Questions tagged [history-of-korean]
Questions related to older stages and the historical development of the Korean language (both speech and writing).
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What is earliest known usage of 불교의 만자 in Korea?
There are many Buddhist temples with the usage of 불교의 만자, but I can't find any informaiton about where the oldest symbol is.
The book by Thomas Wilson addresses the history (pre-history) but does not ...
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85 views
Does foreknowledge of Cantonese, rather than Mandarin, assist you more in learning Korean?
This r/korean comment answers my question as "yes", but it contains factual errors like "Cantonese is also much closer to Middle Chinese than Mandarin is". This r/linguistics ...
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135 views
Historical Text: how to translate domesticated animals 謂牛馬雞犬
Sources of old Korean history tell the story of a monk named Won Gwang Beopsa who was approached by two youth, Gwisan and Chwihang. They ask him for advice, and he gives them five rules. Gwisan is ...
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165 views
Why are 댜 뱌 챠 탸 퍄 햐 됴 툐 not used?
I am learning Hangeul and found this image on the Internet (I cannot locate the original source):
It seems like some of the syllable blocks are greyed out, which I think means it's not used. There's ...
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3answers
807 views
Unusual hangeul syllables in 1920's handwritten Korean?
(This is a question about handwritten Korean, I don't have enough reputation to create a new tag for handwriting.)
My Korean grandfather's notebook contains a chronology of the places he went while ...
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99 views
Is Hongik Ingan Eumdok 음독 or Hundok 훈독?
Hongik Ingan is the unofficial motto of Korea. I think it must be Eumdok 음독 (phonetic) rather than Hundok 훈독 (semantic), because it is so short (4 characters just like the Hanja "弘益人間"), and because ...
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1answer
172 views
Has [ʕ] ever been present in Korean?
I noticed that whenever I say 낳아, whose standard pronunciation is [나아], ㅎ assimilates to [ʕ] rather than vanishing.
The exact same phenomenon occurs whenever I say 쌓아 or 닿아. I presume I add [ʕ] to ...
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1answer
423 views
Why do some hanja characters have multiple hangul?
I found that some hanja words have multiple equivalent hangul. For example,
력 and 역량 (力 and 力量)
(I could not come up with other words but there were more such words but once I find I will add more)
...
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2answers
227 views
Can someone explain about 온(溫)?
I was reading a comic but then come this part about this region... i found it on korean dict but don't quite understand:
우리나라 성(姓)의 하나. 본관은 경주(慶州), 금구(金溝), 청주(淸州) 등 10여 본이 현존한다.
Or you can give me ...
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527 views
Accurate quote of 훈민정음 Hunminjeongeum
On this website I find this quote of King Sejong the Great:
“Being of foreign origin, Chinese characters are incapable of capturing uniquely Korean meanings. Therefore, many common people have no way ...
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1answer
359 views
Are some sounds more pleasing to the ear, like ㄴ and ㅁ?
I notice that many honorifics have similar consonant sounds when spoken. For example, the ~ㅂ/습니다 conjugation and the ~님 noun ending (e.g., in 선생님, 사장님, 아버님) have the ㄴ and ㅁ sounds when spoken.
Are ...
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1answer
980 views
두음법칙 - When did North and South diverge in pronunciation of initial ㄹ?
According to Wikipedia, North and South Korean treat word-initial ㄹ in Sino-Korean vocabulary differently:
In South Korea, ㄹ is silent in initial position before /i/ and /j/, pronounced [n] before ...
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1answer
71 views
The relationship between attributive adjective postposition(관형격 조사)'ㅅ' in medival Korean language and 사이시옷 in modern Korean language
Though it is just a guess, is there any historical relationship between attributive adjective postposition(관형격 조사)'ㅅ' in medival Korean language and 사이시옷 in modern Korean language?
Attributive ...
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1answer
282 views
Why do the consonants ㄱ, ㄷ, and ㅅ have irregular names?
Unlike other consonants such as ㄴ(니은), ㄹ(리을), ㅁ(미음) where their names have the form of (Consonant + ㅣ) + (ㅡ + Consonant), the names of ㄱ(기역), ㄷ(디귿), ㅅ(시옷) are slightly different. Are there any ...
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2k views
Etymology of Native Korean Numbers and Related Words
So I collected some native Korean numbers and their old forms into a few columns. The last two are words specifically for days.
The Roots column is what I observe to be common across the row, not ...
4
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1answer
218 views
Which archaic Hangul letters/sequences were only used for transcribing Chinese?
The Wikipedia article on Hangul states that
There are numerous obsolete letters, as well as a number of sequences that are no longer used. Some of these were only ever used for transcribing ...
2
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1answer
155 views
What was the original value of syllable-initial ᆼ (ㆁ)?
What was the original value of syllable-initial ᆼ?
ᆼ (whose archaic form was ㆁ, not the other ᆼ that it was conflated with and that is truly zero) represents zero in modern Korean syllable-initially, ...
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1answer
1k views
How widely spoken was Korean during the Japanese occupation?
During the Japanese occupation of Korea in the first half of the 20th century, how widely spoken was Korean, and how widely spoken was Japanese?
How quickly after WWII did Japanese get relegated to ...
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1answer
159 views
Why are ㅅ ㅆ pronounced as a stop when they are in the 받침?
I can understand why when ㄷ ㅌ ㅊ and ㅈ are in the 받침 since they require a stop to be pronounced, but I don't understand why when ㅅ or ㅆ are in the 받침, they are pronounced as a stop since they don't ...
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2k views
When did writing Hangul left-to-right become more common?
My impression from seeing old documents is that Hangul was originally written vertically (top-to-bottom, in 'lines' that run right-to-left). Is this correct? If so, when did it start becoming more ...
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What is the significance of the Korean voting stamp?
When voting at an election, Koreans mark their ballots with a specially shaped stamp. Does this stamp have any significance related to the Korean language?
The stamp is shaped like a "peace" symbol ...
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1answer
480 views
Is Korean an official language in South Korea?
This ad for courses in Korean says that Korean is an official language in South Korea (and North Korea inter alia), and the English language edition of Wikipedia also states that, but doesn't have any ...
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1answer
530 views
Chronology of orthography before and after the separation of North and South Korea
In another question some differences in orthography between North and South Korea were treated.
But more precisely, what is the chronology of orthography changes in Korean before the separation in the ...
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3answers
2k views
Does standard Korean still contain any signs of being a tonal language?
This answer mentions that some dialects have tones even in modern Korean, but I've always assumed that standard Korean is essentially a non-tonal language. However, I've read in this source that this ...
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2answers
462 views
Is it true that government intervention is partly responsible for a decline in hanja usage?
The Wikipedia article on Hangul states that
Beginning in the 1970s, hanja began to experience a gradual decline in
commercial or unofficial writing in the South due to government
intervention......
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3answers
2k views
How does 15th Century Hangul writing/type differ from modern Hangul?
Foreign visitors to Korea will often become quickly familiar with the look of early Hangul documents and prints, as (being rather attractive!) they are often used for decorative purposes. Nevertheless,...