Due by 5pm on Sunday, March 2: Discussion Post #6 on the Ning
Reflect on the history of your target language. To what language family does it belong? What sounds, words, and structures exemplify periods of contact with other cultures? How do these considerations enhance your understanding of the target language and culture in terms of their associated historical origin, development, and contemporary realization? and pragmatic questions of usage? How do languages change over time? How do linguists track, predict, and extrapolate these changes?
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Korean belongs to the Koreanic language family, although its broader classification is commonly debated among linguists. Over time, Korean has undergone significant changes due to contact with other languages such as Chinese and Japanese, which have left traces in its vocabulary, phonetics, and writing system. Korean has evolved significantly since its origin. Old Korean (before the 10th century) was primarily written using classical Chinese characters. During Middle Korean (10th-16th century), King Sejong the Great introduced Hangul, standardizing phonetics in Korea. And now (17th - present) Korean has evolved into what we know it as today, with some older consonant clusters disappearing and grammatical structures being simplified. Korean’s historical changes provide insight into its contemporary pragmatic usage. The honorific system, shaped by Confucian influence, requires speakers to use different levels of politeness based on social hierarchy. For example, asking a friend to eat would look like “wanna eat?” while asking an elder to eat would look like “would you like to eat with me?” And since language changes naturally over time, linguists want to track and predict these changes. To track changes, linguists examine ancient texts to modern ones to track changes in grammar. And to predict changes, linguists can use AI and machine learning to predict language trends using data from previous changes.
Korean is a special language with its own alphabet Hangul. In the past, people in Korea used Chinese characters to write, but Hangul was created in the 1400s to make reading and writing easier for everyone. Korean does not belong to a big language family like English, which is in Indo-European family. Some people think it might be related to languages like Turkish or Mongolian, but this is still a mystery.
Over time, Korean borrowed words from other cultures. For example, many words come from Chinese, like의사 (“doctor”). Later, some words from English also came into Korean, like 커피(“coffee”). These words shows how Korean connected with other countries. Korean also has special rules for speaking politely. For example, use formal speech with strangers or older people, and informal speech with close friends. This reflects Korea’s culture of respect. Languages change over time because people move, meet others, or invent new things, showing how languages adapt to new ideas and connections. For example, technological advancements create terms like “internet” for modern uses. Linguists study old books, compare dialects, and listen to how people speak now to understand these changes. For example, Old English manuscripts reveal how words like “knight” (originally pronounced with a “k” sound) shifted over centuries.
Learning about Korean’s history helps me see why it sounds and works the way it does. For example, Hangul’s simple design makes it easy to read, and polite speech rules teach me about Korean values. When I study words borrowed from Chinese or English, I feel closer to Korea’s past and present. To improve, I can practice listening to Korean songs and repeating phrases. By understanding how Korean changed over time, I can relate and learn with association.
The Korean language was created by King Sejong about 450 years ago. The language has undergone significant changes due to historical contact with other cultures, most notably Chinese, Mongolic, Japanese, and in most recent times English. Korean is particularly influenced by Classical Chinese. Approximately 60% of modern Korean vocabulary is made up of Sino-Korean words. Certain words derived from Chinese. However, the grammatical structure of Korean remains distinct from Chinese, preserving its unique syntactic patterns. In the early 20th century, Japanese colonial rule also left a significant mark on the Korean language. During this time, many Japanese loan words entered Korean, especially in fields such as administration, law, and modern technology. The one I can think of is the word for fishcake which has a Japanese origin and also another word is used that has a Korean origin. More recently, English has become a major influence on modern Korean. Particularly, there are Konglish words, such as the word for ice cream, internet, computer, etc.They have become part of everyday speech. Understanding these historical influences helps me appreciate how Korean has developed over time and continues to evolve. Language is not static. Instead, it adapts to cultural, political, and technological changes. This perspective allows me to approach Korean not just as a set of rules but as a living, evolving system shaped by history and global connections. Linguists track language changes through comparative linguistics, corpus analysis, and sociolinguistic studies. They examine how pronunciation shifts (e.g., sound changes in vowels and consonants), how new words enter the lexicon, and how grammar adapts to contemporary usage. Predicting language changes involves analyzing trends in communication, media, and generational speech patterns.
The history of a language is closely tied to its language family, a group of languages descended from a common ancestor. For example, English belongs to the Indo-European family, specifically the Germanic branch, which includes languages like German and Dutch, as well as broader connections to Romance and Slavic languages. The origins of Indo-European are debated, with the Anatolian hypothesis suggesting it began in modern-day Turkey and spread with agriculture, while the Steppe hypothesis points to the Pontic-Caspian steppe as its birthplace. Languages change through contact with other cultures, borrowing sounds, words, and structures. English, for instance, borrowed extensively from French after the Norman Conquest and from Latin due to the Church’s influence. Phonological shifts, like the Great Vowel Shift, and grammatical simplifications, such as the loss of case endings, further illustrate how languages evolve. These changes reflect historical events like conquests, trade, and cultural exchange, highlighting the dynamic nature of language. Understanding a language’s history and contact with other cultures enhances our appreciation of its development and contemporary usage. For example, the mix of Germanic, Romance, and other influences in English reflects the multicultural history of the British Isles and its global spread through colonialism and globalization. Linguists study language change using comparative linguistics, which reconstructs proto-languages, and phylogenetic models, which create language family trees. They also analyze historical texts and use computational modeling to predict future changes.
Korean belongs to the Koreanic language family and is considered a linguistic isolate, meaning it has no confirmed genetic relationship to other major language families. However, it has been shaped by long-standing interactions with other cultures, particularly Chinese, Japanese, and English. Learning about these influences (relationships, links, etc.) provides insight into how the language has developed over time and how it continues to evolve in contemporary usage. One of the most significant influences on Korean is Classical Chinese, which played a major role in Korea’s historical writing system and vocabulary. Before the creation of Hangul in the 15th century, Korean was written using Hanja (Chinese characters), and many of these words remain in modern Korean. A large percentage of Korean vocabulary is Sino-Korean, meaning the words were borrowed from Chinese but are pronounced in a Koreanized way. I learned that these words are especially common in academic, political, and formal contexts. And while native Korean words exist alongside them, Sino-Korean vocabulary is still widely used. Another major period of influence occurred during the Japanese occupation of Korea (1910–1945). During this time, Japanese loanwords entered Korean, particularly in areas related to administration, infrastructure, and everyday objects. While many have been replaced by native Korean words due to efforts to remove Japanese influence, some remain in common use today. More recently, English has also become a major source of borrowed vocabulary, especially in technology, business, and pop culture. English loanwords are often adapted into Konglish, a blend of Korean and English (i.e. 컴퓨터 → keompyuteo → “computer”). This reflects Korea’s increasing global interactions and modernization. By recognizing these layers of influence I am better able to understand how Korean has evolved and why certain words, sounds, and structures exist in the language today. The heavy use of Sino-Korean vocabulary highlights Korea’s historical connection to China, while Japanese and English borrowings reveal more recent periods of cultural contact (which I can see within the English language as well and how it has evolved recently with the rise/growth of social media content). These influences also extend beyond vocabulary into pronunciation and grammar. Over time, Korean has undergone phonetic and grammatical shifts, such as the simplification of certain verb endings and the merging of older vowel sounds that no longer exist in modern speech. After doing some research I also found that linguists study language change by tracking phonetic shifts, grammar evolution, and vocabulary expansion over time. For instance, younger generations in Korea are increasingly using shortened words and abbreviations in casual speech (likely related to text messaging and internet culture). By studying these types of trends, linguists can almost predict how the language will evolve/change in the future.