History of Korean
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The traditional periodization of Korean distinguishes:[1][2]
- Gaya Confederacy were dialects of Old Korean or separate languages.[3]
- Imjin Wars (1592–1598). Middle Korean is often divided into Early and Late periods corresponding to the two dynasties. The introduction of the Hangul alphabet in 1446 (early in the Late period) transformed the documentation of the language in comparison with previous systems based on adaptations of Chinese characters.
- Early Modern Korean(근세 한국어, 近世韓國語, 17th to 19th centuries), corresponding to the later part of Joseon.
- Modern Korean(근현대 한국어, 近現代韓國語, from the beginning of the 20th century).
Nam Pung-hyun has suggested that the division between Old and Middle Korean ought to be drawn at the time of the Mongol invasions of Korea (mid-13th century).[4][5] He divides his extended Old Korean period into Early (Three Kingdoms), Middle (Unified Silla) and Late (early Goryeo) periods.[4]
Origins
Korean and the closely related Jeju language form the compact Koreanic language family. A relation to the Japonic languages is debated but currently not accepted by most linguists.[6][7] Another theory is the Altaic Theory, but it is either discredited or fringe.
Old Korean
Use of Classical Chinese by Koreans began in the fourth century or earlier, and phonological writing in Idu script was developed by the sixth century.[8] It is unclear whether Old Korean was a
Middle Korean
The language standard of this period is based on the dialect of
The first foreign record of Korean is the Jilin leishi, written in 1103 by a Chinese Song dynasty writer, Sūn Mù 孫穆.[10][11] It contains several hundred items of Goryeo-era Korean vocabulary with the pronunciation indicated through the use of Chinese characters, and is thus one of the main sources for information on Early Middle Korean. From a phonological perspective however, the usefulness of this material is limited due to logographic nature of the characters.
The Chinese Ming dynasty Bureau of Translators compiled a Chinese–Korean vocabulary of Joseon-era Korean in the mid-16th century.[12]
There were tones in Middle Korean.[13][14][15]
The creation of the Hunminjeongeum ("Proper Sounds for the Instruction of the People"), the original name for Hangul, was completed in 1443 by Sejong the Great, the fourth Joseon king, and promulgated in September or October 1446.
Hunminjeongeum was an entirely new and native script for the Korean language and people. The script was initially named after the publication, but later came to be known as "Hangul". It was created so that the common people illiterate in Hanja could accurately and easily read and write the Korean language. Its supposed publication date, October 9, is now "Hangul Day" (also known as The Korean Alphabet Day) in South Korea.
In Korean
Modern Korean
Over the decades following the Korean War and the division of Korea, North–South differences in the Korean language have developed, including variances in pronunciation, verb inflection and vocabulary.
References
- ^ Lee & Ramsey (2000), pp. 273–274.
- ^ Cho & Whitman (2019), pp. 9–10.
- ^ Lee & Ramsey (2000), p. 276.
- ^ a b Nam (2012), p. 41.
- ^ Whitman (2015), p. 421.
- ^ Sohn (1999), p. 29.
- ^ Vovin (2017).
- ^ "Korean literature".
- ^ Kim (2004), p. 80.
- ^ Yong & Peng (2008), pp. 374–375.
- ^ Ogura (1926), p. 1.
- ^ Ogura (1926), pp. 1, 10.
- ^ Sohn (1999), p. 48.
- ^ Lee & Ramsey (2000), p. 315.
- ^ Lee & Ramsey (2011), p. 168.
Works cited
- Cho, Sungdai; Whitman, John (2019), Korean: A Linguistic Introduction, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 978-0-521-51485-9.
- Kim, Mu-rim (김무림) (2004), 국어의 역사 (Gugeo-ui yeoksa, History of the Korean language), Seoul: Hankook Munhwasa, ISBN 89-5726-185-0.
- Lee, Iksop; Ramsey, S. Robert (2000), The Korean Language, SUNY Press, ISBN 978-0-7914-4831-1.
- Lee, Ki-Moon; Ramsey, S. Robert (2011), A History of the Korean Language, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 978-1-139-49448-9.
- Nam, Pung-hyun (2012), "Old Korean", in Tranter, Nicolas (ed.), The Languages of Japan and Korea, Routledge, pp. 41–72, ISBN 978-0-415-46287-7.
- Ogura, S. (1926), "A Corean Vocabulary", Bulletin of the School of Oriental Studies, 4 (1): 1–10, JSTOR 607397.
- Sohn, Ho-Min (1999), The Korean Language, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ISBN 978-0-521-36123-1.
- .
- Whitman, John (2015), "Old Korean", in Brown, Lucien; Yeon, Jaehoon (eds.), The Handbook of Korean Linguistics, Wiley, pp. 421–438, ISBN 978-1-118-35491-9.
- Yong, Heming; Peng, Jing (2008), Chinese lexicography: a history from 1046 BC to AD 1911, Oxford University Press, ISBN 978-0-19-156167-2.