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The traditional periodization of Korean distinguishes:[1][2]
Nam Pung-hyun has suggested that the division between Old and Middle Korean ought to be drawn at the time of theMongol invasions of Korea (mid-13th century).[4][5]He divides his extended Old Korean period into Early (Three Kingdoms), Middle (Unified Silla) and Late (early Goryeo) periods.[4]
Korean and the closely relatedJeju language form the compact Koreanic language family. A relation to theJaponic languages is debated but currently not accepted by most linguists.[6][7]Another theory is theAltaic Theory, but it is either discredited or fringe.
Homer Hulbert claimed the Korean language was Ural-Altaic in his bookThe History of Korea (1905). The classification of Korean as Altaic was introduced byGustaf John Ramstedt (1928), but even within the debunked Altaic hypothesis, the position of Korean relative to Japonic is unclear. A possible Korean–Japonic grouping within Altaic has been discussed bySamuel Martin,Roy Andrew Miller andSergei Starostin. Others, notably Vovin, interpret the affinities between Korean and Japanese as an effect caused by geographic proximity, i.e. asprachbund.
Use ofClassical Chinese by Koreans began in the fourth century or earlier, and phonological writing inIdu script was developed by the sixth century.[8]It is unclear whether Old Korean was atonal language.[9] It is assumed that Old Korean was divided into dialects, corresponding to the three kingdoms. Of these, theSillan language is the best attested due to the political domination ofLater Silla by the seventh century.Only some literary records of Unified Silla, changed into Goryeo text, are extant and some texts (written in their native writing system) of the Three Kingdoms period are mostly available in form of inscriptions at present.Thus, the languages of the Three Kingdoms period are generally examined through official government names and local district names.There is very little literature for research of Old Korean. The first texts in Old Korean were written usingHanja to represent the sound and grammar of the local language.Additional information about the language is drawn from various proper nouns recorded in Korean and Chinese records, and from etymological studies of the Korean pronunciations of Chinese characters.Various systems were used, beginning withad hoc approaches and gradually becoming codified in the Idu script and thehyangchal system used for poetry. These were arrangements ofChinese characters to represent the language phonetically, much like the Japaneseman'yōgana.
The language standard of this period is based on the dialect ofKaesong because Goryeo moved the capital city to the northern area of theKorean Peninsula.
The first foreign record of Korean is theJilin leishi, written in 1103 by a ChineseSong dynasty writer, Sūn Mù孫穆.[10][11] It contains several hundred items of Goryeo-era Korean vocabulary with the pronunciation indicated through the use of Chinese characters, and is thus one of the main sources for information on Early Middle Korean. From a phonological perspective however, the usefulness of this material is limited due to logographic nature of the characters.
The ChineseMing dynastyBureau of Translators compiled a Chinese–Korean vocabulary of Joseon-era Korean in the mid-16th century.[12]
There weretones in Middle Korean.[13][14][15]
The creation of theHunminjeongeum ('The Correct/Proper Sounds for the Instruction of the People'), the original name forHangul, was completed in 1443 bySejong the Great, the fourth Joseon king, and promulgated in September or October 1446.
Hunminjeongeum was an entirely new and native script for the Korean language and people. The script was initially named after the publication, but later came to be known as "Hangul". It was created so that the common people illiterate in Hanja could accurately and easily read and write the Korean language. Its supposed publication date, October 9, becameHangul Day inSouth Korea. ItsNorth Korean equivalent, Chosŏn'gŭl Day, is on January 15.
In Koreanwiktionary, the pronunciation of Middle Korean is represented by theYale romanization of Korean. This is because theRevised Romanization of Korean was only designed forModern Korean.Yale romanization of Korean places primary emphasis onshowing a word'smorphophonemic structure, so it does not indicate the actual pronunciation of the day.
Over the decades following theKorean War and thedivision of Korea,North–South differences in the Korean language have developed, including variances in pronunciation, verb inflection and vocabulary.
Works cited