do you know? Some people in South Korea are strongly demanding that Chinese characters be put back into Korean. Isn't it good to use Korean ? Why do you want to do this? Today, let us talk about "Korean Chinese characters"! hiho~ Hello everyone, I am Zhiqi! Although you can hardly see Chinese characters on the streets of Korea now , in fact, Korea used a lot of Chinese characters in history. If you have watched ancient Korean dramas such as Dae Jang Geum, you will find that people in them all use Chinese characters when writing . Until today, Koreans’ names in Chinese characters are also written on their ID cards . However, apart from their names, Koreans generally rarely use Chinese characters. Today we are going to talk about the relationship between Koreans and Chinese characters. How did Chinese characters disappear in Korea? Why do some Koreans want to resurrect Chinese characters now? But before we start today’s discussion, let’s go into some business service time! [Why do Koreans use Chinese characters? 】 The grievances and hatred between Koreans and Chinese characters began 2000 years ago . In 100 BC, Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty conquered Korea and started China's rule over the northern part of the Korean Peninsula. From this time until the signing of the Treaty of Shimonoseki in 1895 North Korea is basically within the sphere of influence of the Chinese regime. Of course, there are some fluctuations in power. But for nearly two thousand years, North Korea can basically be said to be a "vassal state" of China, and the Chinese characters and Chinese culture from China are only It also affected the Korean Peninsula. For example, the Korean dynasty in the past dynasties almost regarded Chinese culture as "high-level culture." They not only imitated China in the political system , but also introduced the imperial examination system and regarded the "Four Books and Five Classics" as official examination subjects. Some literati Elegant scholars would also express themselves as being very cultured by spelling "Chinese poetry" . All these influences made Chinese characters deeply ingrained in Korean culture. Before the 15th century, there was basically no writing of its own . However, there was a problem here. Korea at that time If people still communicate in Korean and only use Chinese characters, how can they record what they usually say? In order to record the Korean language, people at that time invented the so-called "Xiangzha", "Lidu" and other methods . To put it simply, it is a bit like the empty ear method of directly finding a similar Chinese character to write Korean. However, this method is of course super troublesome. And because the grammar and pronunciation of Chinese are much different from Korean, it is very complicated and difficult for ordinary people to write. Therefore, the people who can read and write Chinese characters are almost only the upper class . The average person cannot use this problem. It was not until the 15th century that a solution was finally found [Why Korean Hanja Disappeared] In the 15th century, the fourth king of the Joseon Dynasty, "King Sejong the Great," created a simple and easy-to-learn writing system called "Hyungmun". This was the predecessor of modern "Korean". At the beginning, Hangul had 28 letters, which was a bit like using phonetic notation. Using symbols to spell out Korean allows everyone to use this system to write the language they speak . This is of course much more convenient than using Chinese characters to write Korean. It can also help popularize education for ordinary people , but because The ruling class at that time still admired Chinese culture very much and felt that abandoning Chinese characters in this way was tantamount to being an uncivilized barbarian , so they did not bother to use "Hanwen". Therefore, for a long time, "Hanwen" was mostly used by the lower class. The usage rate is not too high. Fast forward to the 20th century, when Japan colonized Korea, the status of "Hyeonmun" changed significantly. At that time, Korean intellectuals began to work very hard to promote "Hyeonmun" in order to resist the colonists . It was to popularize education to the general public, and secondly, it was also to flaunt the uniqueness of the Korean nation and build up the national spirit. After this period, the acceptance of Hangul greatly increased until the division of North and South Korea after the end of World War II. North Korea decided to completely abolish Chinese characters in 1949 , and South Korea also The "Law for the Exclusive Use of Hangul Language" was promulgated, stipulating that all official documents should be written in Korean. Only Chinese characters could be added next to them when necessary. In the 1960s, South Korea also launched the "Abolition of Chinese Characters Movement" to prevent Chinese characters from appearing in primary and secondary school textbooks . , today’s Korean young people cannot understand Chinese characters except for their own names if they don’t learn it specially . However, the entanglement between Korean and Chinese characters has not been cut off because of this [Do Koreans still use Chinese characters? 】 The frequency of use of Chinese characters by Koreans has continued to decline since the war. In the 1990s, Chinese characters have almost completely disappeared from newspapers and magazines. However, although Chinese characters are not used directly, Koreans still use some so-called "kanji words" in their language , which are also written in Chinese characters. According to the "Modern Mandarin Usage Frequency Survey" conducted by the "National Institute of Korean Language" in 2005, the proportion of Chinese characters in modern Korean is as high as 66%. This is why, when you watch Korean dramas, you sometimes I hear some words that sound very similar to Chinese or Taiwanese. Apart from Chinese characters, the other few Chinese characters that Koreans encounter in daily life are the "Chinese character names" marked on their ID cards. Why should they keep this? What about the name? The main reason is that there are so many "homonymous" names in Korea. If you don't add Chinese characters, it may be difficult to identify who is who. For example, "Jinyoung" from the Korean idol group GOT7 and "Jinyoung" from B1A4 have different names with Chinese characters. But the pronunciation is the same. You need to look at the Chinese characters to confirm who is talking about it. At this point, you may think of a question : If the name has homophones like this , won't other things not be the same? The answer is really knowing [Is it so troublesome to write Korean without Chinese characters? 】 Because Korean has many homophones , you usually need to see the context before you can judge what exactly you are talking about when using it, which sometimes inevitably causes misunderstandings and difficulties in understanding. For example, in Korean, "righteous man" and "physician" are both pronounced. As "Uisa", some students mistakenly think that "anti-Japanese martyrs" are "anti-Japanese doctors" when studying . In addition, there are also a very large proportion of Chinese characters in many Korean specialized books , especially those on medicine and law. If you don’t understand Chinese characters , it may also cause difficulty in understanding. Because of this, there are actually many people in South Korea who hope to introduce "Chinese character education" into the education system to resurrect Chinese characters . Those who advocate reviving Chinese characters believe that Chinese characters can not only promote learning and understanding. In addition, it also has cultural significance , because the ancient Korean texts are all written in Chinese characters. Not knowing Chinese characters means that you cannot understand the ancient texts at all, which will cause Koreans to be completely cut off from history and tradition. In addition, with the rise of China, South Korea also has many economic and trade exchanges with China. They believe that based on economic benefits, Koreans should also learn more Chinese characters to bring them closer to China. Those who advocate reviving Chinese characters are not a small minority. In addition to experts and scholars, they include several Koreans such as Kim Dae-jung and Park Geun-hye. The president is also a supporter of resurrecting Chinese characters. In 2014, the Ministry of Education of South Korea even issued an "Integrated Education Curriculum for Liberal Arts and Sciences" in the hope of reintroducing Chinese characters into textbooks for all primary school subjects starting in 2018. However, these ideas met with strong backlash. 【Oppose the resurrection of Chinese characters! 】 As mentioned earlier, South Korea originally wanted to promote Chinese character education again However, this policy has received fierce backlash from domestic "Korean language groups" and the education sector. These opponents believe that information can still be understood simply by using Korean , and it will not reduce students' understanding ability. Instead, asking primary school students to learn Chinese characters will aggravate school children's problems. The study burden even makes school children feel resistant to Chinese subjects, which in turn reduces their learning effectiveness. In addition, there are many opponents who believe that Korean is the pride of Koreans and should be well protected as a unique language. Now it is possible to mark Chinese characters on textbooks. It will give students the impression that "Korean is not good without the aid of Chinese characters" and make students think that Chinese characters are superior writing. Therefore, in just one week, nearly half of the professors of education universities in South Korea signed a statement of opposition, asking the government to withdraw the policy . In response to these objections, the Korean government originally wanted to step back and say, "Otherwise, it would be better to only introduce 300 Chinese characters!" However, it still aroused fierce protests from relevant groups , so this Chinese character education policy was not really implemented. After the transfer of South Korean power in 2018 However, the voices of support and opposition we mentioned above are mainly the opinions of relevant groups, experts and scholars. So how do ordinary Koreans see Chinese characters? [How do Korean people read Chinese characters? 】 The polling agency "Gallup Korea" once conducted a survey among adult Korean people on the issue of Chinese characters . The survey found that 46% of people think that "not knowing Chinese characters will cause inconvenience in life." It seems like a lot. However, this ratio was 70% in 2002 and 54% in 2014. It shows a very obvious downward trend. It means that more and more Koreans feel that they can’t do anything if they don’t know Chinese characters. But what’s interesting is that although about half of Koreans Although they think it would not be inconvenient to not have Chinese characters , as many as 78% of the respondents believe that Chinese character education should be implemented in primary and secondary schools! This result seems a bit contradictory. Some analysts will think that this means that although many people think that Chinese characters are difficult and even threaten the status of Korean, they still affirm the practical value of Chinese characters. Even if they do not support the "use" of Chinese characters, they also agree that school children at least We should "recognize" Chinese characters , and this contradictory result may also reflect the complex emotions of Koreans towards Chinese characters. [Our point of view] In this episode, when we looked at the information about Korean characters, we not only found the trivia interesting but also saw that Korea's "Chinese character education" "Controversy" actually feels quite visual. Although it is not exactly the same, the arguments of this controversy have many similarities with our "classical Chinese education issues." For example, when discussing the deletion of classical Chinese, the most powerful argument is that classical Chinese The argument that it will reduce students' willingness to learn is almost the same as in Korean education circles. Similarly , the arguments supporting classical Chinese and Korean Chinese characters also believe that these characters can enhance students' writing skills and will be more helpful for understanding , whether in Taiwan or in South Korea feels that there is a big gap between the two sides' stance on "usefulness" , and the key behind this may also be related to the issue of cultural identity , because words are not tools. The choice of words to use will reflect a person's cultural identity to some extent, making the whole issue change. To make things more complicated , from this point of view, the controversy over Chinese characters in South Korea may continue for a long time. So today I would like to ask everyone at the end, do you think it is possible for South Korea to use Chinese characters again in the future? Finally, if you like today's video, please share it to let more people know "Korean Chinese characters"! In addition, you can also click here to read the discussions on "The Origin of Simplified Chinese Characters" and "Controversy in Classical Chinese" . So, today's Zhiqi Qiqi comes to an end here . See you tomorrow night!
