Ariane Charbonneau

Hangul's impact on Korea

Hello to you all, my name is Ariane. I'm 21 years old. My mother tongue is French, and I have learned English at 12 years old and have been bilingual since then. I am in my last semester at Dawson. The languages I decided to study were/are Mandarin and German. In University I want to study either to teach languages in other countries or go on and be a translator. Both are very interesting for me, and who knows, I might be able to do both someday...

My interests are pretty varied I must say. I love to sing on my free time. I love also to write fiction (sometimes fanfiction too). I play video games with my fiancé to relax on my weekends. I am very passionate about children education and would love to work with kids. I also read a lot. I love doing art things. I also do medieval LARP in the summer when I can. I could continue with the list of interests, but I would be writing for a long time.

I had many ideas as of what my project could be on this semester, but five different ones was a lot. After a lot of thinking, I have lowered the number to two different ones.

The first one is the different types of sign languages and their history and how to best learn them.

The second one is Korean language and culture and their history.

As of right now, I am leaning towards Korean since with my primary lookout, there is more information popping up about it.

I have my project's subject selected. I was contacted by someone in our class that was wondering if I minded not doing mine on Sign Language. I had trouble choosing, so it was a perfect solution.

Here is my subject: Korean Language and Culture. Well at least it's the core idea. I don't know yet if it's going to stay that broad or if I will narrow it down more... Both could be interesting.

I have looked at the Dawson library resources. I have heavily looked at Korean language history and grammar/syntax, but my project might very well not be on that. But here are the sources I found. I have read some of them, but not all, far from it. I probably won't use all of them, but it is nice to have them on hand.

Yi, Ki-mun, and S.Robert Ramsey. A History of the Korean Language. Cambridge University Press, 2011. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspxdirect=true&db=e000xna&AN=357390&site=eds-live&scope=site.

This source is all about the periods of Korean language. It goes through the theories of origins, the grammar, vocabulary, phonology and more for each periods. It is very interesting knowing that another of my sources talks about this book.

Boye Lafayette De Mente. The Korean Mind : Understanding Contemporary Korean Culture. Tuttle Publishing, 2017. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=e000xna&AN=1731041&site=eds-live&scope=site.

This source is interesting, but for what I have in mind for my project, there are not a lot of pages that are relevant. p. 67-71 mentions the Korean language history in more details. It is relevant because it tells me more about the shift that happened with the language. p. 97-100 these pages are more about Korean speech and writing system. It talks about how Chinese was used as an alphabet to be able to have a writing system, many words come from Chinese since they used the writing system for Korean and some words that weren't present in Korean vocabulary were added later on.

Cho Young-Mee Yu. “A History of the Korean Language Ki-Moon Lee S. Robert Ramsey.” The Journal of Asian Studies, vol. 71, no. 3, Aug. 2012, pp. 819–820. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspxdirect=true&db=edsjsr&AN=edsjsr.23263613&site=eds-live&scope=site

Not all sources can be practical for our research... This one isn't. I thought it would be when I first looked at it, but now, it is not useful for my paper. By the title, I didn't know it would be someone writing of how satisfied they are at finally having the translation into English of the book A History of the Korean Language by Ki-Moon Lee S. Robert Ramsey since previously it was only in Korean.

Cho, Jeung-Ryeul. “Syllable and Letter Knowledge in Early Korean Hangul Reading.” Journal of Educational Psychology, vol. 101, no. 4, Nov. 2009, pp. 938–947. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspxdirect=true&db=eric&AN=EJ860915&site=eds-live&scope=site.

This resource is interesting because it is a research on young Korean when they first start learning the language at school. The study is six months of looking at how the students develop their knowledge of the language. Another interesting part is how the author describe the language which I find gives information on how the writing system has become of importance.

So, I remembered finding this drawing of someone explaining how to read Korean fast and easy and I went looking for it. And I found it! So here it is. (My fiancé learned Korean and says that it's pretty accurate, so that is why I am posting it)

I found it back on Pinterest*

The History of Korean language

and its impact on Korean culture

Iksop Lee, and S. Robert Ramsey. Chapter 8 Korean Language, The. SUNY Press, 2000. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=e000xna&AN=72557&site=eds-live&scope=site.

There is one chapter in the book that I am interested in. Chapter 8 outlines and then go into details about the different stages that the Korean language went through. I find interesting how, in the outline, the author give information about three stages of the language, but adds two more for a total of five. Old Korean, Early middle Korean, Late middle Korean, Modern Korean and Contemporary Korean. This was a very interesting read, but for my project, it wasn't really what I was looking for. It goes too much into phonology and how the letters changed through each periods. I was looking more at how it impacted the culture.

So far, I have learned some information that will not help my project and some that will be valuable.

The not-so practical is specific, like Korean phonology, the extended analysis of how the language works. It is interesting to know, but for my project, I will talk about how the Korean writing system influenced and impacted the Korean community, so I will not be using the knowledge.

The things that will come in handy in my research are first that Korean is a language isolate. What I have learned is there is also a controversy on where Korean comes from. I have some sources that say it comes from Altaic or Sino-Altaic origins. Second, the most significant change from creating the writing system is that Koreans started to have easier access to education (the Chinese system was the old way of writing Korean, and only the elite could learn it). It also helped them have a better sense of community and get rid of invaders (or somewhere around those lines).

I have close to eight sources that I will be using right now. I think I am behind in my project since (to be honest) I have not concentrated entirely on my research because of personal problems. I have not added additional content for a while now. However, I did change and add some information from my earlier blog posts. I am also working on improving how my blog looks since I am not satisfied with how it looks yet.

Snellinger, Amanda, King, Ross and Fulton, Bruce. Korean language. https://asiasociety.org/education/korean-language

This source is about how the Korean language doesn’t have a precise origin. The authors talk about how there are three theories of where Korean came from. One says as mentioned before in this blog that Korean is a language isolate. Another theory is that it comes from the Altaic languages that includes Turkish, Mongolian and Japanese. The last theory adds to the last one saying that the origins are Altaic and Uralic languages (Hungarian and Finish). The article also mentions how the Korean writing system came about. King Sejong in 1443, after asking scholars to create an intricate writing system that would be easy to learn and made sense with the sounds that were associated with Korean, announced the new language and after that he fought to make it the official language of Korea. Lastly, the article mentions the influences that were done on Korean, namely the influence that Chinese and Japanese had (not in details, except that half of the Korean vocabulary was from Chinese origin).

This article will be of big help with my essay since it mentions one of the major benefits of the creation of the Korean writing system: making Korean literates, even more, the country with the highest literary rates. I find also interesting that the author wrote this article in collaboration with essay writers about the History of Korean origins.

Livaccari, Chris. World’s Most Incredible Alphabet https://asiasociety.org/education/worlds-most-incredible-alphabet

This article relates to the previous one. This time, it talks a lot more about the linguistics of the language. The information that I am most interested in in this article is that there is a Hangul Day on October 9^th to celebrate the creation of the Korean writing system, I am going to look more into that.

"Superscript; South Korea's hangul alphabet." The Economist, vol. 417, no. 8959, 10 Oct. 2015, p. 40(US). Gale Academic OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A450171039/AONE?u=west74079&sid=AONE&xid=f43fb063. Accessed 20 Apr. 2021

The source addresses how the Korean alphabet is “a source of patriotic pride”. It mentions Hangul Day as a national holiday and that Koreans don’t have work on October 9^th. There is also a mention of how Nobles/people in charge tried to eradicate the use of Hangul to stay in power, but after the Japanese invasion in 1945, both Koreas decided to put it as their writing system of choice.

The Korean Language

21 minutes video going deep into the Korean language. I find interesting how he uses another voice to read the words in Korean.

Hangul Day

This short video talks about Hangul Day. The reason I put it here is because you can both hear and read the character as the woman speaks. There is also the translation in English.

History of Hangul

This video is really short, but it highlights how important Hangul is. Mentioning the Hangul Museum and the Hangul day. It is by arirang News.

"History of Korean Language", ccjk.com, Sep 16, 2014 www.ccjk.com/history-korean-language/

This article is about the different eras of Korean. From Old Korean, to Middle Korean and lastly Modern Korean. This article mentions the old name of what in today called hangul: "This writing system was called The Hunminjeongeum (which translates beautifully to “The Proper Sounds for the Instruction of the People”) " I include this citation because it shows the thoughts the people creating hangul put while creating the writing system. It is interesting because it mentions how Chinese characters were used to write Korean, but the characters were used for the sounds they produced instead of the words they referred to in Chinese (reason why old Korean is so little documented).

Official Bibliography

Arirang News, “History of Hangeul, the Korean alphabet, and its meaning for Koreans”, YouTube, October 9^th, 2017, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYT9VagKJQQ

Boye Lafayette De Mente. The Korean Mind : Understanding Contemporary Korean Culture.

Tuttle Publishing, 2017. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/ login.aspx?direct=true&db=e000xna&AN=1731041&site=eds-live&scope=site.

Cho, Jeung-Ryeul. “Syllable and Letter Knowledge in Early Korean Hangul Reading.” Journal of Educational Psychology, vol. 101, no. 4, Nov. 2009, pp. 938–947. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=eric&AN=EJ860915&site=eds- live&scope=site.

Cho Young-Mee Yu. “A History of the Korean Language Ki-Moon Lee S. Robert Ramsey.” The Journal of Asian Studies, vol. 71, no. 3, Aug. 2012, pp. 819–820. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspxdirect=true&db=edsjsr&AN=edsjsr.23263613&site=eds- live&scope=site

"History of Korean Language", ccjk.com, Sep 16, 2014 www.ccjk.com/history-korean- language/

Iksop Lee, and S. Robert Ramsey. Chapter 8 Korean Language, The. SUNY Press, 2000. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx? direct=true&db=e000xna&AN=72557&site=eds-live&scope=site.

Langfocus, “The Korean Language”, YouTube, June 9^th, 2018,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJPQEVnr0fg

Learn Korean with Koreanclass101com, “Learn Korean Holidays – Hangul Day”, YouTube, June 5^th,2013, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wf3KvC76Sds

Livaccari, Chris. “World’s Most Incredible Alphabet”, asiasociety

https://asiasociety.org/education/worlds-most-incredible-alphabet

Snellinger, Amanda, King, Ross and Fulton, Bruce. “Korean language”, asiasociety

https://asiasociety.org/education/korean-language

"Superscript; South Korea's hangul alphabet." The Economist, vol. 417, no. 8959, 10 Oct. 2015, p. 40(US). Gale Academic OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A450171039 /AONE? u=west 74079 &sid=AONE&xid=f43fb063.

Yi, Ki-mun, and S.Robert Ramsey. A History of the Korean Language. Cambridge University Press, 2011. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx direct=true&db=e000xna&

AN=357390&site=eds-live&scope=site.

12 sources. 6 academics and 6 non-academic

Final regards

The semester has been a little on the weirder side for me. Between my personal life and school, things have been hectic.

This project has been really interesting to me, and I learned so much. As mentioned previously in the blog, my boyfriend was the one who piqued my interest when it comes to Korean since he is learning it himself.

At first, I thought I would do my project more on the linguistic side of the language, but with research, I became more and more interested in how it affected the Koreans and the culture. That is how my project came to be. After many weeks of research and writing about my topic and also wondering on how to do my blog, I came up with this simple one. It is not perfect, but it isn’t too terrible either.

For half of the semester, there wasn’t any colors, but then I decided that pictures of Korea and of Hangul being written would do wonders to my blog.

Thank you for reading my blog,

Ariane Charbonneau

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