I confess that I’m one of those Orientalists who really loves the characters used in the Chinese, Korean, and Japanese. There have been many voices (e.g.) over the last century or so who have argued for the complete romanization of East Asia’s languages and Korean nationalists (as well as those who claim they only oppose use of Hanja for purely rational or anti-elitist educational goals) have come a long way in championing the widespread use of Hangul (한글) at the expense of Hanja (漢字).
I am really not interested in getting sucked into the debates about efficiency, literacy, etc. that reduce the question of whether to continue to use these characters to a raw utilitarian cost/benefit analysis. I will say that my fascination with these characters is not because, as a non-Asian, I somehow feel like my years of studying the languages of this region have either a) granted me privileged access to some kind of a secret magical code or b) would be completely wasted if the entire region abandoned the characters tomorrow.
I honestly believe there is an amazing beauty to the writing system, and I marvel at way that very different languages (all the dialects of Chinese, Korean, Japanese, and once upon a time Vietnamese) have incorporated their use and comprise, or at least potentially comprise, a written language bloc (a 漢字圈). My attraction to this idea is perhaps ironic because I am also an opponent to the formation of an “East Asian community” on any significant institutional level (but that is another story).
So here I am in Korea this year and, as a lover of Hanja, I silently curse the reformers as I try to make my way through academic history books or newspaper articles trying to guess the character compounds “hidden” behind many of the unfamiliar 한글 words. I thus far more enjoy reading books and newspapers published a few decades ago than those published recently, before the gradual Hanja attrition set in, or reading North Korean archival documents written before around 1948, when Hanja quickly drops out of use. And it must be at least one reason why I get an occasional kick out of the very conservative newspaper Chosun Ilbo (朝鮮日報) even though my politics are often much closer to the Hangul-only newspaper 한겨레.
Chosun Ilbo is also almost all Hangul these days, but one gets the distinct impression that they really think Hanja is cool, or at least, kinda neat. I feel like their writers are begging to tell everybody, “Hey look, look at how the character for Japan is a sun, and the character for the United States is the character for beauty,” or “Look how I can put the character for ‘war’ in all kinds of political contexts!” The characters stand out in a headline, even if it takes just the same amount of space to use the Hangul equivalent. Though the context would usually make it clear what was meant without Hanja, the use of the Hanja make certain words stand out and avoids the need to look twice or pause to guess the meaning, almost as if those words were in bold.
Sometimes Chosun Ilbo likes to go wild and use four character compounds for their leading headlines. Yesterday’s issue of the newspaper had the headline “與多野多” (Many from the ruling party and many from the opposition) for an article discussing the fact that there are multiple contenders still in the ring for the upcoming December presidential election from both the conservative and ruling progressive political camps. However, that four character compound doesn’t really have a deep historical ring for me (does it for anyone else?).
One of my favorites, however, was in a headline a few weeks ago: 以朴制昌 which means “To use Park [Geun-hye] to control [Lee Hoi-]Chang” (They probably used the character for Chang 昌 since both leading conservatives running have the last name Lee/Yi 李) Below the headline was a short explanation for some of readers who may not have gotten the meaning: “박근혜와 연대해 이회창 제압” and unlike the paper version of the newspaper, the online versions of the article and other articles which used the compound sometimes put the Hangul before the Hanja or ditch the Hanja altogether (less faith in the Hanja-reading skills of the internet generation perhaps?).
Park, is the daughter of Korea’s military dictator Park Chung-hee (reigned from 1961-1979) famous for a regime of political oppression, torture, and, no one forgets to mention, economic growth. She fought and lost in the primaries against the current front runner Lee Myung-bak to represent the conservatives in the election. Now Lee Hoi-Chang, another staunch conservative who had once vowed to stay out of this election, has split the conservative vote and Chosun Ilbo was hoping in early November that Park would quickly defuse this challenge from the right with her considerable political weight. While she did eventually weigh in with a statement, Lee Hoi-Chang is still in the race.
What makes 以朴制昌 cute and gives away the newspaper’s love for an old-fashioned classical education is that it is a play on the old Chinese idiom “using barbarians to control other barbarians” (以夷制夷). This kind of playing with character compounds that echoes an idiom, slogan, or historical event is really common in Chinese, Taiwanese, and to a lesser extent Japanese newspapers, not to mention writing I have come across in all East Asian works aimed at an educated audience, but I admit that I enjoy it when Korean newspapers also join in the game. This may be on the decline, however, as classical references and Hanja compounds increasingly generate either the Korean equivalent of a, “Huh?” or scare away the youth who hate to read a newspaper that plays geeky language games that their grandfather thinks are funny. Ah, kids today.
With a quick dictionary search, here are a few compounds in Chinese that use this pattern:
以暴制暴 yǐbàozhìbào f.e. Violence must be met by violence.
以華制華[-华-华] yǐhuázhìhuá f.e. play off one group of Chinese against the other
以快制高 yǐkuàizhìgāo f.e. 〈sport〉 play fast against tall players
以禮制軍[-礼-军] yǐlǐzhìjūn f.e. discipline the army according to propriety
以夷制夷 yǐyízhìyí f.e. play off one foreign power against another
A few more that appear with a google wildcard search: 以静制动, 以”动”制冻, 以柔制快 , 以毒制毒
Looks like a character based Snowclone!
Snowclone – brilliant – I always learn something new from your comments Kerim!
Hi (new here, but I like reading your posts over at the Well),
I feel like my generation lost out in the transition from Chinese inserted news to the current Korean only news. Back when I was in junior high school, I could still read the news with Chinese mixed in, and it was a nice gauge for me, to see if I was grown-up enough, learned enough, to pick up more of the Chinese. Even in high school, I remember cutting out editorials and looking up the Chinese, but Hankyureh was the cool newish Korean only newspaper that had better politics (this was the early nineties).
So it’s nostalgia (mixed in with rusty ignorance) that I stumble over a bit of Hanja these days.
Though I do admit, it’s like playing the violin when you’re little. You still like listening to it when you’re older, and maybe you’ll pick it up again. :-)
Thanks for your wonderful comment on your own experience and from it I can see we are roughly from the same generation – though in the early 90s far from looking up Chinese characters, I was being frequently chided for not studying at all in high school.
Hi,
Thanks for the thoughtful posts here and at the Frog in a Well. I really enjoy reading them. I think I saw you at least once or twice at parties hosted by the Asia centre or by EALC though I didn’t have a chance back then to introduce myself. To speak of myself a bit more, I was in Tokyo last year and am in Beijing this year until next June. It seems that you are the person who introduced the place at Kichijoji to Matt, aren’t you? I enjoyed staying in Japan with Matt living nearby.
As a Korean who happaned to like Chinese characters from rather early days and eventually study Chinese history, I have so much to talk about the current situation in Korea about Hangul and Hanja. Here are my 2 cents.
The situation is way more complicated than it looks though. First and foremost, however, I think the popular belief (which I think is not totally unfounded) in the amazing easiness of Hangul and “terrible” difficulty of Hanja lies at the heart of popular resistance to the use of Hanja in daily life. It might be hard to make this point to foreigners WHO HAVE BEEN PREVIOUSLY EXPOSED TO THE WORLD OF CHINESE CHARACTERS. If one knows the word “guojia” or “kokka”, he/she doesn’t have to bother to figure out what “국가” means as long as it is written in Hanja. Otherwise, one has to look into one’s still limited Korean vocabulary and go through a kind of inventory work until they come to the right word. There are literally numurous examples, so I don’t try to list more. But for those younger generations who grow up in Korea, it is not that terribly hard to understand what a certain word or expression means even if it is written entirely in Korean and they have no clue at all about their “original” characters in Hanja. Of course, there are some people who try to expand the scope of vernacular Korean words and expressions in daily use. But the vast majority of anti-Hanja-ists in Korea do use tons of Hanja-based expressions, sometimes really archaic and sophisticated ones, without knowing how to read them not to mention how to write in Hanja. People use, for example, phrase like “적반하장(賊反荷杖)” on daily basis when they feel like saying something close to “Look who’s talking,” of course without knowing the characters and its original meaning. Likewise, many Koreans who don’t know how to write “original” in English frequently use “오리지날” Let’s say that it is learning from the context. On the one hand, it certainly is a very efficient way of learning. On the other hand, however, this is why there can be often ludicrous mistakes in some Korean’s language use.
Well, many younger generation (especially female) people (sorry for sounding like a sexist. This is completely based on my rather limited experience. So, feel free to ignore it if this offends you) who want to be/look well-educated seem to feel obliged to know as many English words/expressions as possible even if they don’t mix them imprudently with Korean in their daily life. But Hanja is a whole different story. To many of them, it is nothing but an extremely difficult system with very little use. And it doesn’t look cool either! duh. This is why you can find anti-Hanja-ist not only among outspoken and more often vague nationalists but also among rather sophisticated cosmopolitans in Korea.
Second, there is a problem of the infrastructure of Hanja/Hangul education. No Han-Han dictionary comparable to the Morohashi is available in Korea. OK, some may want to say, why bother to have such a dictionary? But, more seriously, no Korean dictionary comparable to OED or Nihon gokugo dai jiten is available either. To my knowledge, 3-volume Korean dictionary might be the most thorough one, still. In other words, Hanja has not been cleaned up from the streets and put into a museum of the past as a neatly organized package while Hangul has yet to be “developed” and classified to stand on its own. I don’t believe I am a conservative and don’t want to look like a one. But the current situation/ascendancy of anti-Hanja sentiment in Korea is sad and undesirable indeed not because we are losing our shining “tradition” but simply because we are missing the rich and more sophisticated experience that can originate from a correct use of our language.
One thing I came to realize through my painful preparation for the GRE exam back in 2000 is that American education puts a right emphasis on the correct use of their language. Have you ever seen ANY Korean who is looking up or memorizing Korean equivalents of “Word Smart” or something?
Well, I have to go now. Sorry for this untidy comments. I didn’t mean to write this long when I began…
I think resistance against Hanja is further complicated with the Chinese nationalists having claims on Korean history. The notion is that not using Hanja is like severing the last bits of historical memories of Korea being a tributary state to China.
Also, things like Word Smart, imo, are a poor way to learn use of a language, but that it is there to help iron out any deficiencies in the basics (either from poor schooling or immigrants who lack experience).
This is evident as though it may help one not lose ‘marks’ for some English test, it also hampers creative word usage; it is quite painful to see these days how metaphors/similes are so bluntly expressed.
Thus, I actually like the flexibility one has with Hangul, it’s just a shame that creative literature isn’t really taught that well in classrooms.
I know this an old post, but Lee Sukhee in #5 is incorrect to say, ‘No Han-Han dictionary comparable to the Morohashi is available in Korea’. It seems this monster, which I’ve had the pleasure to use, will dwarf them all when finished :
한한대사전(漢韓大辭典)
http://news.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2008/01/09/2008010900050.html
Also, the 표준국어대사전 (標準國語大辭典), the largest Korean dictionary, is excellent. I have my own beautifully made three-volume set, but it’s available on-line here:
http://www.korean.go.kr/08_new/index.jsp
Regarding the history of Korean dictionaries, read ‘우리말의 탄생’ by 최경봉.
Thanks FD. Of course I knew the publication of 한한대사전 by Dankook University. But when I wrote the above comment, it was not been completed and has yet to be completed. 한한대사전 is a combined translation of the Morohashi which contains fewer words and Hanyu da cidian which has no proper nouns. Yes, when finished, it will provide many Koreans and some foreigners who bother to read Korean with a handy access to the world of classical Chinese characters and expressions. The real tour de force of the compilation committee of Dankook University is 한국한자어사전 (韓國漢字語辭典 Dictionary of Classical Chinese Words used in Korean works) in four (five?) volumes.
I also agree with the use of hanja. I also think that they are cool, but very important. It is true that you may read a word with lots of meanings, and understand it by the context. But most people, not only in Korean, but in European languages to, get to use many words or phrases, without knowing the real meaning. This is like saying a word, and you know what it means, in a context, but still, you may wonder: “Why do we say xxxx?” “we know what we´re trying to say, but what does it really means?”.
This may sound as a child-like question, but if you want a complete knowledge of the language, you must know the answer to this and many other questions,
One example would be like saying a word with a latin root, and you may have an idea of the meaning, but the real one may not be the same.
This knowledge is kind of useless in western languages, but in a language like Korean, all the Sino-korean words can end like this, with little knowledge of what you are saying.
At least with hanja we can do that. Not only for this reason, but also because Chinese characters give a special identity to East Asia, even if a language already has its own script, like Kana in Japanese, and Hangul in Korean.
Thanks Ivan, we certainly share opinions on this issue!
You guys miss the big picture.
1) Koreans used Chinese characters like English used latin, greek, french, german. ( Vocabulary usage). Its true Korean-Chinese (vocabulary is about 60 percent). Korean-Korean vocabulary is about 40 percent.
2) Korean alphabet ” Hangul” or ” chosunmal” was invented to create simple/practical language without using or depending on Chinese characters. Main Reason: Korean Unity. ( People, land, language, and culture).
3) Koreans can function without using Chinese characters unlike Japanese.
4) Korean newspaper headline is written Chinese characters sometimes not always.
5) Korean Identity: Koreans never has been Chinese.
6) Korea has about 160,000 thousand ( Overseas Chinese) including Shangdong Province Han-People and Taiwanese Han-People. Overseas Chinese might have different opinions regarding to Chinese character usage but they are not Koreans or majority population. Overseas chinese living in korea represent less then 1 percent of Korean populations.
7) Korean should not use chinese characters. Past 600 years. Koreans had no difficulty speaking and writing Korean.
8) Koreans should keep the language simple and practical. If Chinese or Japanese have difficulty understanding Korean ” Hangul or Chosunmal” they should learn Korean alphabet. Very simple and direct language compared to curves and waves like Chinese.
9) Koreans Identity always will be not becoming Chinese. Koreans are opposite of Chinese. Koreans are proud of the fact.
10) Koreans use Chinese characters like latin.
If you so fascinated toward Chinese characters. What would English speaker say about ” Latin” dependence. You would probably hear negative remarks. Yes, Koreans should not use Chinese characters. Better yet leave out the Chinese characters in Korean language.
First@ Muninn, you write a very good bloc, it’s so wonderful to read about. I am also very impressed about your language skills in Korean and Chinese.
@Korea4one, I have to say, English and German belong to the same language branche and both derived from Latin and Greek Roots, thats also the reason, why these both languages have sometimes very similiar words with the same meaning, but also a lot of false friends, you could also link it up with French, beacause same is there. Intersting fact in French is, which I didn’t knew before is, that French has still some grammar rules, which directly derived from Latin and still is used in the writing. So after all, yes it would be good if more western people would know more about greek or latin, as it is the same wish, which have western foreigner for the Japanese, Korean and Chinese.
Also the fact, that Japanese would not work well without the Kanji is not exactly right, beacause if Japanese would make space between words, and just juse Hiragana and Katakana, you would become the same system as it is in Korea, or the western language.
And it does work, see just the beginner textbooks which are very common written in Romaji and then with one sylable system Hiragana, and think about the Japanese school pupils, who don’t know at the beginning the Kanji and have to learn.
I for myself, who is still studying the three Asian languages (CJK), would prefer the Hanja, beacause you can make the same link, which you can make in the western languages. My mother language is German (Swiss!) but I also speak French, English and even Polish as a second mothertounge, so I know what I am talking about.^^,
At last, about the Hanja, I prefer them and it really helps me for a better understanding not only for the Korean, but it brings also an interesting view to Chinese and Japanese. Despite this, I read in the Internet on Epoch Times, that South Korea organizes sometimes a conference, and in the latest, South Korea made the suggestion, to make a standard rule for the Hanzi/Hanja/Kanji Usage, which means, they want a list with about 5000 words from all three languages (CJK) and make a writing standard in the chinese characters.
This is an old post, I realise, but the author was curious about the compound 與多野多.
This is a variant on the much-used formula 與小野大 or 與大野小, describing the relative sizes of the ruling party and the opposition (in the National Assembly, for example). When quantities (number of candidates, campaign funds, etc.) are to be compared, the forms 與少野多 and 與多野少 are heard. 與多野多 would be a playful variant of this.
There are a number of compounds following the same pattern that can’t possibly date back to the pre-modern period, like 投高打低 and 打高投低, describing the relative strengths of pitching (投) and hitting (打) in baseball.
I’m fluent in Chinese and I am sad that Koreans have abandoned hanja… This is for purely personal rather than academic reasons. It was relatively easy for me to learn Japanese but learning Korean has a much steeper (I feel unnecessarily) learning curve. It would have made mine (and most Chinese-fluent folks) lives easier to learn Korean. This is especially true when watching movies and dramas showing Korean in the 1970’s and earlier when hanja was very prominent in everyday life.
Korea4one, I want to answer to your comment. The fact Korean language works without people knowing hanja is completely true. Yet Korean culture developed, for thousands of years, using hanja first, then hanja with hangul. Hanja have been replaced for nationalist reasons, not really for practical reasons. Japan also thought about replacing kanji after the war, but they did not because it would be a practical problem.
Of course we have to define “practical problem” in here. You say that Korean language is functional without hanja and it’s true. The same could be said of Japanese which would work well without kanji. BUT, there would be a loss in meaning, a loss in culture, and a loss in the ability of the people to read the country’s history.
You write that Latin is not used anymore in western countries. Which is true. But comments against the learning of Latin, for example, would mostly come from people who have a low culture. It could be argued that when Europe (and the west) was really growing to rule the world, the learned classes DID know Latin and Greek rather well, and the situation remained so until the 60’s and education reforms in many countries (I will go as far as tell you that those very – can I say – Marxist influenced – education reforms started a dumbing down of Western countries which I think is responsible for a part of the decline you will have noticed the West is suffering). Still, most people with an education in Europe and America would tell you that knowing Latin or Greek is a positive, not negative thing. I come from a country (not an English speaking country) where luckily, some schools still teach Latin from high school, and I am glad I had to learn Latin (as a kid I did complain about it). It’s much easier for me to learn a new language (learning English, a language with a very simple grammar, does not really develop you language abilities so much) and I can understand in part a written text in other latin languages like French or Spanish, even if I never studied those languages. Besides when in our travels around Europe we find inscriptions in churches or monuments, I can understand them, which is usually marvelled at, not frown upon like you in your overnationalistic reasoning imagine.
I think indeed Korea can work well with just hangul. I also think hangul is a wonderful script. On the other hand I think the decision to do away with hanja was a wrong one and that it will do some long term damage to korean culture (which however is so rich it will survive even without hanja). Japan was much wiser in its own decisions.
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