v Koreans learning Japanese rather Japanese learning Korean v westerners learning it.

I've come across a lot of Koreans who had no prior study of Japanese but then for some reason (usually job or study related) suddenly had to learn it. Virtually all those I've known picked it up to a good standard pretty quickly. I've also known a few Japanese who really wanted to pick up Korean, but struggled with it, even though they were clearly pretty bright people and in a several cases had decent English. Why? I don't know, and haven't heard any theories I find totally convincing yet.

The pronunciation disadvantage? I think there's a little in that, but not much. Yes, there are some Korean sounds Japanese find difficult to make, but there are a similar number of English sounds they find difficult yet plenty overcome that problem with English.
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the_beaver



Joined: 15 Jan 2003

PostPosted: Tue Feb 10, 2004 6:23 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Donghae wrote:
The pronunciation disadvantage? I think there's a little in that, but not much. Yes, there are some Korean sounds Japanese find difficult to make, but there are a similar number of English sounds they find difficult yet plenty overcome that problem with English.


More than the individual sounds, Japanese have trouble with consonant-ending syllables. Admittedly I know next to nothing about Japanese, but I think they have two, maybe three consonant-ending sounds, whereas Korean has a whopping six or seven.
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Donghae



Joined: 24 Dec 2003
Location: Fukuoka, Japan

PostPosted: Tue Feb 10, 2004 6:33 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

the_beaver wrote:
Donghae wrote:
there seem to be very few Japanese who learn Korean and pick it up fast, even those who really want to.


Are you kidding? Japanese take to Korean like a duck to water. They almost always blow the other Korean language learners out of the water.

It's a mark of pride to me that I can keep up with them in class (granted, I've lived here a lot longer and have studied a lot more, but still. . .).


You again?! You always seem to type too fast for me Wink

No, I'm not kidding. But we obviously see this from very different perspectives. If you're a westerner long term in Korea then the majority of westerners you'll have come across living there will have been pretty crap at Korean - one of the major reasons for this being that learning the language WASN'T the reason they came to Korea. The majority of Japanese you'll have come across living in Korea will have been probably pretty good at Korean - the major reason for this being that learning it WAS their reason for coming.

Beaver, I think also that the Japanese learners of Korean you've come across have been mostly those at the very top of the scale. Based on those folks ONLY, I'd pretty much agree with you. But I've been in a position over the last few years to see plenty of people in a whole range of different situations and it's that experience that I base my observations on. Not saying 'I'm right, you're wrong', but that's how it looks from how I've seen it.


Re consonant ending sounds - that's a fair point BUT ditto what I said for English. Korean also has more vowel sounds than Japanese, but again, so does English.
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