Korean invented chinese language

[Thomas Chan]

James Campbell wrote:
> But both these Korean and Japanese speaking peoples soon
> realized that not only was their languages polysyllabic,
> unlike Chinese, but the Chinese characters didn't match their
> language well.

King Sejong 世宗 quite eloquently makes that point of Chinese characters
not fitting the Korean language (so the populace couldn't properly express
themselves) in his preface to the _Hunmin Jongum_ 訓民正音. (Somewhere,
I have this quote jotted down somewhere. But it doesn't matter--Sejong
wrote it in classical Chinese...)


> The Koreans worked hard to create a writing
> that would work for their own language, and it wasn't until
> the 20th century that it got full acceptance

And until then, that writing system was called things like onmun 諺文
'common writing', because it wasn't thought to be prestigious as writing in
Chinese characters.


> but by that
> time so many monosyllabic-based words (including 2-syllable
> words) from Chinese were being used in the language (even
> everybody adopted Chinese names!!!), they also kept the
> Chinese characters, even if not using them at the very
> minimum continuing to educate their children.

The wholesale Korean adoption of Chinese words and names is
pretty interesting--the earliest rulers of Silla 新羅 used to have titles like
"nisagum" 尼師今 or "maripkan" 麻立干, but one day, they suddenly became
monosyllabic "wang" 王. Guess what, "wang" turns out to be the Chinese
word for 'king'. :/


> The Japanese also developed a writing system of their own,
> one adapted from the general shapes of the Chinese
> characters, since they weren't as creative as the Koreans or
> the Chinese. They even thought the Chinese characters were so
> great that they enforced them to fit into the rules of their
> own language, along with all the other scripts they
> developed, and they even enforced them onto their local
> names, even though these names are unrelated to Chinese. In
> fact, many grown Japanese are even confused to the point that
> they tell their western colleagues that these characters are
> indeed of Japanese origin.

And yet, they will still call them "kanji" 漢字, which very obviously means
"Chinese characters"...


> In fact, it was the Chinese that were the creative ones. Not
> only did they invent their writing, but paper, (ink?),
> printing, medicine, (and does anybody have a more expanded
> list of all the thousands of inventions?),

The best would be Joseph Needham, et al.'s multi-volume _Science
and Civilisation in China_ series. If that's too much information (or too
expensive), there's the abridged _The Shorter Science and Civilisation in
China_ series. And if that's still too long or expensive, there's Robert
Temple's 248 page _The Genius of China_ (London: Prion Books Limited,
1986), which may be regarded as an even more abridged version.

Mind you, I do find Temple a bit too Sinocentric at times and dismissive of
Western achievements, while at the same time claiming some mere
designs--that's like crediting Leonardo Da Vinci for the helicopter instead
of Sikorsky. Or a mention of some object in an ancient text is taken to be
proof of invention--that's like crediting sci-fi author Robert Heinlein for
things in his novels that others later worked out and built for real.


> and one I saw
> recently, an object that detects earthquakes and their
> magnitude. Chinese inventions can literally fill volumes of
> books. How do the Koreans and Japanese compare?

I've heard of that earthquake detecting device--a pot that drops balls
into the mouths of frog sculptures, and is supposed to show you from
which direction it is coming from. But supposedly it cannot distinguish
sheared waves from direct ones.

It is somewhat pointless to argue these things, because few are willing
to honestly analyze the successes and shortcomings. e.g., the Chinese
wheelbarrow design may carry more weight, but a pro-Chinese debater
will conveniently not mention to non-Chinese that it is not as stable as a
Western wheelbarrow design (and of course, a non-Chinese doesn't know
that fact, so he doesn't question). We must also be careful of Chinese
writings about things, since it reflects a Chinese viewpoint--we know now
that crossbows weren't a Chinese invention but from some of those
"barbarians in the south", but earlier Chinese and Western authors didn't
know that from Chinese writings on the subject, who attribute it to a
mythicalized Zhuge Liang. (Of course, we are unfortunately very
dependent on Chinese writings on any early topic, because no one else
had writing to document what was going on.)

But I think first concept and invention also matters little if they are
forgotten, or if the invention isn't capitalized upon. Sure, Zheng He had
ships bigger than Columbus, but the Ming government axed the naval
exploration program. The Chinese had paddle-boat technology but forgot
it, and were surprised when the English showed up with their steam
paddle-boat gunboats.


> Let me ask you: is it just me or are the Koreans trying
> really hard to claim to have invented something? Do I feel a
> little bit of jealousy here? Or even copyright infringement,
> false claims?? All the things they're good at manufacturing
> such as cars, ships, electronics, were mostly invented in the
> west already. The only thing I can think of is basically
> their own cuisine and Korea's hangul.

It's still debated whether or not hangul are purely a Korean invention.
The Koreans knew of Chinese writing (why else would they arrange
hangul letters in a square block for each syllable?) and Chinese
phonological models, and supposedly they had also known of other
alphabetic designs like the Tibetan-designed Mongolian Phagspa.


> And then, these aren't
> things that people use much around the world, not like cars
> and electronics. Although, I do hear westerners say "let's
> get some Chinese take-out", I rarely hear "let's go have
> Japanese" or "let's go have Korean" or "let's get sushi" or
> "let's get kimchi".

And I read (from Korean linguists) that "kimchi" too isn't a native Korean
word--it's 沈菜 (formerly "timchoy"), and the native word is "ci". (I don't
know enough Korean to evaluate this conclusion independently.) "sushi"
is a preserved archaic Japanese word, but unnaturally forced to be
written in Chinese characters as 壽司.


Thomas Chan
tc31@cornell.edu

[KP]

James Campbell:

Just wondering if you knew the origins of the why the Vietnamese refer to Korea as "Dai Han"? My spelling may be wrong. From what I can see, this translates as "Great Han" or "Big Han"?

Also, why do Vietnamese refer to Vietnamese as "Peanut"? I believe the romanized pronunciation was "Dang Gong". I'm pretty certain I'm a off on that. Hopefully it makes enough sense as to what I'm talking about. I was wondering if maybe this has any relation to when Viets were referred to as the "Lac" people. "Lac" sounds similar to the word we use for peanuts.


Thomas Chan:

Just wondering where you learned that the crossbow was a "southern barbarian" invention? I too was beginning to suspect this when reading a book called "The Birth of Vietnam". But then I remember some people mentioning that Chinese have crossbow artifacts dating back to 6th Century B.C. Any sources you have would be much appreciated.

[Thomas Chan]

KP wrote:
> Just wondering where you learned that the crossbow was a
> "southern barbarian" invention? I too was beginning to
> suspect this when reading a book called "The Birth of
> Vietnam". But then I remember some people mentioning that
> Chinese have crossbow artifacts dating back to 6th Century
> B.C. Any sources you have would be much appreciated.

Taylor's book is one of them, but also Laurent Sagart's _The Roots of
Old Chinese_ (Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 1999) and Jerry Norman and
Tsu-lin Mei's article "The Austroasiatics in Ancient South China: Some
Lexical Evidence" (Monumenta Serica 32 (1976): 274-301). Both provide
very interesting accounts of supposed "Chinese" words, technology,
and practices that are in origin not Chinese. (In the past, people assumed
the Chinese were always the donors and everyone else the recipients,
but the reality is sometimes different.)


Thomas Chan
tc31@cornell.edu

[Kobo-Daishi]

Dear KP,

The Korean ethnic group is called 韓 (Mand: han2, Cant: hon4) or Hàn in Sino-Vietnamese.

If you’re computer cannot view Unicode click on the link below to see the character for the Korean ethnic group:

http://www.chinalanguage.com/cgi-bin/vi ... in,english

The Chinese ethnic group is called 漢 (Mand: han4, Cant: hon3) or hán in Sino-Vietnamese.

Click the link to see the character for the Chinese ethnic group:

http://www.chinalanguage.com/cgi-bin/vi ... in,english

The full name for South Korea is 大韓民國 (Mand: da4 han2 min2 guo2, Cant: daai6 hon4 man4 gwok3).

In Sino-Korean it would be 대한민국 (dae han min kuk).
In Sino-Vietnamese it would be Đại Hàn Dân Quốc.

So Đại Hàn is just short for Đại Hàn Dân Quốc.

Why don’t they add Sino-Vietnamese readings to the character dictionary at this site. Are you reading this Thomas Chin?

Kobo-Daishi, PLLA.

[KP]

Thanks for pointing that out Kobo-Daishi.

So the Koreans are Han, but not the same Han as Chinese Han right? I always thought there was a connection there, but I guess not.

[James Campbell]

KP & Kobodaishi,

I was late to the response...
But exactly right. Daehan Minkuk is their official name. And I never heard of the Chinese referring to themselves as "Da-Han4", so even without tone, there's not much confusion.

Thomas Chin:
Yes, please add the SV readings to the site. That would be great.
And some of your dialect listings could be updated (I know you're linking to an outside database (HK?), but much of it could be redone, overhauled, and updated if they haven't started already).

Thomas Chan:
Thanks for all that input. I knew somebody knew all the specific references.

James

[KP]

Well I made the connection from knowing that Dai Han was Korea. I've never actually heard the word "HAN" as in Han Dynasty in Vietnamese. So I wasn't aware of the different tone or accent. I only knew the romanized spelling of both. Sorry

Anyways, can anyone tell me what page in Taylors book states that the crossbow was invented by the Southern "Barbarians"?

My teacher also claimed that rice was first cultivated in S.E. Asia as well. But when searching on the net about the crossbow, many sites claim that the Chinese had both these since 6th century BC.

[Sum Won]

How does rice tie into crossbows? Is this from a legend of some sort?

Anyway, when I first began looking at cultures of the ancient south, I stumbled upon a site that discussed about the origins of rice seeds and rice cultivation. Both were discovered to have originated in the HuNan region, I think. I'm pretty tired and lazy now, so I don't feel like looking for the site again --it's been two years since I visited the site, so I'm not sure if it's still up, or if they made any new discoveries-- but I'm sure you can find it through www.google.com and type in something like "origins of rice".

[KP]

Rice is just one of the other "inventions" that are credited to Chinese, that I've heard different accounts of who are the true inventors, or cultivators in this case. No direct connection with crossbows other than that.

[Mark]

I've seen people with Hiragana and Katakana tattoos... it's funny! rofl. (katakana looks so awkward when written on peoples' bodies, I never liked that script much)

Hey, what about writing simplified chinese on your body? hahaha.

Well... anyhow... Westerners use plenty of modern Japanese inventions. Sony's electronics, Nintendo's (entertainment) electronics, many other things that were actually _invented_ in Japan. (if I was listening correctly in shakai last week, the first gun was invented in Japan, even though the first gunpowder was in China)

And then there's Samsung... lol. Weren't they the ones who invented DVDs or something like that?

Ooh, ooh! But the Chinese did invent paper...