Korean annotation methods are divided into Chinese characters and Korean. Chinese characters are ideographic characters, while Korean is phonemic characters. The ancient Korean people didn't have their own characters for a long time, so they used Chinese characters to record and express Korean in history. However, due to the natural differences between Korean and Chinese languages, and the huge number of Chinese characters, Chinese characters cannot completely record and express Korean, and ordinary people have no chance to learn culture. Until King Sejong of the Korean dynasty created Korean, the invention of Korean did not exclude Chinese characters. In the process of creating Korean language, Korean scholars went to Liaodong 13 times to ask Huang Zan, a scholar of Hanlin in Ming Dynasty who was in exile there, about phonology and pronunciation. However, South Korea encountered resistance from all sides from the beginning. At that time, Cui Wanli and other scholars put forward: "Giving up Chinese characters and using proverbs violates respecting China's thought and is equivalent to admitting that you are uncivilized." The announcement about Korean, Training Andrew, was officially promulgated in the third year after the invention of Korean. In ancient Korea, ancient books and documents were basically recorded in Chinese characters. Korean has been boycotted for a long time since it came into being. It was not until the beginning of19th century that it really became a national character at the initiative of nationalists. At that time, Korean also used Chinese characters, which were called Chinese characters. Later, Chinese characters gradually withdrew from the mainstream Korean characters. At present, Korean is the main written language in Korea, and Chinese characters are only auxiliary characters. Chinese characters in Korean include three parts. The first is the Chinese characters in the Central Plains. After Chinese characters were introduced into the peninsula, they were mainly borrowed. Later, China's influence expanded and a large number of ancient Chinese characters were introduced. It is generally believed that the time is around the 4th-6th century AD. Although Korean gradually replaced Chinese characters in modern times, Chinese characters in Korean are irreplaceable. Most Chinese characters in Korean come from ancient Chinese, such as "Hou" for a station, "Book" for a book and "Lamp" for a wine glass. Moreover, because there are relatively few pronunciations in Korean, only one Korean corresponds to several Chinese characters, so it is often impossible to distinguish the meanings of some homonyms only in Korean, and it is easy to confuse them completely in Korean. Some words don't know their exact names unless they are marked with Chinese characters. Therefore, in the hundreds of years after the emergence of Korean characters, Chinese characters are still the main language form on the Korean Peninsula. Later, Chinese characters and Korean were mixed, Chinese characters were used for writing and the rest were used in Korean. This mixed writing form has gradually become the mainstream of the general writing form on the Korean Peninsula. However, before Japan occupied the Korean peninsula in 19 10, Chinese characters were still used in the production of official documents, classics and imperial examinations. Second, Chinese characters originated from Japan. In modern East Asia, Japan was the earliest civilized country. Many new Chinese characters were created by Japanese groups and spread to China and the Korean Peninsula at the same time. In addition, in the process of long-term use of Chinese characters, Koreans also recorded or combined some Chinese characters that were not used in China and Japan. Due to the long-term influence of Chinese character culture, there are still nearly 50% Chinese characters in modern Korean. Although Chinese characters have withdrawn from the main writing stage of Korean, they are still auxiliary characters in Korean. As a common language in ancient East Asia, Chinese characters will still influence Korean. In addition, there is a tendency to increase western-style loanwords in modern Korean, which is also in line with the characteristics of Korean phonetic language.
The origin of Korean
Ancient Koreans did not have their own writing. Language is like air. People use it in all aspects of their lives. Modern people can hardly imagine the pain without their own words. Just as Latin surpassed Mandarin in medieval Europe, Chinese characters were widely used in Japan, Vietnam and Southeast Asian countries. So it is not surprising that Chinese characters are used on the Korean peninsula. However, it should be noted that people on the peninsula did not speak Chinese at that time, but Korean, and Korean and Chinese were not languages of the same language family. They just recorded their national language with the help of Chinese characters. Therefore, it often happens that Chinese characters cannot completely and accurately express Korean. Anyone who has studied some Korean will find that although Korean has a large number of Chinese characters, it is still very different from Chinese. The reason is that Chinese is an independent language of Sino-Tibetan language family, while Korean is a cohesive language of Altai language family, and there are great differences between them in grammar.
At first, people tried to express Korean with Chinese characters, and some compromise methods such as "loanword labeling" appeared. At that time, the Chinese level of the upper ruling class was much higher than that of the lower officials. Because of the limited Chinese characters of junior officials, they often use this combination of two languages to express the correct meaning of official documents. The essence of this method is to add function words such as group words to Chinese characters and adjust the word order to express them. Because Chinese characters are a writing system created to mark Chinese, it is very inappropriate to mark Korean, which is completely different from Chinese. So people have been trying to mark Korean with Chinese characters since the Three Kingdoms period in Korea. Finally, they found two ways to mark Korean. One way is to abandon the ideographic function of Chinese characters and use the phonetic function of Chinese characters. For example, borrow the word "ancient" to mark the pronunciation of Korean, regardless of the meaning of the word itself? 7? 9 ".The second method is to give up the phonetic function of Chinese characters and write Korean characters only with the ideographic function of Chinese characters. For example, in Silla era, the word "water" was used to represent Korean words? 0? 5 ".The same method can also be used to mark names and places. The research work of marking Korean with Chinese characters has never stopped. The most important methods are oath system and formal reading system. The oath writing system combines the arrangement of Chinese characters with the language order of Silla, that is, the romanization of Chinese characters. The official reading system is a grammatical supplement to the oath writing system to make the context clearer. It is speculated that the official reading system formed a complete system around the 7th century.
Although this peculiar way has a certain vitality and continues to develop, it is difficult to ensure the integrity and efficiency of expressing Korean in Chinese characters. Because there are many words in Korean that are difficult to describe correctly with the sound or meaning of Chinese characters, and it is common for a Chinese character to have multiple meanings. At the same time, the Chinese level of the ruling class has gradually improved, resulting in a smaller and smaller scope of use of "loanwords".
This separation of spoken and written language makes the ruling class feel very inconvenient, but it is conducive to maintaining its dominant position. Because only the ruling class can learn Chinese and take the imperial examinations, which is the guarantee for determining political status and enjoying various economic benefits. Therefore, creating a language that ordinary people can easily learn was unimaginable at that time and was not recognized by the mainstream society. From this point of view, Sejong created a unique national character-Korean for the convenience of ordinary people, which is also an epoch-making pioneering work from the political point of view.
In this context, Sejong knew that the creation of new characters would definitely arouse the dissatisfaction and opposition of the ruling class. So he is working on this great project in secret. Sejong is said to have put a lot of energy into this matter. Many history books say that Sejong himself created Korean, at least Sejong himself participated in this matter. Sejong is an unprecedented wise monarch on the Korean peninsula. Sejong was also an outstanding scholar who was able to create Korean at that time. Why is Sejong so keen on creating Korean? Maybe it's because he personally presided over the project, and he accomplished the task brilliantly.
Training Andrew (Korean) was founded in 1443 (the 25th year of Sejong) 65438+February, and was widely distributed in China on 1446 (the 28th year of Sejong), which is original and scientific in marking Korean. There is a strong correlation between letters and phonemes. "If the letter? 9? 6 "means that the tongue touches the upper wall of the mouth. "The letter? 9? 9 "and letters"? 9? 6 "It's all tongue sounds, but the pronunciation is stronger, so now"? 9? 6 "Draw letters on it"? 9? 9"。 Other letters? 9? 3 ? 9? 9', '? 9? 9 ? 9? 0 ? 9? 1', '? 9? 3 ? 9? 6', '? 9? 5 ? 9? 8 ? 9? 2' is also created according to this phonetic principle. Although Korea has created its own writing system, among the two classes of the ruling class in Korea, Chinese characters are still preferred. It was not until the 20th century that the phonetic symbol system of Xunmin Andrew began to be widely used.