Historical Development of Korean Language
==========================================
Wolran Kim
September 2013
The historical stages of the Korean language can be divided into 4 different eras: Proto, Old, Middle, and Modern Korean (“Korean”, 2013). Korean language is classified as Altaic, Koreanic, or Japonic, depending on the linguist.
Proto-Korean was spoken in Prehistoric Korea of the Bronze and Iron Age, and is not well defined as a term. Homer B. Hulbert asserted in his book, The History of Korea (1905), that Korean is a Ural-Altaic language. The Altaic hypothesis was introduced by Gustaf John Ramstedt in 1928, but the relation between Korean and Japonic is still not clear. Korean, Chinese, and Japanese people speak totally different languages; however, both the Korean and Japanese languages in their writing systems were much affected by the Chinese language. Altaic is one of the proposed language families in Central Asia. Altaic includes the Koreanic, Japonic, Tungusic, Mongolic, and Turkic languages (Hellen & Lee, 1999). Theses languages are used in a wide arc from Anatolia and Eastern Europe to Central Asia through northeast Asia. Around 66 languages would be included in the Micro-Altaic family.
Old Korean was used from the period of the Three Kingdoms to the Unified Silla era. Koreans began to use Classical Chinese around the 4th century, and had Idu script for their phonological writing system in the 6th century. Old Korean had regional dialects divided as the three kingdoms, and Buyeo languages were subdivisions compared with the Silla language, which was the political authority of Unified Silla in the 7th century. Old Korean is often assessed as being mixed with Goryeo or Joseon Dynasty of Middle Korean by different scholars due to only minimal literary records. The standard language was changed according to the changes in the Dynasties Silla, Goryeo, and Joseon. Old Korean was written with Hanja from their grammar and the sound system (Lee & Ramsey, 2011, p.76). Old Korean used the various systems of Idu, Hyangchal, and Hanja. Idu and Hyangchal systems are the phonetical language of Chinese characters to represent local language, such as Kana of the Japanese language.
Idu (이두 吏讀) is the Korean language in the ancient writing system using Hanja during the Three Kingdoms to the Joseon Dynasty. Idu script used a special symbol system to represent Korean grammatical markers and verb endings, and was based on the Korean sound. Idu was used by the middle class, and was later replaced with Hangul. Hanja (한자, 漢字) is Chinese characters represented by the Korean language. Only a small part of the Chinese characters are used in Korean, and are caused by Buddhism. Hanja is still in the curriculum of Korean language in South and North Korea, and debates continue about the necessity of Hanja between protestors and officials. North Korea once abandoned using Hanja right after its independence, though Hanja is useful especially in cases of homophony in Korean. Each Hanja character has a single syllable in Hangul, and is not the same as the Chinese pronunciation (Shon, 1999, p.122).
Middle Korean was spoken from the Goryeo era to the middle of the Joseon Dynasty. One interesting source of this period is the Gyerim Ryusa, which is a collection of Korean vocabulary with corresponding Hanja in the pronunciation in 1103, though this material has a limit of the logo-graphic nature of Hanja. The most historical event was the invention of Hangul by King Sejong of the Dynasty of Joseon (1418-1450) in 1443. The original name of Hangul was Hunminjeongeum, and Hangul was completely inventive new characters for the Korean population.
Interestingly, King Sejong had the idea about creating new letters while he was sitting in the bathroom, observing the cross stripes and patterns on the floor and door. The purport of the creation of Hangul and the intent of King Sejong are clearly written in the first paragraph of the document called Hunminjeongeum Haerye:
Because the speech of this country is different from that of China, it [the spoken language] does not match the [Chinese] letters. Therefore, even if the ignorant want to communicate, many of them in the end cannot state their concerns. Saddened by this, I have [had] 28 letters newly made. It is my wish that every man may easily learn these letters and that [they] be convenient for daily use (Hunminjeongeum, 2013).
Hangul was created because Hanja was too hard for the common people to learn, and to crusade illiteracy. The document says, "A wise man can acquaint himself with them before the morning is over; a stupid man can learn them in the space of ten days (Hunminjeongeum, 2013)." The publication date of Hangul, October 9, is the Holiday of Hangul Day. The printing document was written in Hanja and included the alphabet characters, consonants, and vowels with matching sounds. Hangul was named in 1912. Han means “great” and Gul means “script” (“The Korean Language”, n.d.).
Hangul was met with opposition among Korean Confucian scholars, and two kings abolished Hangul documents after King Sejong, in 1504 and 1506. Hangul literature became a major genre in the 17th century, though it still had an irregular form. In the 19th century, Hangul was taught in schools and published by the growth of Korean nationalism and the movement of Gabo Reform. From 1894 to 1896, during the big Gabo Reform to get Korea to become independent of outsiders, all official documents started being written in Hangul. However, still the academic elites use Hanja, and the most of Koreans were illiterate during this time.
Under the rule of Japanese imperialism for 36 years, from 1910 to 1945, Japan forced the Japanese language instead of Korean. Still, Hangul was being used and taught in colonial society. During this period, a few consonants and vowels were dropped in modern Hangul. The Korean Language Research Society was established in 1912, and reformed a Standardized System of Hangul in 1933. Eventually, Hangul was banned in 1938 due to integration, and all Korean publications were suppressed in 1941 by Japan. This resulted in a renewed interest to preserve it, and became a tool of resistance against the Japanese government. Just after independence in 1946, modern orthography was published, and the use of Hanja was decreasing. The debate was ongoing about the future of Hanja, and Hanja’s use was banned in North Korea once in 1949. By the end of World War II, Hangul ended up becoming common, with Hanja being left only to the academic fields (“The Korean Language”, n.d.). Hanja is still retained in modern written Korean, and it is seen as a mark of cultivation and education.
Hangul has 14 consonants and 10 vowels. A single character is composed with at least one vowel and one consonant. The blocks can be arranged vertically or horizontally. The basic letters represent the pronunciations of the tongue, throat, teeth, and palate. The original 17 consonants of Hangul in 1446 were ㄱ,ㅋ,ㆁ,ㄷ,ㅌ,ㄴ,ㅂ,ㅍ,ㅁ,ㅈ,ㅊ,ㅅ,ㆆ,ㅎ,ㅇ,ㄹ,ㅿ. Vowel letters are designed from the three elements: the flat Earth, the Sun, and the Human (Lee & Shin, 2008). In the modern script, there are 14 consonants (ㄱ,ㄴ,ㄷ,ㄹ,ㅁ,ㅂ,ㅅ,ㅇ,ㅈ,ㅊ,ㅌ,ㅋ,ㅍ,ㅎ) 5 double consonants (ㄲ,ㄸ,ㅃ,ㅆ,ㅉ), 11 consonant clusters (ㄳ,ㄵ,ㄶ,ㄺ,ㄻ,ㄼ,ㄽ,ㄾ,ㄿ,ㅀ,ㅄ), 6 vowels (ㅏ,ㅓ,ㅗ,ㅜ,ㅡ,ㅣ), 4 iotized vowels (ㅑ,ㅕ,ㅛ,ㅠ), 5 diphthongs (ㅐ,ㅒ,ㅔ,ㅖ,ㅢ), and 6 vowels combined with diphthongs (ㅘ,ㅙ,ㅚ,ㅝ,ㅞ,ㅟ) (“History”, 2012).
Two typical issues of modern Korean are the differences between the South and the North, and the use of the Chinese characters, Hanja. The differences between the South and the North have developed from the division since the Korean War in 1953. The South and the North use the same Hangul letters to write the language, and they have the same types and number of phonemes. However, there are differences in the names of some letters and digraphs, variances in pronunciations, verb inflections, vocabulary, initial words, and compound words. In standard language, the South is spoken in Seoul and the North is spoken in Peongyang. North Koreans use communist political jargon that is unfamiliar to South Koreans, while South Koreans use Anglicism that is avoided by North Koreans. Commonly, South Koreans recognize North Koreans immediately by the way of their speaking. A North Korean understands around 60% of a South Korean’s words. This percentage is very low considering that they actually speak the exact same language. This is one good example of how different the same language could be from separations geographically, politically, or socially.
Approximately 78 million people speak Korean (Hellen & Lee, 1999). There are seven major dialects corresponding to the natural boundaries of the mountains: Northwestern, Central, Hamgyoeng, Jeolla, Yoengdong, Gyoengsang, and Jeju. These dialects have various differences in grammar, characters, orthography, criterion, pronunciation, and intonation. There are also two dialects outside the country. Koryo-mal is spoken by the Koryo people, who are ethnic Koreans in the former USSR, and Zainich is spoken among the Zainich Koreans in Japan with an influence of Japanese. Korean has seven different ways in verb paradigms or speech levels; each verb ending used to show the level of respect. However, these speech levels are rapidly changing today, centering on younger-generation speakers due to society, technologies, and attitudes toward change. If King Sejong did not create Hangul, Koreans would still be writing in only Hanja.
Hangul, the Korean language’s excellency, is proved in various fields of study linguistically, and the most sensible script superbly (Caraway, 2006). Koreans boast of their whole country being at almost 99% literacy with its own unique and creative language.
==========================================
Wolran Kim
September 2013
The historical stages of the Korean language can be divided into 4 different eras: Proto, Old, Middle, and Modern Korean (“Korean”, 2013). Korean language is classified as Altaic, Koreanic, or Japonic, depending on the linguist.
Proto-Korean was spoken in Prehistoric Korea of the Bronze and Iron Age, and is not well defined as a term. Homer B. Hulbert asserted in his book, The History of Korea (1905), that Korean is a Ural-Altaic language. The Altaic hypothesis was introduced by Gustaf John Ramstedt in 1928, but the relation between Korean and Japonic is still not clear. Korean, Chinese, and Japanese people speak totally different languages; however, both the Korean and Japanese languages in their writing systems were much affected by the Chinese language. Altaic is one of the proposed language families in Central Asia. Altaic includes the Koreanic, Japonic, Tungusic, Mongolic, and Turkic languages (Hellen & Lee, 1999). Theses languages are used in a wide arc from Anatolia and Eastern Europe to Central Asia through northeast Asia. Around 66 languages would be included in the Micro-Altaic family.
Old Korean was used from the period of the Three Kingdoms to the Unified Silla era. Koreans began to use Classical Chinese around the 4th century, and had Idu script for their phonological writing system in the 6th century. Old Korean had regional dialects divided as the three kingdoms, and Buyeo languages were subdivisions compared with the Silla language, which was the political authority of Unified Silla in the 7th century. Old Korean is often assessed as being mixed with Goryeo or Joseon Dynasty of Middle Korean by different scholars due to only minimal literary records. The standard language was changed according to the changes in the Dynasties Silla, Goryeo, and Joseon. Old Korean was written with Hanja from their grammar and the sound system (Lee & Ramsey, 2011, p.76). Old Korean used the various systems of Idu, Hyangchal, and Hanja. Idu and Hyangchal systems are the phonetical language of Chinese characters to represent local language, such as Kana of the Japanese language.
Idu (이두 吏讀) is the Korean language in the ancient writing system using Hanja during the Three Kingdoms to the Joseon Dynasty. Idu script used a special symbol system to represent Korean grammatical markers and verb endings, and was based on the Korean sound. Idu was used by the middle class, and was later replaced with Hangul. Hanja (한자, 漢字) is Chinese characters represented by the Korean language. Only a small part of the Chinese characters are used in Korean, and are caused by Buddhism. Hanja is still in the curriculum of Korean language in South and North Korea, and debates continue about the necessity of Hanja between protestors and officials. North Korea once abandoned using Hanja right after its independence, though Hanja is useful especially in cases of homophony in Korean. Each Hanja character has a single syllable in Hangul, and is not the same as the Chinese pronunciation (Shon, 1999, p.122).
Middle Korean was spoken from the Goryeo era to the middle of the Joseon Dynasty. One interesting source of this period is the Gyerim Ryusa, which is a collection of Korean vocabulary with corresponding Hanja in the pronunciation in 1103, though this material has a limit of the logo-graphic nature of Hanja. The most historical event was the invention of Hangul by King Sejong of the Dynasty of Joseon (1418-1450) in 1443. The original name of Hangul was Hunminjeongeum, and Hangul was completely inventive new characters for the Korean population.
Interestingly, King Sejong had the idea about creating new letters while he was sitting in the bathroom, observing the cross stripes and patterns on the floor and door. The purport of the creation of Hangul and the intent of King Sejong are clearly written in the first paragraph of the document called Hunminjeongeum Haerye:
Because the speech of this country is different from that of China, it [the spoken language] does not match the [Chinese] letters. Therefore, even if the ignorant want to communicate, many of them in the end cannot state their concerns. Saddened by this, I have [had] 28 letters newly made. It is my wish that every man may easily learn these letters and that [they] be convenient for daily use (Hunminjeongeum, 2013).
Hangul was created because Hanja was too hard for the common people to learn, and to crusade illiteracy. The document says, "A wise man can acquaint himself with them before the morning is over; a stupid man can learn them in the space of ten days (Hunminjeongeum, 2013)." The publication date of Hangul, October 9, is the Holiday of Hangul Day. The printing document was written in Hanja and included the alphabet characters, consonants, and vowels with matching sounds. Hangul was named in 1912. Han means “great” and Gul means “script” (“The Korean Language”, n.d.).
Hangul was met with opposition among Korean Confucian scholars, and two kings abolished Hangul documents after King Sejong, in 1504 and 1506. Hangul literature became a major genre in the 17th century, though it still had an irregular form. In the 19th century, Hangul was taught in schools and published by the growth of Korean nationalism and the movement of Gabo Reform. From 1894 to 1896, during the big Gabo Reform to get Korea to become independent of outsiders, all official documents started being written in Hangul. However, still the academic elites use Hanja, and the most of Koreans were illiterate during this time.
Under the rule of Japanese imperialism for 36 years, from 1910 to 1945, Japan forced the Japanese language instead of Korean. Still, Hangul was being used and taught in colonial society. During this period, a few consonants and vowels were dropped in modern Hangul. The Korean Language Research Society was established in 1912, and reformed a Standardized System of Hangul in 1933. Eventually, Hangul was banned in 1938 due to integration, and all Korean publications were suppressed in 1941 by Japan. This resulted in a renewed interest to preserve it, and became a tool of resistance against the Japanese government. Just after independence in 1946, modern orthography was published, and the use of Hanja was decreasing. The debate was ongoing about the future of Hanja, and Hanja’s use was banned in North Korea once in 1949. By the end of World War II, Hangul ended up becoming common, with Hanja being left only to the academic fields (“The Korean Language”, n.d.). Hanja is still retained in modern written Korean, and it is seen as a mark of cultivation and education.
Hangul has 14 consonants and 10 vowels. A single character is composed with at least one vowel and one consonant. The blocks can be arranged vertically or horizontally. The basic letters represent the pronunciations of the tongue, throat, teeth, and palate. The original 17 consonants of Hangul in 1446 were ㄱ,ㅋ,ㆁ,ㄷ,ㅌ,ㄴ,ㅂ,ㅍ,ㅁ,ㅈ,ㅊ,ㅅ,ㆆ,ㅎ,ㅇ,ㄹ,ㅿ. Vowel letters are designed from the three elements: the flat Earth, the Sun, and the Human (Lee & Shin, 2008). In the modern script, there are 14 consonants (ㄱ,ㄴ,ㄷ,ㄹ,ㅁ,ㅂ,ㅅ,ㅇ,ㅈ,ㅊ,ㅌ,ㅋ,ㅍ,ㅎ) 5 double consonants (ㄲ,ㄸ,ㅃ,ㅆ,ㅉ), 11 consonant clusters (ㄳ,ㄵ,ㄶ,ㄺ,ㄻ,ㄼ,ㄽ,ㄾ,ㄿ,ㅀ,ㅄ), 6 vowels (ㅏ,ㅓ,ㅗ,ㅜ,ㅡ,ㅣ), 4 iotized vowels (ㅑ,ㅕ,ㅛ,ㅠ), 5 diphthongs (ㅐ,ㅒ,ㅔ,ㅖ,ㅢ), and 6 vowels combined with diphthongs (ㅘ,ㅙ,ㅚ,ㅝ,ㅞ,ㅟ) (“History”, 2012).
Two typical issues of modern Korean are the differences between the South and the North, and the use of the Chinese characters, Hanja. The differences between the South and the North have developed from the division since the Korean War in 1953. The South and the North use the same Hangul letters to write the language, and they have the same types and number of phonemes. However, there are differences in the names of some letters and digraphs, variances in pronunciations, verb inflections, vocabulary, initial words, and compound words. In standard language, the South is spoken in Seoul and the North is spoken in Peongyang. North Koreans use communist political jargon that is unfamiliar to South Koreans, while South Koreans use Anglicism that is avoided by North Koreans. Commonly, South Koreans recognize North Koreans immediately by the way of their speaking. A North Korean understands around 60% of a South Korean’s words. This percentage is very low considering that they actually speak the exact same language. This is one good example of how different the same language could be from separations geographically, politically, or socially.
Approximately 78 million people speak Korean (Hellen & Lee, 1999). There are seven major dialects corresponding to the natural boundaries of the mountains: Northwestern, Central, Hamgyoeng, Jeolla, Yoengdong, Gyoengsang, and Jeju. These dialects have various differences in grammar, characters, orthography, criterion, pronunciation, and intonation. There are also two dialects outside the country. Koryo-mal is spoken by the Koryo people, who are ethnic Koreans in the former USSR, and Zainich is spoken among the Zainich Koreans in Japan with an influence of Japanese. Korean has seven different ways in verb paradigms or speech levels; each verb ending used to show the level of respect. However, these speech levels are rapidly changing today, centering on younger-generation speakers due to society, technologies, and attitudes toward change. If King Sejong did not create Hangul, Koreans would still be writing in only Hanja.
Hangul, the Korean language’s excellency, is proved in various fields of study linguistically, and the most sensible script superbly (Caraway, 2006). Koreans boast of their whole country being at almost 99% literacy with its own unique and creative language.