From: mkim@husc3.harvard.edu
Newsgroups: soc.culture.korean
Subject: Re: Korean writing system(What is bette
Date: 7 Apr 92 00:38:27 GMT
Article-I.D.: husc3.1992Apr6.203827.10778
Organization: Harvard University Science Center

There's certainly an interesting, if protracted discussion of Hangul
going on these days.  I haven't been keeping up with this group in
a while so I hope I don't say anything somebody has already said.

In article <1473700010@igc.org>, anlyyao@igc.org (An-Ly Yao) writes:
> 
> But to Hangul quite a similar thing happened as to my languega (German) or
> probably many other languages (oops, language, not languega): The everyday
> (everyyear, everycentury...) use of the language led to some gaps between
> the way, a word is written and a word is pronounced.
> 
> Of course first I wrote "to-gil" for Germany, then I learned, it's "Tog-Il".
> So Hangul isn't that easy, you either need to learn the whole word or some
> Chinese. And then you have those *#@?+?#&!!! contractions!

I started learning Korean two years ago, having forgotten most of it through
attrition, and I've always been puzzled by claims that Hangul is such a
perfect language.  It is certainly admirable in what it can accomplish,
but far from the magical invention that some ardent supporters claim it to
be, Hangul has its share of shortcomings.

First of all, it's not true that there is only one pronounciation for all
of the hangul elements.  Often colloquial usage will evoke double consonant
sounds from single consonant letters.  In addition, certain combination of
"ba-chim" or consonant endings and consonant beginnings will necessitate
completely different pronounciations from what is written.  Another thing
that bothers me is that certain Sino-Korean characters like "li" and "ro"
are spelled differently depending on whether they come at the beginning
of a compound or at the end.  This may have carried over from the Chinese
readings, but it's still confusing nevertheless.  Anybody who's learning
Korean and has tried to write a letter can tell you that Korean is not
the perfectly phonetic language that some people claim it is.  The "ba-chim"
system is one big mess, and unless you memorize the correct usage, it's
often impossible to figure out what goes with what.

Perhaps these problems are not flaws with the writing system, but in the
way people use the system, but they exist nevertheless. The only way to 
handle these non-standard pronounciations is to memorize them, although
after a while you tend to get a feel for when certain combinations call
for a certain pronounciations, but this is far from scientific.

Another point I would like to raise, is that until the middle of the
20th century, books written in Hangul almost look like a foreign language.
I recently translated excerpts from a Korean novels written around the turn
of the century and the author basically wrote down his best guess of what
a word should look like on paper.  There was very little standardization,
and the reader had to do a lot of guesswork when trying to decipher the 
early texts.  I don't know how many of you have actually seen something
written in Hangul during the Choson dynasty, but I think if you get a chance,
you will be quite surprised how different Hangul looked back then.  You can
figure out what it says after a while, but it always gives me a headache.

The "rational" elements of today's Hangul really did not take place until 
the 1950s when several dictionaries that had been complied during the 
colonial era as part of a nationalist movement were published, and the
Ministry of Education took the lead in standardizing the language.  If you
think about it, few people actually wrote in Hangul during traditional
Korea, and many Yangban simply refused to even learn it.  It wasn't until
modern compulsory education spread its usage that Hangul became the
popular writing system it is today.

One more minor point.  Although the annals of Korean history record that
King Sejong created Hangul for the people, some scholars think he had other
intentions as well.  If you examine some of the documents of the period,
King Sejong also writes that he created Hangul because he wanted to 
preserve the correct Chinese pronounciations of the characters.  Some
scholars think that Korean is actually closer to the Classical Chinese
pronounciations than modern Mandarin.  Apparently, the repeated barbarian
invasions of China wiped out many of the consonant endings that existed in
Chinese, which were retained in the Korean readings of the characters.
Koreans at the time of King Sejong were annoyed with the Chinese because
they seemed to have changed their pronounciations over time.  (who knows,
maybe the Koreans are the ones who changed, this is quite debateable).

I don't want to rain on the Hangul parade, but I think things tend to
be carried away whenever national pride is at stake. Hangul is indeed a
wonderful system, and I know of few writing systems that can match its
versitility and ease of use.  Even with all its problems, Hangul remains
one of the most scientific and logical languages to learn and use and it's
probably ideal for rendinging spoken Korean into written Korean.  Take pride
in it if you wish, but there's no reason to cut down other languages because
Hangul is so superior.  It's a good system, and let's leave it at that.

I hope some of you don't take this as any attempt to attack Hangul.  I just
want to point out that like any human invention, it has its flaws as well
as a history.  Hangul hasn't always been the same, and what we know to be the


Hangul writing system today has evolved significantly over the years. 
> 
> Korean is quite usefull to have a confucian style communication, but I gave
> up as I have to admit. The modern Chinese language is much easier for me to
> get along with. - To come back to the topic: it's also no problem to put
> Chinese on a PC, for more have a look to soc.culture.taiwan. Compared to
> that Hangul shouldn't be any problem at all. Actually it isn't.

I'm currently taking first year Chinese, and for me, among the many languages
I have dabbled in, this was the first time that I felt like I was truly
learning a foreign language.  Japanese is quite comfortable to me since I
know Korean, and French and German are not too unfamiliar to English
speakers like myself, but Chinese sounds so different!  In terms of gramatical
usage, it really is true that Chinese is closer to English than Korean or
Japanese, certainly in terms of word order.  Speaking of Chinese, I've got
more than my share of characters to learn so I think I'll call it a night
here.

Michael Kim    

>	Goetz Kluge		Seoul 1992/04/04
Newsgroups: soc.culture.korean