Learning Journal #7

[Devin Chen]

There are differing views on what language family Korean belong to, most scholars even stated that it is a language isolate because of the origins and historical contact with China and Japan. The Korean language, according to Southern theories, are classified into the Austronesian language family, whereas Northern theories believe that it belongs to the Altaic language of central Asia. Others would argue, because of the extensive interactions with Japan and similarities within the two languages, this suggests that Korean might belong in the Japonic family. As a result, many sources classified Korean as a language isolate. I know that in Hanja, a more ancient form of Korean language, has characters that have their origins in China, so the words are similar or the same as the Chinese language. These make me more comfortable in learning that language, knowing that Korean has possible roots in Chinese suggests that my Chinese background could come in handy, especially with more sounds in my arsenal beyond English. The Korean language has changed in terms of writing a lot, Hanja is no longer being used and Hangul took its place as the more prominent form of writing. It was invented in 1444 during the reign King Sejeong, the adoption was to better categorized the sounds and make the language a lot easier to study, because there is a link between the spoken word and the written word.