The history behind the Korean language is very interesting. The document from class classifies Korean as an Asian language, part of the Altaic language family. This connects Korean with Turkish, Mongolian, and Japanese. The Korean language also has a deep connection to the Chinese language and characters.
75 million people speak Korean, with 72 million of them coming from North and South Korea. It has always been the main language spoken in those areas, but in the past, the Hangul alphabet was not yet created. What historians refer to as Old Korean was written with Chinese characters. Sometimes the characters would be used to represent a word or simply used to represent a sound in Korean. Because writers had to be educated in both Korean and Chinese, most people could not read or write. Once King Sejong came to power, he helped to create Hangul in 1443. Once the alphabet was created it made it much easier to read, write, and pronounce sounds in Korean.
The Chinese language has a huge impact on Korean. Around 50%-70% of Korean is made from Chinese words and sounds but overtime both languages have shifted which is why it is hard to see the similarities today. Japanese also has a strong connection to Korean because it was also affected by the Chinese language in the past. Along with word and sound similarities, Japanese and Korean both follow subject-object-verb with their grammar structure. Although all three languages are very different today, their history and interweaving are very important to understand the language itself.
Now that I understand the historical background of the language, I can see why there are many cultural and traditional connections between China and Korea. For example, Korean celebrates Seollal which is celebrated in China as the Lunar New Year. Or Chuseok which is a harvest festival similar to the Mid-Autumn Festival in China. Many of their values, such as honoring their ancestors and spending time with family, show similarities between the two cultures. Another example is Confucianism, which has its origins in China and has spread, and now a lot of those values are of importance in Korea as well.
Even though languages can adapt and values can shift, there are so many similarities between the two cultures and their languages that can still be seen today.
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