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Can Japanese also do this Korean feat | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| sebngwa3 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5974 days ago 200 posts - 217 votes  Speaks: Korean*, English | Message 1 of 11 23 September 2009 at 7:45am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Homer Hulbert commented on the efficiency of the expressive style of the Korean
language as follows: The Korean's keen sense of social distinctions has given rise to a complete system of honorifics whose proper use is essential to a rational use of the language. And yet numerous as these may he their use is so regulated by unwritten law and there are so few exceptions that they are far easier to master than the *personal terminations of Indo-European verbs.* [what is this?] The grammatical superiority of Korean over many of the Western languages is that while, in the latter, differences of gender, number and person which would usually be perfectly clear from the context are carefully noted, in the Korean these are left to the speaker's and the hearer's perspicacity, and attention is concentrated upon a terse and luminous collocation of ideas, which is often secured in the West only by a tedious circumlocution. The genius of the language has led the Korean to express every possible verbal relation by a separate modal form. The extent to which this has been carried may be shown only by illustration. Besides having simple forms to express the different tenses and modes, it also has forms to express all those more delicate verbal relations which in English require a circumlocution or the free use of adverbs. For instance, the Korean has a special mode to express the idea of necessity, contingency, surprise, reproof, antithesis, conjunction, temporal sequence, logical sequence, interruption, duration, limit, acquiescence, expostulation, interrogation, promise, exhortation, imprecation, desire, doubt, hypothesis, satisfaction, propriety, concession, intention, decision, probability, possibility, prohibition, simultaneity, continuity, repetition, infrequency, hearsay, agency, contempt, ability. Each one of these ideas can be expressed in connection with any active verb by the simple addition of one or more inseparable suffixes. By far the greater number of these suffixes are monosyllabic. To illustrate the delicate shades of thought that can be expressed by the use of a suffix let us take the English expression, "I was going along the road, when suddenly —" This, without anything more, implies that the act of going was suddenly interrupted by some unforeseen circumstance. All this would be expressed in Korean by the three words naga kile kataga (내가 길에 가다가). The first means " I," the second means " along the road," and the third means "was going, when suddenly —" The stem of the verb is ka, and the ending, taga, indicates the interruption of the action. And what is more to the point, this ending has absolutely no other use. It is reserved solely for the expression of this shade of thought. Again, on the same stem we have the word kalka (갈까), in which the ending ka gives all the meaning that we connote in the expression, " I wonder whether he will really go or not." If, in answer to the question whether you are going or not you say simply kana (가나), it means, "What in the world would I be going for? Absurd! " ... No people have followed more implicitly nature's law in the matter of euphony. The remarkable law of the convertibility of surds and sonants has been worked out to its ultimate results in this language. The nice adjustment of the organs of speech, whereby conflicting sounds are so modified as to blend harmoniously, is one of the unconscious Korean arts. The euphonic tendency has not broken down the languages, as is sometimes the case. Prof. Max Müller speaks of a law of phonetic decay, but in Korea it would be better called the law of phonetic adjustment. Korean is characterised by a large number of mimetic words. As their colours are drawn directly from nature, so their words are often merely phonetic descriptions. The Korean language is eminently adapted for public speaking. It is a sonorous, vocal language. They have grasped the idea that the vowel is the basis of all human speech. The sibilant element is far less conspicuous than in Japanese, and one needs only to hear a public speech in Japanese and one in Korean to discover the great advantage which the latter enjoys. *The lack of all accent in Japanese words is a serious drawback to oratory.* [what accent? I don't see know of any accent in Korean like Spanish or English does.] There is nothing in Korean speech that makes it less adapted to oratory than English or any other Western tongue. In common with the language of Cicero or Demosthenes, Korean is composed of periodic sentences, each one reaching its climax in the verb which is usually the final word, and there are no weakening addenda which so often make the English sentence an anticlimax. In this respect the Korean surpasses English as a medium of public speaking." The Passing of Korea (1909) pg. 302-304 Edited by sebngwa3 on 23 September 2009 at 7:57am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| sebngwa3 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5974 days ago 200 posts - 217 votes Speaks: Korean*, English | Message 2 of 11 23 September 2009 at 7:46am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Does Japanese have the equivalent of "taga" as shown here? Edited by sebngwa3 on 23 September 2009 at 7:59am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| ericspinelli Diglot Senior Member Japan Joined 5593 days ago 249 posts - 493 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: Korean, Italian | Message 3 of 11 23 September 2009 at 11:02am | IP Logged | ||||||||
I believe he is referring to the conjugation for person and number in the verbs of many Indo-European languages (e.g., I am, you are, he is, etc.)
Japanese does lack a syllabic stress accent like English or Spanish, though many Japanese dialects (including the standard Tokyo dialect) do make use of pitch accent. Do note that the author never actually mentions existence of accent in Korean, he merely implies it. Regardless, I see this and other comments regarding oratory as subjective at best. The piece as a whole is definitely biased.
No, there is no verb inflection to represent the interruption of an action. Japanese uses both affixation of auxiliary verbs and the use of nominalizers to modify verbs. What Korean does with "taga" would most likely be done with a nominalizer and/or adverbs. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| sebngwa3 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5974 days ago 200 posts - 217 votes Speaks: Korean*, English | Message 4 of 11 02 October 2009 at 6:57pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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The Korean-Japanese dictionary gives the equivalent of 가다가 as たまに;ときどき;ときお
り;ときた ま。 What does these Japanese exactly mean? http://jpdic.naver.com/search.nhn?query=가다가 Edited by sebngwa3 on 02 October 2009 at 6:57pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| wiseachoo Newbie United States Joined 5354 days ago 13 posts - 13 votes Studies: Japanese | Message 5 of 11 02 October 2009 at 8:29pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Well I can help you out with one of them (obviously I could look them all up but don't have time right now).
ときどき generally means "sometimes", at least in the contexts I've used it during my studies. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Yukamina Senior Member Canada Joined 6074 days ago 281 posts - 332 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Korean, French | Message 6 of 11 03 October 2009 at 12:51am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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たまに occasionally, once in a while
ときどき;ときおり sometimes ときたま Haven't heard this one and my dictionary doesn't recognize it. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| sebngwa3 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5974 days ago 200 posts - 217 votes Speaks: Korean*, English | Message 7 of 11 03 October 2009 at 1:24am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Nevermind that must be wrong translation.
This is it: 行ってから source - http://jpdic.naver.com/search.nhn?query=가다가 Edited by sebngwa3 on 03 October 2009 at 1:25am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| sebngwa3 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5974 days ago 200 posts - 217 votes Speaks: Korean*, English | Message 8 of 11 03 October 2009 at 1:29am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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But when I enter てから it returns 하고 나서. …한 다음. …하고서 which means "after".
1 person has voted this message useful |
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