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Classical Chinese>Korean | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Lessons in Polyglottery |  | |
| solidsnake Diglot Senior Member China Joined 7042 days ago 469 posts - 488 votes  Speaks: English*, Mandarin | Message 1 of 7 24 February 2008 at 2:20am | IP Logged | ||
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Professor Arguelles,
A little background on myself: I have reached professional fluency in Mandarin Chinese but not quite the "near-native" stage (4/5 IRC scale). Mandarin Chinese is my second language. I plan to tackle the Korean language within the next couple of years after I somewhat intuitively feel I have reached a comfortable plateau of stability and a confidence that your Comparative Method will not only serve to reinforce both the similarities and differences between the two East Asian languages but simultaneously pole that contrastive study against the considerable differences in logical and structural reasoning habitual in my native American English tongue. That being said, I am considering using Classical Chinese as an entry point into the (modern) Korean language. While I admittedly have only yet to dabble in understanding Classical Chinese phraseology (文言文), I have gleaned that the rather ethereal grammatical structures found in Classical Chinese oft evoke the common Sub-Obj-Verb preference commonly cited in Korean. Without taking up too much of your probably far too sparse time, would you mind preparing a small treatise on the real grammatical similarities and differences found in Classical Chinese and modern Korean? I realize you have dedicated a healthy amount of your studies to both, and a request such as mine could lead you down a bird path perhaps not worth treading in such a rather colloquial forum as the one we have found ourselves convened in on this Sunday morning. However, if you would indulge me I promise you have both my rapt attention and my earnest gratitude. Jesse Malone 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| jimbo Tetraglot Senior Member Canada Joined 6295 days ago 469 posts - 642 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin, Korean, French Studies: Japanese, Latin | Message 2 of 7 24 February 2008 at 3:13am | IP Logged | ||
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Happy news; I was recently rummaging through a few bookstores in Seoul and found that there are now A LOT
more books using good methods to teach Chinese characters to learners of Korean as a second language than there were even a year or two ago. Given that you will already know many Chinese characters by the time you decide to tackle Korean, working through these books will help you build up your Korean vocabulary. Also, there are now TONS of textbooks (which come with CDs) teaching Korean to foreigners and quite a few that are in English, Chinese, and Japanese. Learning Korean will still take a lot of effort but I’m sure the new and improved teaching materials will certainly help a lot. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| ProfArguelles Moderator United States foreignlanguageexper Joined 7257 days ago 609 posts - 2102 votes | Message 3 of 7 24 February 2008 at 8:30pm | IP Logged | ||
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Mr. Malone,
Thank you very much for your politely articulated request. Alas, I fear that your initial impression that Classical Chinese and Korean may share many grammatical similarities can only profitably be pushed so far. In all honesty, I have never been struck by any particular parallels on the grammatical level during my own investigations. This does not mean, however, that your strategy of approaching Korean through Classical Chinese is flawed—far from it, I think it quite sound. The source of what I am about to write is what I recall from conversations several years ago now with a number of Korean scholars of Classical Chinese, and it is possible both that my memory is inaccurate and that the information I was given in the first place was tinctured by national and professional pride. That said, apparently Classical Chinese can be felt more in Korean than it can in Japanese or even in modern Chinese for Classical Chinese in a comparatively “pure” form remained the standard vehicle of writing by literate Koreans until the very dawn of the 20th century. Thus, the basic Korean Hanja are supposedly the most faithful representative of standard classical characters, without much divergence or variation or concession to recent centuries. Not only this, but the Korean pronunciation of Chinese loan words supposedly comes quite straight from Classical pronunciation according to a number of regular laws of sound change. Thus, when all is said and done, when it comes to using one language to learn in the next in a logical and economic comparative sequence, you will probably do quite well to add eventual study of Korean to all your other reasons for mastering Classical Chinese first. 6 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| solidsnake Diglot Senior Member China Joined 7042 days ago 469 posts - 488 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin | Message 4 of 7 24 February 2008 at 8:57pm | IP Logged | ||
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Professor Arguelles,
Thank you for the sincere reply. I have one further question for you. If one were to indeed take economics as you say, into consideration, as our time here on this precious planet is quite limited, would you feel it perhaps more wise to dive in directly from modern Mandarin Chinese unto Korean? Personally, if time and mortality were not an issue, I feel anyone would be simply foolish to deny themselves the pleasure and wit gained from a healthy exposure to Classical Chinese. However if the benefits are not worth the cost, despite the Korean language's inherent advantage over Japanese in this regard, would I just be tacking ledger lines onto a budget I can't support? Jesse Malone 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| ProfArguelles Moderator United States foreignlanguageexper Joined 7257 days ago 609 posts - 2102 votes | Message 5 of 7 02 March 2008 at 7:12pm | IP Logged | ||
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Mr. Malone,
Indeed, I had assumed that a prior knowledge of Classical Chinese was already subsumed under your advanced command of the overall phenomenon of “Chinese.” If this is not the case, and if your main goal in the next stage of your tenure on the planet is to converse with the inhabitants of the Korean peninsula in their own tongue, then you should find that your modern Mandarin will already be of great assistance to you in this endeavor. Economically speaking, in terms of making an investment in Korean, if you do not have Classical Chinese under your belt already, while acquiring it now would be a tactical and strategic advantage, it would also represent an unnecessary temporal diversion. If you are truly inclined to follow the comparative methodology of using one language to illuminate your study of the next, then you should also find it fascinating, some years down the line, to approach Classical Chinese from the facilitated view point of both modern Mandarin and Korean. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Alkeides Senior Member Bhutan Joined 6149 days ago 636 posts - 644 votes | Message 6 of 7 06 March 2008 at 6:18am | IP Logged | ||
Just for the sake of discussion, I would like to also state that Classical Chinese was used in China right up till the toppling of the Qing regime in the May Fourth Movement. Even today, educated native speakers of any major Chinese dialect can comprehend a classical text, however imperfectly, even without taking a class in school dedicated to it's teaching. I find also the claim of the basic Korean Hanja being the most faithful representative of the classical characters slightly erroneous. Certainly, the Korean set of characters is more conservative than the Japanese joyou kanji set and the PRC's Simplified Character set; however, the traditional set is still being used in Hong Kong and Taiwan with no change except perhaps standardization since Classical times. I do concede however, that Korean does preserve the final stop consonants in Middle Chinese better than Mandarin. It however, does not carry the element of tone, which is a major component in poetry. As I've said above however, this is all for the sake of discussion, no offence is meant at all. Still, the Korean scholars that have said this have imbued their statements with more than a little national pride; which is understandable coming from any of the main countries in the Sinosphere. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| solidsnake Diglot Senior Member China Joined 7042 days ago 469 posts - 488 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin | Message 7 of 7 09 March 2008 at 2:17pm | IP Logged | ||
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Thank you Professor. No further questions at this time.
Jesse Malone 1 person has voted this message useful |
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