Reflect on how knowing a language's history can help you learn the language. To what family does your language belong? What sounds, words, or structures exemplify periods of contact with other cultures?
Knowing a language’s history not only enables the learner to be more conscientious of the language’s origins, but, in some cases, it may even help one incorporate what one knows in one language into the target language – if both languages share historical and linguistic similarities. The following are significant findings I found regarding the history of the Korean language.
Most scholars agree that Korean is part of its own Koreanic language family, but some scholars argue that it is actually part of the Altaic language family, which includes Mongolian and Turkish (Asia Society). While Korean is largely considered a language isolate, it is evident that contact with other cultures has linguistically influenced various aspects of the Korean language. With respect to the origins of the Korean language, scholars are largely unaware of the languages or dialects that were used in the Korean peninsula prior to the standardization of the Korean language in the 15thcentury (Martin). Before King Sejong of the Yi Dynasty (1397-1450) ordered for the creation of hangul (the Korean writing system) in the 1400s, Chinese characters were used to represent Korean sounds; the characters’ inability to adequately reflect Korean sounds resulted in King Sejong’s decision to codify Korean phonetics via the creation of the alphabet system that, with some modifications, is largely used today (Asia Society; Martin).
Furthermore, standard Korean no longer uses the accents 15thcentury speakers/writers would use that would make the language have a distinct musical touch to it (Martin). Furthermore, the evidence of how influential Chinese has had on the Korean language is found within the language’s vocabulary: it is estimated that “roughly half the Korean vocabulary consists of words derived from Chinese, mainly through the Confucian classics” (Asia Society). While the Korean language incorporated many Chinese words, Hanja (Chinese characters used in Korean) are not widely used anymore; nevertheless, Korean has incorporated some Chinese punctuation into its current writing system as well as many English punctuation marks (and words) that have been introduced during contact with Anglophone countries in contemporary history (Asia Society; Martin). Regardless of the large influence other cultures and languages have had on the Korean language, one must not forget that “Korean is completely distinct from Chinese [and English], in sound and in sentence structure” (Asia Society). Lastly, Asia Society argues that there are two standardized variations of Korean: the Seoul dialect (of South Korea) and the Pyongyang dialect (of North Korea), which have developed differently in sound and in use of Hanja due to geopolitical influences.
Bibliography
Asia Society. “Korean Language | Asia Society.” Center for Global Education,https://asiasociety.org/education/korean-language. Accessed 3 Mar. 2018.
Martin, Samuel E. “Korean Language.” Encyclopedia Britannica, https://www.britannica.com/topic/Korean-language. Accessed 3 Mar. 2018.
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