Hanja

Hanja ( pronunciation: [ ha ː nʦ ͈ a]; " Han characters " ) is the Korean name for the characters of Chinese script used in South Korea to a small extent even next to the Korean alphabet. In North Korea, they are abolished for official use in publications since 1949.

Hanja are used in names, such as personal or place names, and for the production of uniqueness in homophonic words. For this, the Hanja the word may also be added to the case with the Korean alphabet in parentheses. Only since the 1980s, even proper names are used that are not based on Hanja and also can not be represented as such.

The numerical use of Hanja in Korea has significantly decreased over time. So was a decisive impetus for pushing back the Hanja nationalist motives during the Japanese colonial period. For now the Koreans wanted to distinguish it from the Japanese, who also use the Chinese characters and during the colonial period forbade the use of the Korean alphabet.

History

North Korea managed with the founding of the state from the Chinese characters, this step revised in 1964 and again asked his disciples the knowledge of about 2000 Hanja. Even South Korea under President Park Chung -hee in 1970 was to remove the Chinese characters from the textbooks of schools since the Korean alphabet is easier to learn and so the literacy rate of the population would be easier to lift. Then, in 1975 the government changed its education policy again already and the Ministry of Education published the list of 1800 Hanja, which should be binding on the students.

Through the establishment of diplomatic relations with the People 's Republic of China in 1993 Hanja experienced in South Korea an upswing. However, in the People's Republic ( and in Singapore) are the traditional long characters may be used used by a character reform in the 1950s simplified Designation, while in Korea (as in Taiwan).

Today Hanja are used almost exclusively on maps and for the spelling of people's names. Classes begin in South Korea in the seventh grade and ends with the final Class 12 The stint at Hanja for the students is 1800 characters, have about 300 characters than Japanese students (though from the first to ninth grade ) to learn less. In other universities Hanja the relevant subject area to be taught in some subjects.

Pronunciation

Many words are present twice in the Korean language, once pure Korean origin and a second time in sinokoreanischer form, that is of Chinese origin. For example, does the character木tree and is pronounced mok ( 목 ). Although the pure Korean namu ( 나무 ) has exactly the same meaning, but, in contrast to most sino Korean Sememen as mok stand alone. Partial exist both forms of equal importance, but some is also a ungebräuchlicher become. Unlike Kanji Hanja are pronounced always sinokoreanisch in today's Korean reading, so the Hanja木namu always mok and never. Hanja can only be used to write the Sino Korean form of pure Korean words such as Seoul, there are no Hanja. Conversely, some monosyllabic Sino Korean words previously used purely Korean crowding, eg san 'mountain ( s) " mun " door ", byeok " wall ". However, are much more frequent polysyllabic Sino Korean words without pure Korean counterpart.

Eumhun

The pronunciation of every Hanjas is reproduced used in a composition of the pronunciation ( eum, 음 or音) and the explanatory or toward teaching ( -hun, 훈 or训) of the character and semantic value. Together this eumhun speak the name of the Hanjas.

The character日" day " is called in Korean nal il ( 날 일 ). Nal il means something like " Tag-/il /" or " [ character ] [ and means ] tag il [ pronounced ] " - nal is the pure Korean word for " day ", il is the Korean pronunciation of the character 日, related rì with the mandarin Chinese pronunciation.

The character一"one" is called in Korean han il ( 한 일 ). Han il means something like " Eins-/il / " - han is the pure Korean word for "one", il is the Korean pronunciation of the character一, which is related yī with the mandarin Chinese pronunciation.

The two homonymous ( il, il ) and with the Korean alphabet equal written ( 일, ​​일 ) sememes can use their eumhun name ( nal il, han il ), are distinguished its Hanja spellings (日,一) or by the context. Samsibil may vary according to context " 31" (三十 一) or " the 30th day [ of the month ] " (三十 日) mean.

The semantic value is specified in both examples with a purely Korean word, in other cases with a pure and mixed Sino Korean word or with a purely Sino- Korean word. Often the named sememe comes in the semantic specification itself before, eg字geulja = yes ( 글자 자 ) or the semantic specification consists only of these, for example门= mun mun ( 문 문 ).