I’m giving a presentation to my Korean class related to nationalism, and wanted to explain one translation of the word that is particularly strong and usually has a negative connotation: 국수주의(國粹主義). I want to explain the word by discussing its parts, especially the character 수(粹) which can be roughly translated as “essence.” For reference, I looked up the definition of the important compound 국수 in my Korean-Korean dictionary (동아 새국어사전 제4판). It has the following definition:
국수: 그 나라나 민족 고유의 정신상・물질상의 장점이나 아름다운 점.
To compare, I then looked up the same word in Japanese in the Japanese dictionary 広辞苑 which had the following definition:
国粋：その国家・国民に固有の、精神上・物質上の長所や美点
If you know Japanese and Korean you can see that these two definitions are, down to the order and specific wording, almost exactly same. It can be roughly translated as:
The spiritual and material virtues and strong points specific to a nation and its [people/race]
The only differences between the two definitions is that 1) the Japanese uses the word 国民 (nation; people; citizens) whereas in the same position, the Korean definition uses the word 민족(民族) which has a similar meaning but includes a kind of conception of race or ethnicity in it and as far as I know, cannot be used to merely refer to the citizens of a state. 2) The Korean uses 아름다운 점 for 美点 (good point; merit; virtue; beauty; excellence) when they could have used the same Chinese character compound 미점. However, the meaning is pretty much identical in either case.
While it is not surprising that a character compound like 国粋, which probably had either a Chinese predecessor (I haven’t bothered to look up its origin) or was a modern neologism from Japan is similarly defined in the dictionaries of the languages that adopted the compound. However, the similarity in word order and phrasing is really too close to be anything other than a direct copy. The question then is, who copied who? Or perhaps more likely, did the 広辞苑 and 새국어사전 take their definition from the same older source (the 諸橋 or something like it perhaps?)
June 19th, 2006 at 9:41
Hi, I’m happy to see you blog up and running again! I truly enjoy it. It is important to remember that in the pre-1911 Chinese context, “guo” and “guojia” often meant “dynasty” - that is the Qing dynasty. Thus for instance, “guoyu” meant Manchu, not Mandarin; “guoti” meant the prestige of the state or the dynasty. Although I don’t have ready access to the literature on this, it is not far-fetched to interpret “guocui” as the “essence of the dynasty” in propagandistic contexts. (It may even have a Manchu counterpart, but I wouldn’t bet on it.)
In Tokugawa Japan, by contrast the same ideogram, read “koku”, usually referred to the local province or domain. It was not until after the Meiji restoration that the Japanese started to use “koku” and its compounds as a terms referring to the nation state. A lot of Chinese nationalists in the late nineteentheth and early twentieth borrowed (or reappropritated) Sino-Japanese compounds with “koku” such as “kokusui”, “kokugaku”, “kokugo”, etc., infusing them with Han Chinese nationlist connotations. Where Korea fits into the picture I don’t know, but I wouldn’t be surpirsed if the Korean story shares many elements with its Chinese counterpart.
Just my two cents…
June 23rd, 2006 at 17:04
I seem to recall hearing that the first modern Korean dictionaries ripped off Japanese dictionaries in some way, but I can’t remember any more details. I think this was on a Korean news site in English, btw, not a Japanese site.. an article lamenting the state of the Korean dictionary industry. Anyway, that might explain the similiarities between the two definitions, if it’s true and you can find more information about it.
May 18th, 2007 at 2:58
It’s been a while, but the “ripping off” was chiefly the definitions for science terms, as many Western modern theories for the common man flowed through from Japan and thus, having had no experience in the specific idea, they simply translated the meaning presented from the Japanese.
However, for such an old word/idea, I’m quite sure it was taken from a Chinese text, as even today, when certain classical words or ideas are sought, it is a common practice to quote Chinese sources. I think it’s somewhat similar as to how in English, when we are looking at the etymology of a word to further understanding of the origins, we look to see if there is a similar Latin word which it was based on, except we don’t just simply copy that definition as the Japanese and Koreans have done.