Korean mixed script

Korean mixed script (Korean: 국한문혼용체; Hanja: 國漢文混用體) is a form of writing the Korean language that uses a mixture of the Korean alphabet or hangul (한글) and hanja (漢字, 한자), the Korean name for Chinese characters. The distribution on how to write words usually follows that all native Korean words, including suffixes, particles, and honorific markers are generally written in hangul and never in hanja. Sino-Korean vocabulary or hanja-eo (한자어; 漢字語), either words borrowed from Chinese or created from Sino-Korean roots, were generally always written in hanja, although very rare or complex characters were often substituted with hangul. Although the Korean alphabet was introduced and taught to people beginning in 1446, most literature until the early twentieth century was written in literary Chinese known as hanmun (한문; 漢文).
Although examples of mixed-script writing are as old as hangul itself, the mixing of hangul and hanja together in sentences became the official writing system of the Korean language at the end of the nineteenth century, when reforms ended the primacy of literary Chinese in literature, science, and government. This style of writing, in competition with hangul-only writing, continued as the formal written version of Korean for most of the twentieth century. The script slowly gave way to hangul-only usage in North Korea by 1949, while it continues in South Korea to a limited extent. However, with the decrease in hanja education, the number of hanja in use has slowly dwindled, and in the twenty-first century, very few hanja are used at all. In Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in China, local newspaper Northeast Korean People's Daily published the "workers and peasants version" which used all-hangul in text, in addition to the existing "cadre version" that had mixed script, for the convenience of grassroots Korean people. Starting on April 20, 1952, the newspaper abolished the "cadre version" and published in hangul only. Soon, the entire publishing industry adopted the hangul-only style.
The development of hanja-honyong required two major developments in orthographic traditions of the Korean Peninsula. The first was the adoption of hanja, around the beginning of the Three Kingdom period of Korea. The second was the introduction of hangul in 1446.
Despite the advent of vernacular writing in Korean using hanja, these publications remained the dominion of the literate class, comprising royalty and nobility, Buddhist monks, Confucian scholars, civil servants and members of the upper classes as the ability to read these texts required proficient ability to understand the meaning of the Chinese characters, with both their adopted Sino-Korean pronunciation and their native gloss. To rectify this, King Sejong the Great (조선 세종대왕; 朝鮮 世宗大王) summoned a team of scholars to devise a new script for the Korean language, leading to the 1446 promulgation of the Hunminjeongeum (훈민정음; 訓民正音, 'correct pronunciation for teaching the people') which is later critiqued in Hunminjeongeum Haerye. The problems surrounding literacy in Literary Chinese to the common populace was summarized in the opening of Sejong's proclamation, written in Literary Chinese:
The new script rapidly spread to all parts of society, including the segments of the population formerly denied access to education such as farmers, fishermen, women of the lower classes, rural merchants and young children. It was known as vernacular script, (Korean: 언문; Hanja: 諺文; RR: eonmun, and 언문청; 諺文廳; eonmuncheong), or national script (국문; 國文; gukmun), by the state. Several attempts to ban or over-turn the use of hangul were initiated but failed to halt its spread, the most notable being during the 10th year of the tyrannical reign of prince Yeonsan, where he banned the use, learning, and teaching of Hangul on 19 July 1504 after the public mocked and insulted him in posters; the total ban ended five months later in December of the same year, when he ordered the translation of calendar-books (역서; 曆書; yeokseo) into Hangul. These attempts were initiated by several rulers, who discovered disparaging remarks about their reigns, and the upper classes, whose grip on power and influence was predicated upon their ability to read, write and interpret classical Chinese texts and commentaries thereof. Some scholarly elite mocked the sole use of hangul pseudo-deferentially as jinseo (진서; 真書), 'real script'. Other insults such as 'women's script', 'children's script' and 'farmer's hand' are known anecdotally but are not found in the literature.
Despite the fears from the upper classes and scholarly elite, the introduction of the early hangul actually increased proficiency in literary Chinese. New-style hanja dictionaries appeared, arranging words according to their alphabetic order when spelled out in hangul, and showing compound words containing the hanja as well as its Sino-Korean and its native, sometimes archaic, pronunciation — a system still in use for many contemporary Korean-language hanja dictionaries. The syllable blocks could be written easily between meaningful units of Chinese characters, as annotations, but also began to replace the complex notation of the early gugyeol and idu, including hyangchal, although gugyeol and idu were not officially abolished until the end of the 19th century in part because literary Chinese was still the official written language of the royal court, nobility, governance and diplomacy until its usage was finally abolished in the early twentieth century and its local production mostly ceased by mid-century.
The real spread of hangul to all elements of Korean society was the late eighteenth century beginning of two literary trends. The ancient sijo (시조; 時調), 'seasonal tune', poetry. Although sijo, heavily influenced by Chinese Tang dynasty poetry, was long written in Chinese, authors began writing poems in Korean written solely with hangul, previously only possible with gugyeol and idu. At the same time, gasa (가사; 歌詞), 'song lyric', poetry was similarly spread. Korean women of the upper classes created gasa by translating or finding inspiration in the old poems, written in literary Chinese, and translating them into Korean, but as the name suggests, were popularly sung. Although Catholic and Protestant missionaries initially attempted to evangelise the Korean Peninsula starting with the nobility using Chinese translations and works, in the early nineteenth century, Bishop Siméon-François Berneux, or Jang Gyeong-il (장경일; 張敬一) mandated that all publications be written only in hangul and all students in the missionary schools were required to use it. Protestant and other Catholic missionaries followed suit, facilitating the spread of Christianity in Korea, but also created a large corpus of Korean-language material written in hangul only.
The script is now the primary and most commonplace method to write the Korean language, and is known as hangul (한글) in South Korea, from han (한; 韓), as in 'Korea', and gul (글), 'script'. In North Korea, the script is known as joseongul (조선글; 朝鮮글). The promulgation of the indigenous script is celebrated as a national holiday on 9 October in the south and 15 January in the north, respectively.
The practice of mixing hangul into hanja began as early as the introduction of hangul. Even King Sejong's promulgation proclamation was written in literary Chinese and idu passages to explain the alphabet and mixed passages that help 'ease' the reader into the use of the alphabet. The first novel written in hangul, Yongbieocheonga (용비어천가; 龍飛御天歌, Songs of the Dragons Flying to Heaven) is actually mostly written in what would now be considered mixed-script writing. Another major literary work touted as a masterpiece of hangul-based literature, the 1590 translation of The Analects of Confucius (논어; 論語) by Yi Yulgok (이율곡; 李栗谷) is also written entirely in hanja-honyong.
Many Koreans today attribute hanja-honyong to the Japanese occupation of Korea. This is in part due to the visual similarity of Chinese characters interspersed with alphabetic text of Japanese-language texts to Korean-language texts in mixed script, and the numerous assimilation and suppression schemes of the occupational government carried out against the Korean people, language and culture. In fact, hanja-honyong was commonplace amongst the royalty, yangban (양반; 兩班) and jung-in classes for personal records and informal letters shortly after the introduction of the alphabet, and replaced the routine use of idu by the jung-in. The heyday of hanja-honyong arrived with the Gap-o reforms (갑오; 甲午) passed in 1894–1896 after the Donghak Peasant Rebellion (동학농민혁명; 東學農民革命). The reforms ended the client status of Korea to the Qing dynasty emperors, elevating King Gojong to Emperor Gwangmu (고종 광무제; 高宗 光武帝), ended the supremacy of literary Chinese and idu script, ended the gwageo imperial examinations. In place of literary Chinese, the Korean language written in the 'national letters' (국문; 國文)—now understood as an alternate name for hangul but at the time referred to hanja-honyong—was now the language of governance.
Due to over a thousand years of literary Chinese supremacy, the early hanja-honyong texts were written in a stiff, prosaic style, with a preponderance of Sino-Korean terms barely removed from gugyeol, but the written language was quickly adapted into the current format with a more natural style, using hanja only where a Sino-Korean loan word was read in Sino-Korean pronunciation and hangul for native words and grammatical particles. One of the most important publications at the end of the Joseon period was the weekly newspaper, Hanseong Jugang (한성주간; 漢城週刊), one of the first written in the more natural style several years before the Gap-o reforms. The popular newspaper was originally started as a hanja-only publication that lasted only a few weeks before they switched formats. During the reforms, Yu Giljun (유길준; 兪吉濬) published his travel diaries, Seoyu Gyeonmun (서유견문; 西遊見聞) or Observations on Travels to the West was a best-seller at this time. The success of Hanseong Jugang and Seoyu Gyeonmun urged the literati to switch to vernacular Korean in hanja-honyong.
Mixed script was a commonly used means of writing, although hangul exclusive writing has been used concurrently, in Korea after the decline of literary Chinese, known as hanmun (한문; 漢文). Mixed script could be commonly found in non-fiction writing, newspapers, etc. until the enacting of President Park Chung-hee's 5 Year Plan for Hangul Exclusivity (Korean: 한글전용 5개년 계획안; Hanja: 한글專用 5個年 計劃案; RR: Hangeul Jeonyong Ogaenyeon Gyehoegan) in 1968 banned the use and teaching of hanja in public schools, as well as forbade its use in the military, with the goal of eliminating hanja in writing by 1972 through legislative and executive means. However, due to public backlash in 1972, Park's government allowed for the teaching of Hanja in special classes but maintained a ban on hanja use in textbooks and other learning materials outside of the classes. This reverse step however, was optional so the availability of hanja education was dependent on the school one went to.
Another reason for the decline is found in the Hangul typewriter and keyboard. The push for better Hangul typewriters mainly began in 1949, but as it was way before the hanja ban, government institutions did not prefer typewriters altogether as they could not write in hanja nor mixed script. Kong Byung Wo's notable Sebeolsik type first appeared in March 1949, jointly winning second place in the Joseon balmyong jangryohoe's (조선발명장려회) Hangul type contest, and Kim Dong Hoon's typewriter winning joint 3rd. During the 1950s and 1960s, alongside the Korean government's support for typewriting, new Hangul typewriters were developed, distributed, and adopted. Hangul type with both horizontal writing and Moa-sugi (모아쓰기; the style of Hangul where Hangul consonants and vowels mix in together to form a full letter, which is the default style being used today) first appeared in the same period as government policy. With further adoption, during the 1970s, even when hanja and mixed script were still used widely in society both as a writing system and as a style option, Koreans mostly gave up on mixed script at least in government documents and memorandums; The use of Hanja in type hindered the speed of writing and printing compared to only-Hangul usage, especially after the advent of the Sebeolsik layout (세벌식 자판)
Park's Hanja ban was not formally lifted until 1992 under the government of Kim Young-sam. In 1999, the government of Kim Dae-jung actively promoted Hanja by placing it on signs on the road, at bus stops, and in subways. In 1999, Hanja was reintroduced as a school elective and in 2001 the Hanja Proficiency Test (한자능력검정시험; 漢字能力檢定試驗; Hanja nŭngryŏk gŏmjŏng sihŏm) was introduced. In 2005, an older law, the Law Concerning Hangul Exclusivity (한글전용에 관한 법률; 한글專用에 關한 法律; hangŭl jŏnyonge gwahak pŏmnyul) was repealed as well. In 2013, all elementary schools in Seoul started teaching Hanja. However, the result was that Koreans who were educated in this period, having never been formally educated in Hanja, were unable to use them and thus the use of Hanja plummeted in orthography until the modern day. Hanja is now very rarely used and is almost only used for abbreviations in newspaper headlines (e.g. 中 for China, 韓 for Korea, 美 for the United States, 日 for Japan, etc.), for clarification in text where a word might be confused for another due to homophones (e.g. 이 사장(李 社長) vs. 이사장(理事長)), or for stylistic use such as the 辛 (신라면; 辛拉麵) used on Shin Ramyŏn packaging.
In a typical hanja-honyong texts, traditionally all words that were of Sino-Korean origin, either composed from Chinese character compounds natively or loan words directly from Chinese, were written in hanja although particularly rare or complicated hanja were often disambiguated with the hangul pronunciation and perhaps a gloss of the meaning. Native words, including Korean grammatical postpositions, were written in hangul. Due to the reforms at the close of the Joseon dynasty, native words were not supposed to be written in hanja, as they were in the idu and hyangchal systems which were abolished at this time.
In Korean mixed-script writing, especially in formal and academic contexts, the majority of semantic or 'content' words are generally written in hanja whereas most syntax or 'function' is conveyed with grammatical endings, particles and honorifics written in hangul. Japanese, which continues to use a heavily Chinese character-laden orthography, is read in the same way. The Chinese characters, have different angled strokes and oftentimes more strokes than a typical syllable block of hangul letters, and definitely more so than Japanese kana, enabling readers of both respective languages to process content information very quickly.
Korean readers, however, have a few more handicaps than Japanese readers. For instance, although academic, legal, scientific, history and literature have a higher proportion of Sino-Korean vocabulary, Korean has more indigenous vocabulary used for semantic information, so older Korean readers often scan the hanja first and then piece together by reading the hangul content words to piece the meaning. Japanese avoids this problem by writing most content words with their Sino-Japanese equivalent of kanji, whereas reading Sino-Korean vocabulary according to their native Korean pronunciation or translation was banned in previous reforms, so only a Sino-Korean word can be written in hanja. The handicaps are avoided by the adoption of spaces inserted between phrases in modern Korean, limiting phrases, generally, to a content word and grammatical particle(s), allowing readers to spot the native Korean content words faster.
In reading texts, Koreans are faster at reading out passages written in hangul than in mixed script. However, although 'reading' is faster, understanding the texts is facilitated with the use of hanja in higher order language to the large number of homophones in the language, such as the continued role of 'hanja disambiguation' even in hangul-only texts. For instance, daehan (대한), usually understood in the context of the 'Great Han' (大韓, 대한) or 'Great Korean people,' can also indicate (大寒,대한) 'big winter,' the coldest part at the end of January and beginning of February, (大旱, 대한) 'severe drought,' (大漢, 대한) 'Great Chinese people,' (大恨, 대한) 'deep resentment,' (對韓, 대한) 'anti-Korean,' (對漢, 대한), 'anti-Chinese,' or (對한) 'about or 'toward.' Readers of technical and academic texts often have to clarify terms for the listener to avoid ambiguity, and most hanja are only used when necessary to clear confusion. As can be seen in the example below, the hanja in an otherwise mostly native vocabulary song stand out from the hangul text, thus appearing almost like bolded and enlarged text. This was further amplified in older texts, when hangul blocks were sometimes written smaller than the surrounding hanja.
Very few hanja are used in modern Korean writing, but are occasionally seen in academic and technical texts and formal publications, such as newspapers, where the rare hanja is used as a shorthand in newspaper headlines, especially if the native Korean equivalent is a longer word, or more importantly, to disambiguate the meaning of a word. Sino-Korean words make up over 70% of the Korean language, although only a third of them are in common usage, but that proportion increases in formal and highbrow publications. A native Korean syllable may have up to 1,300 possible combinations compared to the Sino-Korean inventory of 400. Although Middle Korean developed tones that may have facilitated differentiation of words, this development was lost in the transition to modern Korean, making many words homophones of each other. Cantonese, whose pronunciation of the characters is similar to the Sino-Korean pronunciation due to its conservative phonology and the ancient age in which these words entered Korean, has several words pronounced /san/: 新 'new', 身 'body', 神 'deity', 辛 'difficult' or 'spicy', 蜃 'large clam', 腎 'kidney' and 呻 'to lament.' Although even in Cantonese 新, 身 and 辛 are true homophones with the pronunciation of /sân/ with the high tone, each of the other examples is pronounced with a unique tone that distiniguish them from the first three and each other: 蜃 /sa̜n/, 腎 /sàn/ and 呻 /sān/. In Korean, the hanja-eo reading of all these characters is /sin/ and in hangul spelling all share 신 and no tone to distinguish them.
By the mid-1990s, when even the most conservative newspapers stopped publishing in hanja-honyong, with most ceasing in the 1980s, and switched to a generally all-hangul format, the use of characters to clarify the meaning of a word, 'hanja disambiguation', is still common, in part due to complaints from older subscribers that were educated in the mixed script and were used to using hanja glosses. From this 2018 article from the conservative newspaper The Chosun Ilbo, two phrases are disambiguated with hanja:
Although in many instances, context can help discern the meaning, and many of the possible variants are obscure or rare characters that would be encountered only in either classical literature or literary Chinese thus limiting choices. In more relaxed publications, where hanja disambiguation is less common, Sino-Korean terms are avoided as much as possible, although this may appear as "dumbed down" material to some readers. Context can often facilitate the meaning of many terms. Many Sino-Korean terms that are rare and only encountered in ancient texts in literary Chinese are almost unknown and would not even be part of the hanja taught in education, limiting the number of likely choices.
The text below is the preamble to the constitution of the Republic of Korea. The first text is written in Hangul; the second is its mixed script version; and the third is its unofficial English translation.