In fact, there were many great poets in ancient Korea, such as Xu Yun, Li Qixian and Huang Zhenyi. Their poems are as good as those of the literati in the Central Plains. "Treating each other with sincerity, curling reflects the cold moon" is one of Xu Yun's famous sentences. But there were no great poets and literary works in the past 100 years.
The number of literary works in a country is related to many reasons, such as the country's language, history, nationality, politics and even geographical environment. Here, from a very important factor, the most basic elements of literary works-language and writing. The lack of excellent literary works in South Korea has a lot to do with the language and writing of this country, because phonography has a great disadvantage compared with the writing which is both phonetic and ideographic in terms of word formation, understanding, recording and dissemination. This is also why the civilizations of many countries or nations are short-lived, and some even have little information, which makes it difficult for civilizations to continue and develop.
Taking China as an example, the greatness of Chinese characters in China lies in their phonological, ideographic and figurative forms (the profoundness of Chinese characters in China is also an important reason why Chinese civilization can continue uninterrupted). China's Chinese characters (including all kinds of fonts from ancient times to the present) adopt the "six-character" method (pictographic, fingering, knowing, pictophonetic, transliteration, borrowing), which is conducive to recording and expressing, and is also convenient for people to understand and spread. (For example, the words "ox" and "sheep" were gradually simplified according to the specific animal images in Oracle Bone Inscriptions and the later ancient characters. For example, when the word "fu" was dismantled, it contained the simple desire of the ancients to have clothes and mouths. ). South Korea has always had a close relationship with China during the "Three Kingdoms Period" of Koguryo, Baekje and Silla. Various major events in history are intertwined, geographically adjacent to the inland and across the sea. Culturally, it is almost the same strain. Politically, it was a vassal state of the Central Plains Dynasty and an object of conquest. Therefore, all countries that have existed on the Korean peninsula have long used Chinese characters.
Lee Sejong, the fourth generation monarch of North Korea, ignored the strong opposition of two classes when he was in power (the imperial court and the former monarch of North Korea thought that North Korea had continued Chinese civilization or called itself "Little China"). Abolishing the popular Chinese characters in the Central Plains Dynasty is a barbarian practice, which is not conducive to the continuation and development of Korean culture. ) A phonography proverb, which was originally popular among the people, has been transformed and innovated to form today's Korean, and has been popularized throughout the country. Because Korean is composed of letters similar to Pinyin (easy to read, but difficult to remember and understand. Anyone who has studied Korean knows that you can spell Korean after learning phonetic symbols, but you have no idea what it means. Pronunciation, grapheme and meaning are not related or regular), but because of China's influence for too long and too deep, it is impossible to completely abandon Chinese characters. Until World War II, South Korea used Chinese and Korean mixed, but Korean was the main language. After World War II, nationalism reached its climax, and South Korea gradually abandoned Chinese mixed with Korean. In the park chung-hee era, the use of Chinese was officially banned in Korean, and Korean became so-called "pure".
Korean can only express sounds, but not meanings. An embarrassing thing happened in South Korea's National Assembly: the names of the 20th members of South Korea's National Assembly, Jin Chengtai and Jin Shengtai, are exactly the same in Korean, which is easy to confuse people. Later, I decided to write the name of one of them in Chinese characters to show the difference. It is for this reason that Koreans still keep the corresponding Chinese characters on their ID cards so as not to cause misunderstanding. Some netizens described this. Korean's current name can only be regarded as a code name, which is not only easy to confuse, but also loses the beautiful meaning behind it.
Therefore, Korean has been mixed with Chinese until now, emphasizing phonetic notation and ignoring the ideographic function of Chinese, which to a certain extent makes Korean lose its ability to contain culture and convey profound meanings, causing great difficulties in literary creation. For example, poems don't rhyme like China's, and articles are mixed with various languages, which to a great extent has caused difficulties in the creation and dissemination of Korean literary works. Koreans think that their Biography of Spring Fragrance is the three major literary works in East Asia that can be compared with A Dream of Red Mansions and Tales of Genji, but it is quite different from China's Dream of Red Mansions. Without good literary works, it is naturally difficult to produce great writers. Of course, there are other historical and political reasons. The emergence of writers is more related to the country's historical experience, national politics, national character and writers' own quality, but it is also based on language, because as far as literary works are concerned, language is the carrier, literary works are the subject and purpose, and writers and readers are the objects, creators and communicators.
Korea, you completely abandoned Chinese characters. Have you ever regretted it?