![]() Learning to read and write was a real barrier.Įducation in Korea was based on Confucianism. The only written language is borrowed from another language but adapted to sound like Korean words. ![]() Imagine life in Korea a couple of hundred years ago. Social ImmobilityĬonfusing, right? Well, even today the average Chinese person must know around 8,000 characters to function in the world. I can’t wait to get my ‘ banana‘ so I can buy that sweet new iPhone. And, imagine Korea had a word pronounced vamama, which means ‘ tax refund‘. Imagine banana was a Chinese word that meant, well, banana. If a Hanja symbol sounded like a Korean word, Koreans used the symbol to represent the Korean word. So, the Korean elite decided to adapt Hanja characters o Korean phonetically. Koreans wanted to preserve their uniqueness. However, the Korean language was created and existed parallel to Chinese. Many of the elite could speak and write in Chinese. In this Chinese script, 山 means mountain.īefore the creation of Hangul, Koreans used Hanja in two ways. Many Chinese characters derive from illustrations, like the Egyptian hieroglyphs. Meaning, you can’t sound out the characters phonetically, as in Spanish, German, and English (sometimes). Hanja and Chinese characters are logographic. How did they adapt a foreign language writing system and use it for their own? Not easily. They used Hanja for their bureaucracies, literature. The Korean ruling class adapted Hanja to suit their needs. These were Chinese characters brought over from Buddhist and Chinese literature. Before the 15th century, the preferred writing system in Korea was Hanja (漢字).
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |