Hangul is a writing system invented in Korea to record Korean in the 15th century under the direction of Sejong the Great . Hangul was created both to supplement and to replace Chinese characters (in Korea, they are called Hancha ). In the beginning, Hangul was a "common" letter, but after Korea gained independence from Japan in the mid-20th century, Hangul became the main system for writing Korean words [1] .
In Khangyl, words are written block by block, morpho- syllabic blocks are made up of letters. Hangul was created to convey both Korean and Chinese words, although the letters for recording exclusively Chinese sounds are outdated and have been removed from the alphabet. The syllable must consist of at least one consonant and at least one vowel. For the Korean language of the 15th century, the Hangeul block corresponded to the syllable, but for the 20th century this is already wrong. In 1948, six new letters were proposed in North Korea that would make Hangul completely morphemic, but the reform did not take root.
Content
- 1 History
- 2 Reflection of the position of the speech apparatus in consonants
- 3 Ledyard Theory
- 4 Letter Design
- 5 Diacritical marks to indicate musical stress
- 6 notes
- 7 Literature
History
Hangul was distributed by King Sejong, whose scientific institute Chiphyeongjon (집현전) invented writing. At the end of 1443 or the beginning of 1444, the Hangul was completed, a document by Hongming Chonym ("The Right Sounds for Teaching People") was published. Sejon said that he was prompted by the invention of hangeul because he was going , the Korean kambun , that didn’t meet the needs of Korean phonetics, and was so complicated that only nobility could teach him. The vast majority of Koreans were illiterate. Hangul, on the contrary, was so easy that “a wise husband will have one night to get acquainted with the hangul, a fool will learn it in ten days [2] .
All the initials of the Chinese language, except for the disappeared palatalized explosions, could be written in Hangul:
| Simple | Aspirated | Voiced | Sleepy | "Clean" | "Dirty" | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Labial | Labial | 幫* [p] ㅂ | 滂* [pʰ] ㅍ | 並* [b̥] ㅃ | 明* [m] ㅁ | ||
| Labial | 非* [f] ㅸ | (敷* [fʰ] ㆄ) [3] | (奉* [v̥] ㅹ) [3] | 微* [w̃] ㅱ | |||
| Coronal | Alveolar Explosions | 端* [t] ㄷ | 透* [tʰ] ㅌ | 定* [d̥] ㄸ | 泥* [n] ㄴ | ||
| Palatal s [4] | 知* [tʲ] - | 徹* [tʲʰ] - | 澄* [d̥ʲ] - | 娘* [nʲ] - | |||
| Sibilants | Alveolar | 精* [ts] ㅈ (ᅎ) | 清* [tsʰ] ㅊ (ᅔ) | 從* [d̥z̥] ㅉ (ᅏ) | 心* [s] ㅅ (ᄼ) | 邪* [z̥] ㅆ (ᄽ) | |
| Palatal [4] / retroflex | 照* [tɕ, tʂ] (ᅐ) | 穿* [tɕʰ, tʂʰ] (ᅕ) | 牀* [d̥ʑ̊, d̥ʐ̊] (ᅑ) | 審* [ɕ, ʂ] (ᄾ) | 禪* [ʑ̊, ʐ̊] (ᄿ) | ||
| Velar | 見* [k] ㄱ | 谿* [kʰ] ㅋ | 羣* [ɡ̊] ㄲ | 疑* [ŋ] ㆁ | |||
| Larynx [5] | 影* [ʔ] ㆆ | 喻* (zero initial) ㅇ | 曉* [x] ㅎ | 匣* [ɣ̊] ㆅ | |||
| Semi-coronal | 來* [l] ㄹ | ||||||
| Half-sibilants | 日* [ȷ̃] ㅿ | ||||||
In the second half of the 15th century, Hangul was used mainly by women and poorly educated. Confucian thinkers harshly criticized the Hangul: Choi Manri , in particular, believed that Hancha was the only legitimate script for Korean. The Joseon King Yongsangkun (연산군) banned Hangul after ordinary Koreans began writing Hangul leaflets against him. King Chuncheon dismissed the Hangul Ministry. The revival occurred only in the XX century.
Reflection of the position of the speech apparatus in consonants
In Hongming Chongym, the form of consonants is explained at the place of articulation, and vowels according to the Confucian principle of yin and yang , vowel harmony .
Following the Indian tradition, Hangeul consonants are classified by where their formation occurs in the vocal apparatus. Hangul goes further: the shape of the letters illustrates the position of the speech organs. All consonants of similar articulation are based on one basic form. For example, the letter velar (牙 音 “dental sound”) ㄱ [k] shows the tongue pressed against the palate. The letter for aspiration ㅋ [kʰ] is based on the previous one, with the addition of a wand, which means aspiration. Chinese voiced ㄲ [ɡ] created by doubling ㄱ. Duplicate letters were used only for Chinese, since in Korean during the invention of Hangul there were no emphatic consonants . In the twentieth century, these signs were rethought and used for Korean emphatic consonants.
| Articulation class | Non-explosive | Explosive | Aspirated explosive | "Dirty" | Explanation According Hongming jung |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 牙 音 " molar sounds" | (ㆁ) | ㄱ | ㅋ | ㄲ | 舌根 閉 喉 tongue root closes the throat |
| 舌音 "language sounds" | ㄴ | ㄷ | ㅌ | ㄸ | 舌 附上 腭 the edge of the tongue touches the hard palate |
| 脣音 “lip sounds” | ㅁ | ㅂ | ㅍ | ㅃ | 口形 lips |
| 齒 音 “sounds of front incisors” | ㅅ | ㅈ | ㅊ | ㅉ, ㅆ | 齒形 edge of incisors [6] |
| 喉音 throat sounds | ㅇ | ㆆ | ㅎ | ᅇ, ㆅ | 喉 形 throat edge |
| 輕 脣音 "light labial sounds" | ㅱ | ㅸ | ㆄ | ㅹ | (labial sounds with a circle) |
The letters for the front-language consonants (in the Korean tradition - “dental sounds”, 舌音) represent the tongue pressed to the palate; letters for labia (() depict the shape of the lips; letters for sibilants (齒 音 "incisive sounds") represent teeth; letters for throat consonants, including the zero initial , represent the open larynx and mouth. Labial-dental consonants (輕 脣音 “light labial sounds”) are represented by letters that are created from letters for labial. All non-aspirated explosions, except labial, start with a vertical stick, and not one of the explosive consonants has it. Aspirated consonants have two sticks. Khangyl has several letters that do not fit into general principles, for example, the alveolar stroke ㄹ [l ~ ɾ] , the grapheme of which is explained as a “changed form of the tongue”, as well as the velar nasal ㆁ [ŋ] . The irregularity of labial consonants is not mentioned at all in Hongming Chongyim, but some researchers, such as Ledyard, consider them the heirs of the Mongolian square alphabet of the Chinese Yuan Dynasty.
Ledyard Theory
In the bottom row are the letters created for Chinese: ꡯ w, ꡤ v, ꡰ f, created from the letter ꡜ [h] and the Mongolian grapheme ꡧ [w] , [7] and similar constructions in Hangeul: ㅱ w / m, ㅸ v , ㆄ f, also created for Chinese sounds, variations of the letter [p] .
Although Hongming Chonym explains the design of consonants in terms of articulatory phonetics , it says that Sejong adapted a certain style of gu-zhuan-tzu, 古 篆字. This style has long remained a mystery to scientists. The main meaning of the hieroglyph 古 ( gǔ, gu ) is “old”, therefore ч 篆字gu zhuanzi was read as “the old style of zhanshu calligraphy”. This raised questions: what kind of Zhuangshu has to do with Hangul, if they are completely different functionally? But Gary Ledyard, an emeritus professor of Korean history at Columbia University , noted that the character 古gǔ is also used to phonetically convey the word “Mongol”: 蒙古 to mang . Sources of Sejon’s times use this feature to compose puns: “no one is older (古) than the Mongols (蒙古)”. Ledyard believes that gu-zhuanzi is - 篆字mengu zhuanzi , a Mongolian square letter . There were several manuscripts written in square letters in the Korean court library. The theme of the Mongol conquest of China, which happened 75 years before the invention of Hangul, was painful, and the Koreans and Chinese considered the Mongols barbarians with whom you can not live in a civilized society.
Ledyard argues that the five main consonants were redone square letters: ㄱ [k] , ㄷ [t] , ㅂ [p] , ㅈ [ts] and ㄹ [l] . These consonants are considered basic in Chinese phonetics, and the graphically simpler letters ㄱ [k] , ㄴ [n] , ㅁ [m] and ㅅ [s] are taken as a basis in Hongming Chonym. The sixth letter, ㅇ, was invented by Sejon. The remaining letters are derived from the first six, as described in Hongming Chonym.
The five borrowed letters were simplified, although they still had the outline of the letters in the square letter. For example, the square in the letter ꡂ g was lost in Hangeul ㄱ [k] . In addition to depicting articulation, this form is easier to create a concourse of consonants ; it allowed the creation of a letter for the aspiratory ㅋ [kʰ] .
In order to preserve the Chinese structure of the syllable , separation into the initial and final, Sejong and his scientists needed to create a symbol to indicate a syllable with a zero initial (that is, starting with a vowel). Sejon chose the sign знак, from which the symbol for the larynx bow ㆆ [ʔ] was produced: a vertical line was added to the zero initial, similar to other explosive consonants. In Mongolian writing, both of these initials were written with digraphs starting with the letter “й”: ꡭꡝ and ꡗꡖ. Ledyard explains the origin of the letter ㆁ [ŋ] is different from Hongmin Chonym: he assumes that the sign is derived from ㄱ and the zero initial, ㅇ. Hangul was created not only to record the Korean language, but also to accurately reproduce Chinese. Many Chinese words beginning with [ŋ] , by the time of Sejong, underwent phonetic changes, losing this sound. In Korean borrowings, the initial [ŋ] also disappeared, remaining only at the end of the syllable. The supposed form of the velar nasal consonant - ⃓, obtained from ㄱ by removing the horizontal line, was similar to the vowel letter ㅣ [i] . Sejon added a vertical line to ㅇ and created ㆁ [8] . Due to the fact that ㅇ and ㆁ never meet in the same place in words, the distinction between the characters was lost; in the 20th century, the zero initial is written with the same sign as [ŋ] .
Ledyard also notes that, with the exception of two letters, all the signs of Hangeul have simple geometric shapes. In Hongmin Chonym, that is, before the calligraphic styles made the letters asymmetric, all the letters except ㄷ [t] and ㅂ [p] were composed of straight lines. “T” and “p” had a “tongue”, like the sign of a square letter ꡊ d and the letter of the Tibetan alphabet ད d .
| Hangul | Q mong. | Tibetan | Phoenician | Greek | Latin |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ㅂ | ꡎ | བ | 𐤁 | Β | B |
| ㄱ | ꡂ | ག | 𐤂 | Γ | C, g |
| ㄷ | ꡊ | ད | 𐤃 | Δ | D |
| ㄹ | ꡙ | ལ | 𐤋 | Λ | L |
| ㅈ | ꡛ | ས | 𐤑 | Ϻ | - |
| ㅇ to ㅱ , etc. | ꡧ to ꡤ , etc. | ུ | 𐤅? [9] | Ϝ, Υ | F, Y, U / V / W |
If Ledyard’s theory is correct, then Hangul belongs to the family of scripts originating from the Phoenician alphabet through Aramaic , Indian script and Tibetan alphabet . However, Ledyard clarifies in his dissertation:
I devoted a lot of discussion to the role of Mongolian writing in the origin of the Korean alphabet, but it should be clear to any reader that in general this role was very limited. (...) Nothing would have bothered me more after the publication of this work than to see in the work or in the written phrase a statement like "according to the latest data, the Korean alphabet came from the Mongolian square letter (...)" "
Original textI have devoted much space and discussion to the role of the Mongol 'phags-pa alphabet in the origin of the Korean alphabet, but it should be clear to any reader that in the total picture, that role was quite limited. [...] Nothing would disturb me more, after this study is published, than to discover in a work on the history of writing a statement like the following: "According to recent investigations, the Korean alphabet was derived from the Mongol 'phags -pa script [...] "- The Korean language reform of 1446: the origin, background, and Early History of the Korean Alphabet , Gari Keith Ledyard. University of Califorina, 1966: 367–368
Letter Design
| 陰yin | 陽yang | 乎 doubtful | |
|---|---|---|---|
| not iotated | ㅡ eu | ㆍ ə | ㅣ i |
| iotated | ㅓ eo | ㅏ a | |
| ㅜ u | ㅗ o |
The letters for the main vowels were invented by Sejon. When creating letters, he focused on the iotization and harmony of the vowels. In his time in Korean, vowel harmony was much more common. Vowel harmony affected morphology , the terms of the Chinese natural philosophy of yin and yang were used to describe the phenomenon: if the root of the word contains the vowels "yang" (that is, the back row), then the suffixes must also contain vowels "yang", the opposite is true. The seven vowels of the Korean language were divided into two groups of three in each, the seventh sound ㅣ and, dropped out of the system. And it was considered neutral, it could be combined with both the yin vowels and the yang vowels. The letters for the "yin" vowels, ㅡ s, ㅜ y, ㅓ o; points (today - short lines, in the original plan they were points) are placed in the "Yin" directions: down and to the left. “Yan” vowels - ㆍ seam , ㅗ o, ㅏ a, pointed up and to the right.
Among the seven vowels, three cannot be iotated; they are written in one stroke: ㅡ s, ㆍ seam , ㅣ and (the letter for the “seam” is no longer used). Hongming Chonym argues that they reflect the Confucian principle of 三才Sansai , the “trinity” of the Yang sky 天, represented by a dot (ㆍ); Yin land 地, horizontal line, (ㅡ); and human 人, the vertical line (ㅣ) that is between the first two. Letters that can be iotated are shown with a dot at the line: ㅓ o, ㅏ a, ㅜ y, ㅗ o. [10] Iotation is indicated by the duplication of the point: ㅕ,, ㅑ i, ㅠ u, ㅛ ё.
| front lingual | central | back lingual | |
|---|---|---|---|
| not iotated | ㅣ i | ㆍ ə | ㅡ eu |
| iotated | ㅓ eo | ㅜ u | |
| weakly iotated | ㅏ a | ㅗ o |
Perhaps, when creating the letters, we took into account the ruggedness: the letter “s” (ㅡ) is the basis of the ruined vowels ㅜ y and ㅗ о, and the vertical “and” (ㅣ) is the basis of the unbroken vowels ㅓ о and ㅏ а. The horizontal letters ㅡ ㅜㅗ s, y, o belong to the back row vowels, * [ɯ], * [u], * [o] , but it is not known whether “and, o, a” (ㅣ ㅓㅏ) were front vowels in XV century. Some linguists reconstruct them as * [i], * [ɤ], * [e] , and a disappeared seam as * [a] ; others as * [i], * [e], * [a] , ㆍ = * [ə] .
Musical accent marks
In Korean, there is a musical stress , a kind of tone. In Khangyl there were two diacritics for tone: one dot for high tone (성 〮) and two for long vowels (성 〯). Although longitude and altitude are still present in Korean, diacritics are not used to indicate them.
Notes
- ↑ Fischer , pp. 190, 193.
- ↑ Hunmin jeong-eum haerye, postface of Jeong Inji , p. 27a, translation from Ledyard (1998: 258).
- ↑ 1 2 ㆄ and ㅹ were theoretical forms not used in normal texts.
- ↑ 1 2 In the days of Sejon, the palatal ones no longer differed.
- ↑ The phonation is reconstructed; it does not fit into the Chinese classification.
- ↑ The Chinese character “teeth” (in classical Chinese , “incisors”), 齒, contains two pairs of elements in the form of teeth, ㅅ, separated by a horizontal line. Khnak hanylya ㅉ resembles these “teeth”.
- ↑ In some manuscripts, Mongolian letters were variants of ꡜ h .
- ↑ If your browser does not show the difference between these two symbols: the latter looks like an inverted candy, a circle with a vertical stick on top
- ↑ This relationship means that Aramaic w, used as a lecture mattress for ū, had an Indian letter, the letter w, and a similar diacritical u in the spelling .
- ↑ Although the dot and the line were originally separated (ㆎ), they soon turned into ㅓ under the influence of calligraphy
Literature
- Fischer, Stephen Roger. A History of Writing . - London: Reaktion Books, 2004. - P. 187–194. - ISBN 1861891016 .
- Ledyard, Gari K. The Korean Language Reform of 1446. - Seoul: Shingu munhwasa, 1998.
- Ledyard, Gari K. The International Linguistic Background of the Correct Sounds for the Instruction of the People // The Korean Alphabet: Its History and Structure / Young-Key Kim-Renaud, ed. - Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 1997 .-- ISBN 0824817230 .
- Andrew West , The Měnggǔ Zìyùn蒙古 字 韻 "Mongolian Letters arranged by Rhyme"