Korean

For a long time scholars have tried to associate the Korean language to one of the major language families but have not been successful in this venture. There have been many theories proposed on the origin of Korean. Based on the views as to where the Korean language first originated, two prominent views, which are called the Southern theory and the Northern theory, have been advocated by some scholars. According to the Southern theory, the Korean people and language originated in the south, namely the South Pacific region. There are two versions of this theory. One is that the Korean language is related to the Dravidian languages of India. This view is not taken seriously by contemporary linguists, but it was strongly advocated by the American scholar Homer B. Hulbert in the early twentieth century. His argument was based on the syntactic similarities of Korean and the Dravidian languages. For instance, both languages have the same syntactic characteristics: the word order subject-object-verb, postpositions instead of prepositions, no relative pronouns, modifiers in front of the head noun, copula and existential as two distinct grammatical parts of speech, etc. The other version of the Southern theory is the view that Korean may be related to

the Austronesian languages. There are some linguistic as well as anthropological and archaeological findings which may support this view. The linguistic features of Korean which are shared by some Polynesian languages include the phonological structure of open syllables, the honorific system, numerals and the names of various body parts. The anthropological and archaeological elements shared by Koreans and the people in other regions of the South Pacific are rice cultivation, tattooing, a matrilineal family system, the myth of an egg as the birthplace of royalty and other recent discoveries in Palaeolithic or preceramic cultures. Although this Southern theory has been brought to the attention of many linguists, it is not accepted as convincing by linguists. The Northern theory is the view that Korean is related to the Altaic family. Although

this view is not wholly accepted by the linguistic community, the majority of Korean

view. major language branches which belong to the Altaic family are Turkic, Mongolian and Tungusic. The area in which the Altaic languages are spoken runs from the Balkans to the Kamchatka peninsula in the North Pacific. The Northern theory stipulates that the Tungusic branch of Altaic tribesmen migrated towards the south and reached the Korean peninsula. The Tungusic languages would include two major languages: Korean and Manchu. The view that Korean is a branch of the Altaic family is supported by anthroarchaeological evidence such as comb ceramics (pottery with comb-surface design), bronze-ware, dolmens, menhirs and shamanism. All these findings are similar to those found in Central Asia, Siberia and northern Manchuria. Korean is similar to the Altaic languages with respect to the absence of grammatical elements such as number, genders, articles, fusional morphology, voice, relative pronouns and conjunctions. Vowel harmony and agglutination are also found in Korean as well as in the Altaic languages. Comparing the two theories, it is apparent that the Northern influence in the Korean language is more dominant than the Southern. It has been discovered in recent archaeological excavations that the early race called

Palaeosiberians lived in the Korean peninsula and Manchuria before the Altaic race migrated to these areas. The Palaeosiberians, who include the Chukchi, Koryaks, Kamchadals, Ainu, Eskimos, etc., were either driven away to the farther north by the newly arrived race or assimilated by the conquerors when they came to the Korean peninsula. It is believed that the migration of the new race towards the Korean peninsula took place around 4000 BC. Nothing is known about the languages of the earliest settlers. After migration, some ancient Koreans settled down in the regions of Manchuria and northern Korea while others moved farther to the south. Many small tribal states were established in the general region of Manchuria and the Korean peninsula from the first century BC to the first century AD. The ancient Korean language is divided into two dialects: the Puyo˘ language and the Han language. The Puyo˘ language was spoken by the people of tribal states such as Puyo˘, Kokuryo˘, Okcho˘ and Yemaek in Manchuria and northern Korea. The Han language was spoken by the people of the three Han tribal states of Mahan, Chinhan and Byo˘nhan which were created in southern Korea. Around the fourth century AD the small tribal states were vanquished and three

kingdoms with strong central governments appeared in Manchuria and the Korean peninsula. Of these three kingdoms, the biggest kingdom, Kokuryo˘, occupied the territory of Manchuria and the northern portion of the Korean peninsula. The other two kingdoms, Paekche and Silla, established states in the southwestern and the southeastern regions of the Korean peninsula respectively. It is believed that the Kokuryo˘ people spoke the Puyo˘ language and the Silla people spoke the Han language; however, it is not certain what language the Paekche people spoke because the ruling class of the Paekche kingdom consisted of Puyo˘ tribesmen who spoke the Puyo˘ language. When the Korean peninsula was unified by Silla in the seventh century, the Han language became the dominant dialect paving the way for the emergence of a homogeneous language. The Han language finally became the sole Korean language through the two succeeding dynasties of Koryo˘ (936-1392) and Choso˘n (1392-1910). Since Silla’s unification of the Korean peninsula in the seventh century, it appears

that the language spoken in the capital has been the standard dialect. Thus, the Silla capital, Kyo˘ngju, dialect was the standard dialect during the unified Silla period from the seventh century to the tenth century. When Silla was succeeded by Koryo˘ in the tenth century, the capital was moved from Kyo˘ngju, which was located in the southeastern

in and sequently the dialect spoken in this new capital became the standard language in Koryo˘ from the tenth century to the end of the fourteenth century. When the Yi (or Choso˘n) Dynasty succeeded Koryo˘ at the end of the fourteenth century, the capital was established at Seoul, the present capital of South Korea, and the language spoken in this area became the standard dialect and has continued as a standard dialect to the present time. Thus, it is obvious that the formation of the standard dialect has been dominated by political decisions. We can find this even in the twentieth century. There are officially two standard dialects existing in Korea; one is the Seoul dialect in South Korea and the other the Phyo˘ng’yang dialect in North Korea. Each government has established prescriptive criteria for its own standard dialect and made separate policies on language. Though the dialect distinction of one region from the other is not drastic owing to the

relatively small size of the Korean peninsula, each region has its own characteristic dialects. For instance, in the Hamgyo˘ng dialect of northern Korea the final p of verb bases ending in p is pronounced as [b] before suffixed morphemes starting in a vowel, while in the standard Seoul dialect this final p is pronounced as [w] before a vowel; t@p-‘hot’ is pronounced [t@b@] in the Hamgyo˘ng dialect but [t@w@] in the standard dialect. As another example, in the standard dialect palatalisation is normal but in the Phyo˘ng’yang dialect palatalisation does not take place: kathi ‘together’ is pronounced as [kachi] in the standard dialect but as [kathi] in the Phyo˘ng’yang dialect. Historically, both Hamgyo˘ng and Phyo˘ng’yang dialects reflect archaic forms. That is, in the nineteenth-century Yi Dynasty language the words t@p-and kathi were pronounced as they are pronounced in the Hamyo˘ng and Phyo˘ng’yang dialects; and the pronunciation of these words in the standard dialect reflects this historical change. The Korean language spoken before the fifteenth century is not well known because

there are not many records or documents revealing how the language was used before the fifteenth century. It was in the fifteenth century that the alphabetic script (Han’gu˘l) for writing Korean was invented by King Sejong. Before the Korean script was invented, only Chinese characters were used for the purpose of writing. But Chinese characters could not depict the living language spoken by Korean people, since Chinese characters were meaning-based and the grammar of classical Chinese did not have any connection with Korean grammar. Even after the Korean script was invented, Chinese characters were continuously used as the main means of writing until the twentieth century. In traditional Korean society, the learning and study of Chinese characters and classical Chinese were entirely monopolised by a small class of elite aristocrats. For average commoners, the time-consuming learning of Chinese characters was not only a luxury but also useless, because they were busy making a living and knowledge of Chinese characters did not help in improving their lives. The use of Chinese characters imported a massive quantity of loanwords into the

Korean lexicon. More than half of Korean words are Chinese-originated loanwords. Although Chinese loanwords and Korean-originated words have always coexisted, the Chinese loanwords came to dominate the original Korean words and subsequently many native Korean words completely vanished from use. A movement by people who wanted to restore native culture at the end of the nineteenth century tried to stimulate mass interest in the study of the Korean language. When the government proclaimed that the official governmental documents would be written both in Korean script and in Chinese characters, the first newspapers and magazines were published in Korean script and the use of the Korean alphabet expanded. In the early twentieth century, more

were Korean grammar books. However, the active study of Korean grammar was discontinued owing to the Japanese colonial policy suppressing the study of Korean. The study of the Korean language resumed after the end of World War II, but Korea

was divided into two countries by the Big Powers. The language policies proposed and implemented by the two governments in the South and the North were different from each other. While both the Korean alphabet and Chinese characters were used in the South, only the Korean alphabet was used in the North. In the North the policy on the use of Chinese characters has been firm: that is, no instruction in Chinese characters has been given to students and Chinese characters are not used in newspapers, magazines or books. This policy has never been changed in the North. Contrary to this, in the South the policy on the instruction of Chinese characters has been inconsistent; whenever a new regime has come to power, both proponents and opponents of the use of Chinese characters have tried to persuade the government to adopt their views. Though the instruction of Chinese characters was abolished a couple of times by the government in the past, this abolition never lasted more than a few years. At the present time in the South, the government has adopted a policy to teach 1,800 basic Chinese characters to students, but each school decides whether Chinese characters are taught in their schools. The South and the North also have different policies on the so-called ‘purification’ of

Korean. The purification of Korean means the sole use of native Korean words in everyday life by discontinuing the use of foreign-originated words. The main targets of this campaign are Sino-Korean words. In the North, the government has been actively involved in this campaign, mobilising newspapers and magazines to spread the newly translated or discovered pure Korean words to a wide audience of readers. In the South, some interested scholars and language study organisations have tried to advocate the purification of Korean through the media and academic journals, but the government has never officially participated in this kind of movement. It will be interesting to see what course each of the two governments will take in future with respect to language policy.