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Why did Korean abandon Hanja? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Ishq Trilingual Triglot Newbie United States Joined 5922 days ago 4 posts - 6 votes Speaks: English*, Cantonese*, Thai* Studies: Japanese, Mandarin | Message 49 of 116 09 September 2008 at 11:34pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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I don't really understand why so many people have such detestable and ill convictions towards Hanja. All those who are saying farmers don't have time to learn Hanja are being ridiculous. All farmers I've met in China could read Chinese perfectly fine and the Chinese use a greater deal of characters than compared to those taught in Korean Hanja courses. Because of compulsory education we know that anyone can learn Hanja so long as it is given as school course. People do in Mainland China, Hong Kong, Japan, Taiwan, and Singapore. They can read perfectly fine. All the previous given locations have very high literacy rates and they all use more Chinese characters than those taught in South Korea. They all also have highly literate farmers if someone is still questioning that issue. The farmers I've met all went to school and so did their children. Going to school proves that there is time for a farmer to learn Hanja.
That was not a defense for Koreans to use Hanja. It's their language and they the right to do whatever they like to it. If they don't want to use Hanja then that's fine, it is their language. I'm just trying to say that all Koreans, not matter rich or poor, have the time and capability to learn Hanja. Any defense against this fact, in the South Korean of this day and age, is ridiculous. There was also a comment about how the Japanese should also give up kanji because it's unsuitable for Japanese; I just have to say that, that person obviously hasn't learned much Japanese. I've studied the language for a fair amount of time and I don't see how they are unsuitable at all. If you actually learn kanji you start to see that it is quite adequate for Japanese. It's true that there are more character readings in Japanese but it usually is quite obvious which reading should be used so it doesn't truly hinder much, if at all, most of the time. Those who voice strong dislike of Chinese characters in my opinion, which is not saying that it's right it’s just an opinion, have some strange issue with their own capabilities, racism, or xenophobia if they really have that much dislike for them. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
 Jiwon Triglot Moderator Korea, South Joined 6437 days ago 1417 posts - 1500 votes  Speaks: EnglishC2, Korean*, GermanC1 Studies: Hindi, Spanish Personal Language Map | Message 50 of 116 10 September 2008 at 8:17am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
Exactly my point. I personally don't see how any non-native speakers can have such strong feelings regarding the matter. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Deecab Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5962 days ago 106 posts - 108 votes Speaks: English, Korean* Studies: Mandarin | Message 51 of 116 10 September 2008 at 12:17pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
Depends on what your interpretation of high literacy rate is. China as far as I know has around 90%-95 literate people. I don't know if it's higher but you can infer that 5-10 people on street you meet are illiterate. That's quite high portion of people if you ask me. To me, 99-100% is considered high or the norm. Japan has high literacy rate, almost around 99%, I believe but they use far fewer characters(granted, they have more exception to reading). And saying Chinese farmers is able to read Hanzi is quite irrelevant since Chinese can't help but to learn it since Hanzi is their original writing system and have no other choice but to stick with it. I just think it's the best if they use start using Hanja for the purpose of 1) context clarification 2) Younger generation using more native words instead of loanwords like 'charisma'. Edited by Deecab on 10 September 2008 at 12:18pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| autodidactic Bilingual Triglot Senior Member United States tinyurl.com/cunningl Joined 6624 days ago 100 posts - 110 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish*, French Studies: Russian, Japanese, Kazakh | Message 52 of 116 10 September 2008 at 2:12pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
The japanese use half the amount of kanjii that the chinese use. Their two syllablries are amazingly efficient and logical. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| ChrisWebb Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6264 days ago 181 posts - 190 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Korean | Message 53 of 116 10 September 2008 at 3:36pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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I want to be clear, I dont have particularly strong feelings on this issue, that said a couple of posts here 'got up my nose' and prompted posts that might make it appear that my feelings on the subject are stronger than in reality. In reality a certain kind of post will draw a strong response from me regardless of subject.
I do find the debate a little baffling though as I know many Koreans in real life, including the one I married, when asked about Hanja most seem to consider it 'unnecessary' whilst also noting they can read few as they simply do not use them much. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Deecab Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5962 days ago 106 posts - 108 votes Speaks: English, Korean* Studies: Mandarin | Message 54 of 116 11 September 2008 at 2:15am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
Didn't I already mention Kanji? And while Kanas are quite good, their sound inventories are far too small to be efficient. They would have to make their vocabs long or use Kanji. They chose the latter option. I am quite surprised that there are actually foreigners who think Hanja should be used though, considering Korean is not an easy language even without Hanja from Western point of view. One would imagine that they don't want to go through nightmare that they went through with Kanji and Hanzi. Edited by Deecab on 11 September 2008 at 2:15am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Ishq Trilingual Triglot Newbie United States Joined 5922 days ago 4 posts - 6 votes Speaks: English*, Cantonese*, Thai* Studies: Japanese, Mandarin | Message 55 of 116 11 September 2008 at 2:39am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
I personally have yet to meet an illiterate Chinese person on a street so I do have doubt in the 5 to 10 people estimation. I personally feel the remaining 10% or so would mostly contain ethnic minorities who have received a lesser amount of education. They make up about 8-9% of Chinas population. So it seems that approximately corresponds to the 10-5% illiteracy rate quite well. Many of these minorities live in isolated areas and as such affect their chances at better education possibly causing many to be effectively illiterate. 100-99% is in no way a norm in the world. Look at Chinas neighbors. India’s literacy rate is 61%, Nepal’s 48%, Laos’s 68%, Pakistan’s’ 49%, and Bhutan’s 47%. All those countries use fairly simple phonetic scripts and yet their literacy rates are much lower than Chinas. It all comes down to education. Good compulsory education brings high literacy rates no matter if the script is phonetic or not. And I don't see the irreverence of using the Chinese as an example at all. It just shows that if 1 billion Chinese, in industrializing Mainland China, can learn how to read Chinese characters than so can people in industrialized South Korea. But again I reiterate that I am not saying they should use Hanja. It's their language and they have a right to write it however they please. Edited by Ishq on 11 September 2008 at 2:41am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Deecab Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5962 days ago 106 posts - 108 votes Speaks: English, Korean* Studies: Mandarin | Message 56 of 116 11 September 2008 at 3:11am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
But your personal experience doesn't represent the generalization of Chinese. I know plenty of Chinese who know how to speak but are not able to read and write.
Perhaps, but to display a counterexample, Hong Kong and Taiwan have plenty of illiterates as well.
I was actually aware of what the norm is like. And yes, education is primarily the key but that doesn't mean that every writing is equally efficient. I used the word "norm" in the sense that's what the reality should be like. I didn't mean it to suggest that's actually the case. To me, the fact that a writing system is so difficult to make people functionally illiterate is beyond ridiculous. It defeats the purpose of communication with ease.
It's not as much about the matter of whether they can learn it as it has been about its usefulness. Koreans are intelligent, and are capable of learning them if they want to. They just don't have the motivation, which is arguably the most important factor when learning languages. I can somewhat see where people make the argument that Hanja is useless but I will always disagree with that statement since Hanja constitutes major component of our vocabulary. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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