SDLC 105 Journal 8

[Christy Buranaamorn]

History plays a major role in learning the language of a given country and culture. In Korean history, its language system went through many changes to get to the state it is in now (as in all countries basically). It began with Hanja in which the Koreans borrowed many Chinese words. This progressed into Hangeul which is the current Korean alphabet. One can see how geography and cultural exchanges greatly impacted the Korean language in this way. A country’s history is literally telling you a story of what that country has undergone-wars, famine, disease, natural disasters, etc.  It tells how these events shaped the people which in turn shaped the language. Having this idea in mind helps me to learn the Korean language because I need to understand the culture and customs along with the language itself. It is an all-inclusive package; it does not make sense to learn the language without understanding the cultural context of the words and expressions. Korean history can assuredly depict why formality and respect have such a great presence in the Korean language. One only needs to do some research to see the big research and not just focus on the small details.