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Why did Korean abandon Hanja? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| jstele Bilingual Senior Member United States Joined 6655 days ago 186 posts - 194 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Korean* | Message 65 of 116 24 September 2008 at 5:53am | IP Logged | ||||||||
You didn't really give a context. What matters is how the word is used. Anyone could write the same or similar words over and over and that would prove nothing.
The meaning of #4 is in #3 with the exception of "studying in one's homeland". People who live in Busan do not say they went to "유학" in Seoul, so I would say that part of the definition is incorrect. When you "go abroad to study", by default, you are studying away from home and traveling to some place to study. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| FuroraCeltica Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6865 days ago 1187 posts - 1427 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French | Message 66 of 116 24 September 2008 at 6:10am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I believe that North Korea abandoned Hanja because it was hard to learn. The North Korean government wanted to launch a political propaganda/education campaign, and needed the population to be literate to maximise such a campaigns effectiveness.
For a similar reason, the Chinese government simplified characters, as it was felt this would facilitate easier learning. Mao had suggested abvandoning the characters altogether in favour of pinyin, but characters remain. Just a theory :-) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| TKK Groupie ChinaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5948 days ago 55 posts - 58 votes | Message 67 of 116 24 September 2008 at 6:47am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Actually Simplified characters are not found much easier than Traditional style, by contraries, Simplified has broken the rules of word-formation to some extent, then China's government abolished a number of Simplified characters in June 1986. and the project of "Romanization of Chinese" has proved to be wrong & infeasible. Chinese characters system is of great importance & necessity for Chinese languages. There will never be another writing system which could replace Chinese characters. Not just because I love it fanatically, it's mainly due to the practical complications. You'll never realize the significance of Chinese character, because you're foreigners. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| pitwo Diglot Senior Member Canada Joined 6159 days ago 103 posts - 121 votes Speaks: French*, English | Message 68 of 116 24 September 2008 at 10:29am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Wow, what a bunch of bull.
The French imposed a latin-based system on vietnamese people and they survived just fine. Granted, the script looks awful, but the switch worked just fine. Characters dropped in usage in Vietnam very quickly. The same happened in Korea, where the North has now totally abandoned them (the south to a lesser extend). The same happened in Japan, where the number of characters in usage dropped significantly from the time before and after the introduction of Kana. From a technical point of view there's no reason why the characters could not be dropped. (not that I would want that to happen) Note: The first half of what you said is fine, it's the conclusion that is debatable. Edited by pitwo on 24 September 2008 at 10:31am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Organik Diglot Groupie United States Joined 5994 days ago 52 posts - 52 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: Korean, Mandarin | Message 69 of 116 24 September 2008 at 5:17pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
I think the point you guys are missing is that the comparison of the English language and its Latin and Greek roots to Korean and its hanja roots is an imperfect analogy. While such analogies may be useful to some for providing a simplified account of hanja-based vocabulary's place in the Korean language, such analogies are insufficient for addressing this topic in a serious and scientific manner. I am not a linguistic; however, I do find my point to be rather self-evident. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| ChrisWebb Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6263 days ago 181 posts - 190 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Korean | Message 70 of 116 24 September 2008 at 6:34pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
And I think the point you are missing is that the analogy is not the point, it's only an imperfect illustration of the point. If there really is some way that hanja helps in vocabulary acquisition beyond what knowledge of the roots gives I'd be grateful if someone could explain exactly how? So far I see no reason to believe it does. You speak of dealing with this topic in a serious and scientific manner so how about presenting some evidence or reasoned arguement. As I'm sure we both appreciate, science demands such a move from you here. Unfortunately claiming something is 'self evident' really doesnt cut it in serious scientific discussions. Edited by ChrisWebb on 24 September 2008 at 6:42pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Deecab Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5961 days ago 106 posts - 108 votes Speaks: English, Korean* Studies: Mandarin | Message 71 of 116 24 September 2008 at 7:08pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Hanja is necessary to some extent. You can't completely abolish them.
Yesterday I went to eat dinner with couple of my friends who are also native Koreans and they mentioned the word 우상(oosang) while they were talking. Ask any native Korean what it means and most of them would tell you the first impression they get is "idol" 偶像. But it turns out that my friends were talking about 우상 (牛像), meaning cow statue. And the beauty of Chinese is that, there is virtually no limit to vocabulary size since they're compound words. I am not sure if 牛像 is even part of the Korean vocabulary list but that's beside the point. Even with given context, it's sometimes very hard to determine it without Hanja if you want to read it. Japanese does not need context for a reason, they have Kanji to clarify the meaning to make up for its small sound inventories. Even Korean with its wider range of sound sometimes has obscurity so if you're given Hanja, a very knowledgeable person would recognize what they mean. Trust me, if a paper was written 우상, almost no Korean would have recognized, even with given context, that it was a cow statue instead of idol. Edited by Deecab on 24 September 2008 at 7:13pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| TKK Groupie ChinaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5948 days ago 55 posts - 58 votes | Message 72 of 116 24 September 2008 at 9:15pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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What if Latin alphabet were replaced by Arabic alphabet from English or French. What if special alphabet were replaced by Russian Cyrillic from Japanese or Korean. What if reformed alphabet were replaced by Hebrew alphabet from Vienamese or Thai. If above changes all happened, then Chinese character may be replaced by Latin alphabet. Latin alphabet couldn't resolve some problems that can be well done by only Chinese characters. If you're very good at Chinese languages, you'll soon understand what I'm trying to mean.Thanks! 1 person has voted this message useful |
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