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Lee Iksop and S. Robert Ramsey - The Korean Language
Mon, Apr. 14th, 2008 01:20 pmI feel a little guilty about including this in my "finished books" list, as I skimmed a huge portion of it.
As noted in the title, this is a book about the Korean language. It's written mostly for linguists, which is why I skimmed a huge portion, as I have very little knowledge about linguistics and only a tiny bit more about Korean, largely thanks to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
yhlee. I had already known the very basics about Korean that I might have picked up from this book, again because of Yoon -- the subject-object-verb structure, the use of particles, the lack of plurals, the unique structure of the alphabet, the heavy emphasis on verb conjugation, the mixture of hanja (Chinese characters) and hangeul (Korean alphabet), the existence of various levels of formality, and how formality levels can change verb conjugation and the noun or pronoun used.
Much of my reading of this book was informed by the only non-English languages I know, Mandarin Chinese and Japanese, so a lot of my own conclusions will be as well. Grammatically, Korean has nothing in common with Chinese and a lot in common with Japanese, though the introduction of the book says that the language family Korean belongs to probably has nothing to do with Japanese (the exact language family Korean belongs to is (was?) up for debate). I was also fairly familiar with the extent of borrowing from the Chinese language, as Japanese did the same. Both Korean and Japanese used classical Chinese to write with in the past, often using hanja/kanji phonetically to spell out native Korean and Japanese vocabulary. I don't know when hiragana started becoming more widespread in Japan, but Korea seems to be unique in that its reversion and/or adoption of the vernacular language can be pinpointed specifically to King Sejong's invention of the hangeul.
I do not have enough words as to how cool this is, but trust me, it is very cool. One of my favorite chapters of this book was on hangeul and how Sejong invented it based on linguistic principles and mouth shapes and much more that I cannot quite keep in my head. I mean, I knew a good deal of this before reading, as Yoon had photocopied some articles on hangeul for me, but it is still cool!
Most of the details about verb conjugation and particles went right over my head, as I am still just trying to figure out pronunciation. I think verb conjugation will make sense later on, but I hate particles and the chapters on them in the book were very intimidating.
On the other hand, the chapters on pronunciation and spelling were very useful, though also intimidating. Both Chinese and Japanese have fairly easy pronunciation systems in terms of the correlation between spelling and pronunciation. We will ignore tones and characters and learning a new alphabet, as once you know this, it's fairly easy. From my uninformed perspective, Korean seems to be more difficult to pronounce/spell than Chinese and Japanese but still simpler than English.
I am still trying to figure out certain elisions of consonants, particularly at the end of syllables, and how consonants beginning syllables change from vocalized to non-vocalized depending on where they are in the word. Yoon tells me it gets much easier and instinctual with practice. I will use this to further justify my current obsession with kdramas.
I found the chapters on formality levels fascinating, as I expected I would, and it was nice to have some confirmation about the formal verb endings I thought I was hearing in kdramas. Unfortunately, a lot of the details about noun and pronoun changes and different verb conjugations went over my head, as I was too tired to puzzle my way through all the example sentences. But I am sure it is very useful for people who know more!
I also wish I had enough linguistics background to get the chapters on the history of the language (as opposed to the history of hangeul, which is fascinating and fairly understandable without linguistics knowledge). The book had a chapter or two covering the changes from the time of the Three Kingdoms (57 BCE - 668 CE) through the Japanese occupation (IIRC), and I really, really, really wish I had known enough to make sense of the linguistic changes, particularly because I have several sageuk (historical kdramas) in my to-watch queue!
I seriously doubt the sageuk are using pre-contemporary Korean for the entire thing, but it would be really cool to be able to pick out any bits that they did use. My only real frame of reference is historic cdramas, which do use much more formal Chinese and archaic words, but not full-fledged classical Chinese (or the spoken equivalent; I don't know enough about the history of the Chinese language to know how the spoken differed from the written, though I'm sure it did, as classical written Chinese is very compact and dense).
Anyway, recommended to people who have more than a passing interest in Korean and linguistics, although I would definitely not sic this on a beginner. I think it works much better if you have a solid background in languages, which I, sadly, do not.
As noted in the title, this is a book about the Korean language. It's written mostly for linguists, which is why I skimmed a huge portion, as I have very little knowledge about linguistics and only a tiny bit more about Korean, largely thanks to
yhlee. I had already known the very basics about Korean that I might have picked up from this book, again because of Yoon -- the subject-object-verb structure, the use of particles, the lack of plurals, the unique structure of the alphabet, the heavy emphasis on verb conjugation, the mixture of hanja (Chinese characters) and hangeul (Korean alphabet), the existence of various levels of formality, and how formality levels can change verb conjugation and the noun or pronoun used. Much of my reading of this book was informed by the only non-English languages I know, Mandarin Chinese and Japanese, so a lot of my own conclusions will be as well. Grammatically, Korean has nothing in common with Chinese and a lot in common with Japanese, though the introduction of the book says that the language family Korean belongs to probably has nothing to do with Japanese (the exact language family Korean belongs to is (was?) up for debate). I was also fairly familiar with the extent of borrowing from the Chinese language, as Japanese did the same. Both Korean and Japanese used classical Chinese to write with in the past, often using hanja/kanji phonetically to spell out native Korean and Japanese vocabulary. I don't know when hiragana started becoming more widespread in Japan, but Korea seems to be unique in that its reversion and/or adoption of the vernacular language can be pinpointed specifically to King Sejong's invention of the hangeul.
I do not have enough words as to how cool this is, but trust me, it is very cool. One of my favorite chapters of this book was on hangeul and how Sejong invented it based on linguistic principles and mouth shapes and much more that I cannot quite keep in my head. I mean, I knew a good deal of this before reading, as Yoon had photocopied some articles on hangeul for me, but it is still cool!
Most of the details about verb conjugation and particles went right over my head, as I am still just trying to figure out pronunciation. I think verb conjugation will make sense later on, but I hate particles and the chapters on them in the book were very intimidating.
On the other hand, the chapters on pronunciation and spelling were very useful, though also intimidating. Both Chinese and Japanese have fairly easy pronunciation systems in terms of the correlation between spelling and pronunciation. We will ignore tones and characters and learning a new alphabet, as once you know this, it's fairly easy. From my uninformed perspective, Korean seems to be more difficult to pronounce/spell than Chinese and Japanese but still simpler than English.
I am still trying to figure out certain elisions of consonants, particularly at the end of syllables, and how consonants beginning syllables change from vocalized to non-vocalized depending on where they are in the word. Yoon tells me it gets much easier and instinctual with practice. I will use this to further justify my current obsession with kdramas.
I found the chapters on formality levels fascinating, as I expected I would, and it was nice to have some confirmation about the formal verb endings I thought I was hearing in kdramas. Unfortunately, a lot of the details about noun and pronoun changes and different verb conjugations went over my head, as I was too tired to puzzle my way through all the example sentences. But I am sure it is very useful for people who know more!
I also wish I had enough linguistics background to get the chapters on the history of the language (as opposed to the history of hangeul, which is fascinating and fairly understandable without linguistics knowledge). The book had a chapter or two covering the changes from the time of the Three Kingdoms (57 BCE - 668 CE) through the Japanese occupation (IIRC), and I really, really, really wish I had known enough to make sense of the linguistic changes, particularly because I have several sageuk (historical kdramas) in my to-watch queue!
I seriously doubt the sageuk are using pre-contemporary Korean for the entire thing, but it would be really cool to be able to pick out any bits that they did use. My only real frame of reference is historic cdramas, which do use much more formal Chinese and archaic words, but not full-fledged classical Chinese (or the spoken equivalent; I don't know enough about the history of the Chinese language to know how the spoken differed from the written, though I'm sure it did, as classical written Chinese is very compact and dense).
Anyway, recommended to people who have more than a passing interest in Korean and linguistics, although I would definitely not sic this on a beginner. I think it works much better if you have a solid background in languages, which I, sadly, do not.