105 Discussion Post #6

[So Myung Kim]

Determining which language family Korean belongs has been a controversial topic between linguistics. The Southern theory is that Korean belongs to the Austronesian family while Northern theory is that they belong to the Altaic language family; furthermore, others will categorize Korean by itself as a language isolate. Due to China and Japan’s historical interactions with Korea, we can see its effects on the language. About half the Korean vocabulary consists of Chinese derived words and many Koreans learn 한자 (Chinese characters) because Koreans would write in Chinese characters that represented sounds in Korean before hangul was devised in the 15th century. Similarities of grammatical structure and the use of pitch accents can be seen in both the Japanese and Korean language. Researching language families enhanced my understanding of how it is easier to pick up a language in the same language family as yours because there are more grammatical similarities and word cognates. Language will change over time as cultures move into areas and intertwine with each other. It can also change depending on how and how often language is used. When we talked about idioms in Korean class, Jimin mentioned that the wording (not meaning) of some idioms were slightly altered to fit the current culture of Korea. How the youths in Korea speak right now is totally different than how they spoke when Korea was a monarchy. Linguists track, and extrapolate these changes by looking at the similarities between the languages’ vocabulary, grammar, and sound changes. This can also be used to predict how languages will develop and grow in the coming years.

[June Choi]

Hi SoMyung! I had no idea that there were conflicting theories on what language family Korean belongs to. I am familiar with the Chinese background of the Korean language, for I learned some while I was living in Korea myself. It was enlightening to find that learning the Chinese characters that derive Korean words can help one understand complex and unfamiliar Korean words more easily because of their underlying Chinese meaning.

[Gavin Foo]

Wow! Great post So Myung! This was really interesting! It's cool to see how much influence other cultures have on each other. As someone who knows some Chinese, and learning Korean now, it is interesting to see how there are some Korean words that are similar to Chinese. This connection has definitely made it easier to remember the Korean word. Keep up the great work!