| View previous topic :: View next topic |
| Author |
Message |
mindmetoo
Joined: 02 Feb 2004
|
 Posted: Sun Sep 09, 2007 4:23 pm Post subject: When did Koreans actually start *using* hangul? |
 |
|
| I went to the Seoul history museum the other day. I noticed something. Despite Koreans dumping bricks over hangul, celebrating King Sejong for his mad skillz making it, there appears to be no evidence anyone with half a brain actually used it before the Japanese occupation. It seems almost as if no one used hangul until the Japanese told Koreans they couldn't use it. And then everyone started to use it to spite their Japanese overlords. |
|
| Back to top |
|
 |
GoldMember
Joined: 24 Oct 2006
|
| Posted: Sun Sep 09, 2007 4:27 pm Post subject: |
|
|
If you ever see any photos of old Korea (up until 1950's) you'll see that nearly all the signs were in Chinese. Apparently even in the 60's you needed to know a lot of Chinese to be able to read a Newspaper.
It's kind of irrelevant when it started to be widely used, when I say widely used, only in Korea of course. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
blaseblasphemener
Joined: 01 Jun 2006
Location: There's a voice, keeps on calling me, down the road, that's where I'll always be
|
| Posted: Sun Sep 09, 2007 4:30 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Yep. Koreans certainly are grasping at straws when they spout that Hangul should be the world language, or that it is the perfect language system, when it went virtually unused for 500 years.
Such a funny little country, 'tis. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
CentralCali
Joined: 17 May 2007
|
| Posted: Sun Sep 09, 2007 4:49 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Even in 1977, one had to learn the Chinese characters to read and write Korean. The Hangeul was used only for grammatical particles, "pure" Korean words, and a few other instances.
From what I understand, the driving force behind using Hangeul instead of Hanmun was Protestant missionaries during the Japanese occupation. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
icicle
Joined: 09 Feb 2007
Location: Gyeonggi do Korea
|
| Posted: Sun Sep 09, 2007 4:53 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| GoldMember wrote: |
If you ever see any photos of old Korea (up until 1950's) you'll see that nearly all the signs were in Chinese. Apparently even in the 60's you needed to know a lot of Chinese to be able to read a Newspaper.
It's kind of irrelevant when it started to be widely used, when I say widely used, only in Korea of course. |
Here is a short history of Hangul that does I think explain it well:
"A Short History of Hangul
Prior to the middle of the 15th Century, the Korean language had, for over one thousand years, been written using Chinese ideograms. Korean sounds were represented using Chinese characters with similar pronunciations. This was however unsatisfactory on two counts. Firstly, the types of sounds used in both languages are considerably different - a reflection in part of the different origins of the two languages. The result was that it was difficult to represent in writing many "pure Korean" sounds.(1) Secondly, the Chinese writing system is not phonetic, making it somewhat difficult to learn. As a result, literacy in Korea was limited to the upper classes and the aristocracy.
In the early 1440s, King Sejong (세종대왕 - r.1418-1450) of the Yi (or Choson - 조선시대) Dynasty (1392-1910) commissioned a group of Korean scholars to formulate a writing system that was suitable for the Korean language and that was relatively easy to learn. The system they invented was called HunMinChongUm (훈민정음 - "Correct Sounds for the Instruction of the People"). Originally the system comprised 28 letters but modern Hangul now contains 24 letters - 14 consonants and 10 vowels.
Hangul is an extremely easy writing system to learn. Syllables are based on 2,3 or 4 letters grouped into a character. A word comprises one or more syllables. Each syllable begins with a consonant (which may be silent) and is followed by a vowel. Syllables may end in one or two consonants. Diphthongs are also able to be constructed using a combination of two vowels.
Chinese characters (HanCha - 한자) were still used widely until after the Korean War. Confucian scholarship imbued HanCha with a prestige which it still enjoys in some circles of modern Korea. During the Japanese Colonial period, the use of Hangul was seen as nationalistic and was suppressed by the Japanese. After the Korean War nationalist movements promoted the exclusive use of Hangul. With some further development, including a slightly more sophisticated spelling convention, Hangul was adopted as the official national script.
However, up until the early 1980s school children continued to learn Chinese characters (a minimum of 1000 called the ChonChaMun - 천자문) because they continued to be used in some newspapers and in academic manuscripts. President Chon Du Hwan's administration removed HanCha from school curricula although many schools have reintroduced the study of HanCha.
As a result of a long history of using the Chinese script and close cultural, religious and commercial links between Korea and China, over half of the modern Korean vocabulary came to be made up of Sino-Korean words, the pronunciation of which derive directly from Chinese. As a consequence of Chinese being a tonal language and Korean not being tonal, there are many Sino-Korean words with identical Korean pronunciations. This can result in confusion and HanCha is often required to overcome this. Mr Kim Dae Jung (김대중대통령), the current President of South Korea, has been pushing for a reintroduction of Chinese characters into school curricula and there has been considerable debate in South Korea in this regard recently."
Icicle |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
HapKi
Joined: 10 Dec 2004
Location: TALL BUILDING-SEOUL
|
| Posted: Sun Sep 09, 2007 5:57 pm Post subject: |
|
|
As everyone has said, Chinese was the main language used till recently. As well, it was considered more highbrow then the common folks' hangul. You had to study the characters (normally sent away to do so), and seperated the yangban from regular working peasants. Even today, when there are a Hangul and Chinese word for the same thing, the Chinese word will have a more respectable connotation, while the Hangul will be more country bumpkinish.
Of course today, English has replaced Chinese as the language for Koreans' educated. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
endo
Joined: 14 Mar 2004
Location: Seoul...my home
|
| Posted: Sun Sep 09, 2007 7:46 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Interesting thread.
I was at the peak of Bukansan on Saturday and my girlfriend pointed out to me some words carved into a rock at the summit. She said a Korean wrote them there during the Japanese occupation.
I looked at them and couldn't recognize it. I can read Hangul so I was confused.
She explained to me that during that time most Koreans wrote in Chinese script.
It was still a little strange. Basically we have a Korean protesting against the Japanese occupation by writing in Chinese script. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
PeteJB
Joined: 06 Jul 2007
|
| Posted: Mon Sep 10, 2007 12:05 am Post subject: |
|
|
| I love Hangul. Especially when it's handwritten, it combines cute and elegance depending on one's handwriting. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
laogaiguk
Joined: 06 Dec 2005
Location: somewhere in Korea
|
| Posted: Mon Sep 10, 2007 12:28 am Post subject: |
|
|
| PeteJB wrote: |
| I love Hangul. Especially when it's handwritten, it combines cute and elegance depending on one's handwriting. |
I find the exact opposite. It's very functional, but I never saw it as elegant or nice. Hiragana is better, and there are other ones too. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
CentralCali
Joined: 17 May 2007
|
| Posted: Mon Sep 10, 2007 12:44 am Post subject: |
|
|
| endo wrote: |
| It was still a little strange. Basically we have a Korean protesting against the Japanese occupation by writing in Chinese script. |
Just like in Japan: anti-foreigner Japanese protesting by using Chinese script. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
PeteJB
Joined: 06 Jul 2007
|
| Posted: Mon Sep 10, 2007 1:46 am Post subject: |
|
|
Well being a very functional person by nature, it fits me well..  |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Troll_Bait
Joined: 04 Jan 2006
Location: [T]eaching experience doesn't matter much. -Lee Young-chan (pictured)
|
| Posted: Mon Sep 10, 2007 3:58 am Post subject: |
|
|
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heo_Jun
| Quote: |
Heo Jun (1546�1615) was a court physician during the reign of King Seonjo of Joseon Dynasty in Korea. He was appointed as a court physician at the age of 29. He wrote a number of medical texts, but his most significant achievement is Dongui bogam, which is often noted as the defining text of Traditional Korean medicine. The work spread to China and Japan, where it is still regarded as one of the classics of Oriental medicine today. Although Heo Jun worked extensively with the royal family, he put a great emphasis on making treatment methods accessible and comprehensible to common people. He found natural herb remedies that were easily attainable by commoners in Korea. Furthermore, he wrote the names of the herbs using the simple hangul letters instead of using more difficult hanja (Chinese characters), which most commoners did not understand.
< ... > |
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
FAQ
Search
Memberlist
Usergroups
Register
Profile
Log in to check your private messages
Log in
