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Why did Korean abandon Hanja? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6439 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes  Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 89 of 116 26 September 2008 at 7:06am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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I'll jump in with a few points here.
1) Please calm down, everyone. This is an interesting topic, but keeping it civil makes it much more interesting. 2) Analogies to using Latin and Greek roots to deepen ones understanding of English are fairly apt, in my opinion: they can certainly be useful, but it's a fair amount of work (anywhere from fairly little if you just memorize some of the most common, to quite a lot if you try to gain a deep knowledge of Latin and Greek). The former is useful, and while not technically necessary, probably a good idea nonetheless; the latter only is if you have an interest in the other languages in and of themselves, in my opinion - can you really understand the etymology of Hanja without picking up a a fair amount of Classical Chinese? Similarly, most native speakers simply never bother to do this on their own. This would be where diminishing returns come in: while proceeding from no Hanja -> knowing a few -> knowing all the 'core' ones -> knowing the etymology -> being proficient in Classical Chinese is a path that certainly deepens your knowledge of Korean, it's also a path that has less and less 'return' on how good your Korean is, for the amount of effort expended. Whether or not the additional gains at each step are worth the effort depends on what you care about. 3) Professor Arguelles said that he is 'sometimes' (and, given his style of understatement, I suspect that this really doesn't qualify as 'regularly'!) misunderstood, and when he is, it's almost always due to pronunciation. Source. I don't think there's any human alive who is never misunderstood, even in 2-person conversations where both people are monolingual in the same language. 4) There is no such thing as a perfect or complete knowledge of a living human language. 5) Pronunciation and Hanja work can be complimentary; they can be profitably done at different times, when doing the other would be inconvenient. 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Organik Diglot Groupie United States Joined 5994 days ago 52 posts - 52 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: Korean, Mandarin | Message 90 of 116 26 September 2008 at 5:59pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
I have essential said what I have to say at this time and I am not interested in debating these things to death or in going around in circles. I suppose that what is a sharp-edged critique to some feels like a personal attack to others is all I can say. The reason I evoked science is because the study of language is a science (linguistics), and it is not possible to seriously debate a language without doing so in an accurate and scientific manner (hence, why I find the Latin/Greek to hanja analogy to be useless in this context; it is simply not an accurate analogy). Finally, my arguments may seem vague but I have not sought to provide a full account of topics I have discussed (to do so, I would have to write a book). I feel that people who have some perspective on hanja and/or on Chinese characters more generally will understand what I have meant (that is not to say that they will agree). Given that this is a thread dealing with hanja, I do find my manner of discussion to be appropiate. Edit: My original post (that kicked off this exchange) dealt simply with what I see as a bad analogy (Latin/Greek to hanja). In any case, I am not interested in weeding through old posts to rehash such things. Edit #2: I am sorry if I pushed buttons; in actuality I am simply very passionate about language (That is to say, Volte's points are well taken). Edited by Organik on 27 September 2008 at 2:42am 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 92 of 116 07 October 2008 at 6:23am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
I want to be quite clear here, I do not really feel particularly attacked on an personal level, you do however seem to be trying to make a fallacious arguement in the form 'ad hominem'. From my perspective I do not see the value in engaging with anothers point of view by simply implying that you are on the 'scientific' high ground and the other lacks understanding. If you feel that others are missing some important point it would seem reasonable to me that you would illustrate exactly what that point is, particularly as you insist on appealing to science which of course demands the evidence you are refusing to produce. That you are not willing to attempt to illustrate your point really forces the conclusion that there is in fact no point to be made or if there is it certainly is not a point rooted in the scientific method. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| ParkeNYU Diglot Newbie United States Joined 4919 days ago 11 posts - 19 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: Korean, Mandarin | Message 93 of 116 07 June 2011 at 10:43pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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I'm new here, but I wanted to share this list that I compiled of 12 reasons to restore Hanja. Please provide any feedback you can. Thank you!
1 – Only Sino-Korean words are presently written with Hanja. 2 – Hanja use considerably clarifies the numerous homophones within Sino-Korean vocabulary. 3 – Learning the corresponding Hanja of Sino-Korean words provides them with etymological context, thus revealing the morphemic connections between many Sino-Korean words, making new vocabulary far easier to learn. 4 – As is the case in Chinese, each Hanja corresponds to one syllable block, which is not often the case in Japanese. 5 – Most Hanja have only a single reading (with only a handful of exceptions, even less of them than in Chinese). 6 – There are only 1,800 Hanja that must be learned to attain literacy in modern Korean, compared to over 2,000 characters for Japanese and 3,000-5,000 characters for Chinese. 7 – Almost all Hanja appear identical to their traditional Chinese counterparts, and their unofficial simplified forms generally correspond with those standardized in Japanese. 8 – Word processors make it easy to render Hanja in writing regardless of stroke count; it would take no longer to write a word in Hanja than it would to write it in Hangeul. 9 – When writing by hand, one is free to use abbreviated character-forms or Hangeul alone. Hanja need only be used in printing and electronic texts, which are the primary media of written language in modern times anyway. Thus, an emphasis will be placed on Hanja recognition rather than Hanja recollection (a passive rather than active comprehension). 10 – Reading (and skimming) texts containing Hanja is far easier, faster, and more efficient than deciphering those written purely in Hangeul. This has been proven in language studies comparing written Chinese, Japanese, and Korean; Hanja contains more diverse and richly detailed visual cues than does Hangeul. 11 – Using Hanja is only as “un-Korean” as using Sino-Korean vocabulary, which constitutes well over half of the entries in a typical Korean dictionary. If a given word is borrowed from Chinese, it’s only appropriate to borrow the corresponding character(s) as well. Chinese characters do not make Japanese any less Japanese, nor do they make Korean any less Korean. Like the ubiquitous Latin alphabet, Chinese logograms have a degree of linguistic versatility. 12 – Aside from the fact that Hanja are still occasionally encountered in modern Korea, it provides a very intimate link to Korea’s history: Korea’s ancient (and even more recent) texts include (or are composed entirely of) Hanja. **Although not a direct benefit to understanding the Korean language itself, it’s worthwhile to note that Hanja acts as the written bridge to Chinese and Japanese, both of which are very influential not only within the Sino-sphere, but globally as well. 7 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| DNB Bilingual Triglot Groupie Finland Joined 4886 days ago 47 posts - 80 votes Speaks: Finnish*, Estonian*, English | Message 94 of 116 18 August 2011 at 8:46pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
Good points... Although I'm personally a bit biased towards hanja, just because I love Chinese characters. I'm a bit disappointed that they are not used anymore, however I still understand if Koreans want to get rid of them and use the hangul alone much more efficiently. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| ParkeNYU Diglot Newbie United States Joined 4919 days ago 11 posts - 19 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: Korean, Mandarin | Message 95 of 116 19 August 2011 at 2:35am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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Well, it is my belief that using Hangeul alone is only more efficient in the context of primary education. The only added difficulty that Hanja presents is the significant amount of time required to learn the characters themselves. Granted, this is an appreciable difficulty, but probably the only justified reason for abandoning Hanja; there are many more reasons to keep the system and re-popularize its use.
Saying that using Hangeul alone is more efficient for written Korean is like saying that using Kana alone is more efficient for written Japanese. Such an argument is superficially convincing, but ultimately a fallacy. Edited by ParkeNYU on 19 August 2011 at 2:44am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| cntrational Triglot Groupie India Joined 5127 days ago 49 posts - 66 votes Speaks: Hindi, Telugu, English* Studies: French | Message 96 of 116 19 August 2011 at 8:20am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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I think that all the people who're claiming to think "linguistically and scientifically" while arguing for hanja need to know that one of the basic ideas of modern linguistics in that sound is the basis of language, not writing.
1 person has voted this message useful |
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