<<Why was Korean Kanji/Hanja abandoned?>>
Maybe the Koreans are too simple-minded to be able to learn them like the Chinese do.
Maybe the Koreans are too simple-minded to be able to learn them like the Chinese do.
Why was Korean Kanji/Hanja abandoned?
-<<Why was Korean Kanji/Hanja abandoned?>>
Maybe the Koreans are too simple-minded to be able to learn them like the Chinese do. -
Chinese people are illiterate because of too complex drawings/characters.
and Koreans have beautiful Hangul, a syllabic script which fulfills the needs of Korean language perfectly.
Officially, hanja has not been used in North Korea since June 1949 (and additionally, all texts become horizontally written instead of vertically), because Kim Il-sung considered it an artifact of Japanese occupation and an impediment to literacy.
Maybe the Koreans are too simple-minded to be able to learn them like the Chinese do. -
Chinese people are illiterate because of too complex drawings/characters.
and Koreans have beautiful Hangul, a syllabic script which fulfills the needs of Korean language perfectly.
Officially, hanja has not been used in North Korea since June 1949 (and additionally, all texts become horizontally written instead of vertically), because Kim Il-sung considered it an artifact of Japanese occupation and an impediment to literacy.
My new semester has just begun (on Sep 1st) so I've been crazy busy for the past few days. Anyway, I am back to Antimoon!
I'm 26 and when I went to high school(which was 10 years ago), I had to learn 漢字 Chinese characters(not the language) for two years. It was a mandatory course back then. It is true that Korea's younger generations do not read as many Chinese characters as the older generations do. My parents probably can read Hanja Characters 20 times than me.
This whole situatiton can be compared/tantamount to the situation that many native speakers of English do not try hard to learn foreign languages. It's simply because Koreans do not have many problems with using only Hangul. Hangul is so logical and it works very well that we Koreans can boast around 99% literacy in the whole country. Younger generations prefer our own writing system instead of the super complicated Chinese characters that take years to learn.
However, if we are studying Korean literature or Korean philosophy further at a college level or higher, we should definitely spend much time learning Hanja. Other than those fields, English is much more important and useful to study advanced level.
Sorry to ramble (I'm about fall down in my bed!)
Our writing system is much newer and more creative and logical than Japanese writing system(Hiragana and Katagana) so we don't need Chinese characters in our language very much as Japanese do.
I'm 26 and when I went to high school(which was 10 years ago), I had to learn 漢字 Chinese characters(not the language) for two years. It was a mandatory course back then. It is true that Korea's younger generations do not read as many Chinese characters as the older generations do. My parents probably can read Hanja Characters 20 times than me.
This whole situatiton can be compared/tantamount to the situation that many native speakers of English do not try hard to learn foreign languages. It's simply because Koreans do not have many problems with using only Hangul. Hangul is so logical and it works very well that we Koreans can boast around 99% literacy in the whole country. Younger generations prefer our own writing system instead of the super complicated Chinese characters that take years to learn.
However, if we are studying Korean literature or Korean philosophy further at a college level or higher, we should definitely spend much time learning Hanja. Other than those fields, English is much more important and useful to study advanced level.
Sorry to ramble (I'm about fall down in my bed!)
Our writing system is much newer and more creative and logical than Japanese writing system(Hiragana and Katagana) so we don't need Chinese characters in our language very much as Japanese do.
I have already heard in documentaries in Japan that the Koreans abolished the usage of hanjas in order to protest against the Japanese...As far as I know the Japanese have only created Hiragana and Katakana...What a weird choice made by the Koreans...Even though I think that hangul letters are much more practical than having to learn thousands of characters to say the same thing...
Very interesting!
If Chinese and Japanese didn't have thousands of characters I would've learnt them more.
If Chinese and Japanese didn't have thousands of characters I would've learnt them more.
Actually, Kanji, Hiragana, Katakana, each of them has a respective function.
1, KANJIs are used for loan words from ancient China.
2, KATAKANAs are used for load words from modern Occidents, such as USA, UK, Germany, France, & etc.
3, HIRAGANAs are used for Japanese inherent words.
When you read an article, you cannot understand immediately where any vocabulary originated from? From Korean itself, or from China, or from Western countries? It's not very easy to judge.
1, KANJIs are used for loan words from ancient China.
2, KATAKANAs are used for load words from modern Occidents, such as USA, UK, Germany, France, & etc.
3, HIRAGANAs are used for Japanese inherent words.
When you read an article, you cannot understand immediately where any vocabulary originated from? From Korean itself, or from China, or from Western countries? It's not very easy to judge.
Actually, Kanji, Hiragana, Katakana, each of them has a respective function.
1, KANJIs are used for loan words from ancient China.
2, KATAKANAs are used for load words from modern Occidents, such as USA, UK, Germany, France, & etc.
3, HIRAGANAs are used for Japanese inherent words.
When you read a Korean article, you cannot understand immediately where any vocabulary originated from? From Korean itself, or from China, or from Western countries? It's not very easy to judge.
1, KANJIs are used for loan words from ancient China.
2, KATAKANAs are used for load words from modern Occidents, such as USA, UK, Germany, France, & etc.
3, HIRAGANAs are used for Japanese inherent words.
When you read a Korean article, you cannot understand immediately where any vocabulary originated from? From Korean itself, or from China, or from Western countries? It's not very easy to judge.
(Why would you need to know where a word originates from?)
Each Hanja has its corresponding Hangul pronunciation, if a Chinese was trained to master their relations between Hanja and Hangul, it would be not difficult to guess which Hanja this Hangul is supposed to mean. And if we know the corresponding vocabularies, it is obvious that, we'll be able to comprehend right away what this word means. Could you understand it?
Each Hanja has its corresponding Hangul pronunciation, if a Chinese was trained to master their relations between Hanja and Hangul, it would be not difficult to guess which Hanja this Hangul is supposed to mean. And if we know the corresponding vocabularies, it is obvious that, we'll be able to comprehend right away what this word means. Could you understand it?
"What a weird choice made by the Koreans..."
Hangul is much easier to read and write than Hanja (or even Hiragana/Katakana), which is the main reason why there was widespread adoption. Before Hangul, and for a long time after it's invention, the spoken Korean language was represented with Chinese characters. Hangul is a much better way of representing the spoken Korean language. It is easier to express the grammar and 40% of the language is native Korean words, which do not use Chinese characters for their meaning. For those words the SOUND of the Chinese characters was used, not the meaning. So Hangul is a much better reflection of these words.
As for the ORIGINS and ROOTS of words, how many English speakers can write Greek? The relationship is the same. English speakers can understand Greek roots and word origins without being able to write any Greek. In the same way you do not need to be able to write Chinese to understand the Chinese origins and roots of words in Korean.
"When you read a Korean article, you cannot understand immediately where any vocabulary originated from? From Korean itself, or from China, or from Western countries? It's not very easy to judge. "
It is trivial for Koreans to know which words are from the West because there are pronunciation rules they use and they often have characters that are uncommon in Korean words. Determining which words come from China and which words come from Korea is also trivial in the same way that knowing which words are from Latin and which words are from German in English is trivial.
I would argue that it is MORE difficult in Japanese to determine which words are native Japanese words and not Chinese words because EVERY word is written with Kanji regardless of it's origin. That is, the Kanji is used for sound as well as meaning, and in addition the meanings are often different in Japanese than in Chinese and the characters are simplified (in a different way than the simplified Chinese of Mainland China) whereas in Korea today the classical literary Chinese characters are used for words with Chinese origins.
Hangul is much easier to read and write than Hanja (or even Hiragana/Katakana), which is the main reason why there was widespread adoption. Before Hangul, and for a long time after it's invention, the spoken Korean language was represented with Chinese characters. Hangul is a much better way of representing the spoken Korean language. It is easier to express the grammar and 40% of the language is native Korean words, which do not use Chinese characters for their meaning. For those words the SOUND of the Chinese characters was used, not the meaning. So Hangul is a much better reflection of these words.
As for the ORIGINS and ROOTS of words, how many English speakers can write Greek? The relationship is the same. English speakers can understand Greek roots and word origins without being able to write any Greek. In the same way you do not need to be able to write Chinese to understand the Chinese origins and roots of words in Korean.
"When you read a Korean article, you cannot understand immediately where any vocabulary originated from? From Korean itself, or from China, or from Western countries? It's not very easy to judge. "
It is trivial for Koreans to know which words are from the West because there are pronunciation rules they use and they often have characters that are uncommon in Korean words. Determining which words come from China and which words come from Korea is also trivial in the same way that knowing which words are from Latin and which words are from German in English is trivial.
I would argue that it is MORE difficult in Japanese to determine which words are native Japanese words and not Chinese words because EVERY word is written with Kanji regardless of it's origin. That is, the Kanji is used for sound as well as meaning, and in addition the meanings are often different in Japanese than in Chinese and the characters are simplified (in a different way than the simplified Chinese of Mainland China) whereas in Korea today the classical literary Chinese characters are used for words with Chinese origins.
I think that, ”Phagspa script“ was actually one of the sources for Korean ”Hangul alphabet“. In other words, "Korean Hangul" derived indirectly from Mongolian "Phagspa script".
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/84/Phagspa-Hangul_comparison.png
Phagspa-Hangul comparison
Phagspa-Hangul comparison
<<Determining which words come from China and which words come from Korea is also trivial in the same way that knowing which words are from Latin and which words are from German in English is trivial.>>
I don't know about "trivial" but it serves no purpose at all in English to know which words are from Latin and which words are from German. What purpose does it serve in Korean ?
I don't know about "trivial" but it serves no purpose at all in English to know which words are from Latin and which words are from German. What purpose does it serve in Korean ?