Why was Korean Kanji/Hanja abandoned?
Why did Korean abandon Hanja despite the fact that Hanja is a useful character ?
Hanja=漢字(pronunciation: 한자)
韓漢混用文：
悠久한 歷史와 傳統에 빛나는 우리 大韓國民은 3·1 運動으로 建立된 大韓民國臨時政府의 法統과 不義에 抗拒한 4·19 民主理念을 繼承하고, 祖國의 民主改革과 平和的統一의 使命에 立腳하여 正義·人道와 同胞愛로써 民族의 團結을 鞏固히 하고, 모든 社會的弊習과 不義를 打破하며, 自律과 調和를 바탕으로 自由民主的基本秩序를 더욱 確固히 하여 政治·經濟·社會·文化의 모든 領域에 있어서 各人의 機會를 均等히 하고, 能力을 最高度로 發揮하게 하며, 自由와 權利에 따르는 責任과 義務를 完遂하게 하여, 안으로는 國民生活의 均等한 向上을 基하고 밖으로는 恆久的인 世界平和와 人類共榮에 이바지함으로써 우리들과 우리들의 子孫의 安全과 自由와 幸福을 永遠히 確保할 것을 다짐하면서 1948年 7月 12日에 制定되고 8次에 걸쳐 改正된 憲法을 이제 國會의 議決을 거쳐 國民投票에 依하여 改正한다.
- But I don't think it's very clever for Korean to give up Chinese characters "Hanja"-
Lucky enough you aren't asked what Koreans should or shouldn't do.
Hanja are archaic in modern Korean.
For example, "효제충신예의염치", can you understand what it means? If you ask a Korean of younger generation what this 8 characters says, maybe many of them don't know the answer very clearly, and it's not easy to found out in general dictionaries, but if you write it as Chinese characters "孝悌忠信禮義廉恥", perhaps some educated youths could understand the meanings right away. Besides this kind of case, some homonymic words would not be distinguished very easily according to context relation, just look up in a Korean advanced dictionary and you'll find that, a great deal of Korean words are remarked with Chinese characters in the brackets, so that Korean would be able to make sense of the accurate meanings without any confusion. Of course, it's the human rights for Korean to abandon Chinese character - Hanja, but it's really a pity, and it gets more kicks than halfpence, in my humble opinion.
I'm sure Chinese characters are great, but lots of languages around the world do not use them and they are not any worse off for it.
Yes that's true, but I think the Koreans find reading the Hangul so easy and fast compared to giving each character a different reading like in Japanese.
Although I personally consider Chinese characters so beautiful!!!
Korean hangul letters are beautiful too, pretty unique. And as a Frenchman I too find them much easier to read, although of course it's a moot point since this is not me the language is designed for.
<<If you ask a Korean of younger generation what this 8 characters says, maybe many of them don't know the answer very clearly, and it's not easy to found out in general dictionaries, but if you write it as Chinese characters "孝悌忠信禮義廉恥", perhaps some educated youths could understand the meanings right away.>>
Not true. I've asked Korean friends who didn't even know of the existence of Hanja. But they are pretty dumb fucks so maybe not...
Not true. I've asked Korean friends who didn't even know of the existence of Hanja.
Most educated people ought to know something about Hanja, maybe not very much, but at least, they should know that, in the past, Korean wrote all the articles with onefold Hanja (or combination of Hanja+Hangul), instead of Hangul itself. You can ask an old Korean person whether I'm lying to you.
The Koreans I've talked to recently (in their thirties) know about Hanja, but they tell me "young" people or "uneducated" people don't know them now.
I'm not saying Korean young people are uneducated.
For your information, the difference between "Chinese characters", "Japanese KANJI" and "Korean HANJA", as follows:
1，HANZI（漢字/汉字）= Chinese characters（Traditional+Simplified）
2，KANJI（漢字）= Chinese characters（Traditional）+ Japanese self-made characters（a very small quantity，based on Chinese characters）
3，HANJA（漢字）= Chinese characters（Traditional），but almost no Korean self-made characters，even if it has，there must be fewer than Japanese KANJI.
If any further questions, please let me know, thank you.
In every Korean language dictionary (國語辭典/국어사전), you can find out related remark of HANJA, just beside Hangul (한글). It's true!
-If you ask a Korean of younger generation what this 8 characters says, maybe many of them don't know the answer very clearly, and it's not easy to found out in general dictionaries, but if you write it as Chinese characters "孝悌忠信禮義廉恥", perhaps some educated youths could understand the meanings right away.-
Young Koreans are more likely to translate it to English...English knowledge is more spread than Hanja knowledge (which is limited to old grandmothers and hardcore philologists)
-Although a phonetic Korean alphabet, now known as hangul, had been created by a team of scholars commissioned in the 1440's by King Sejong, it did not come into widespread use until the late 19th and early 20th century. Thus, until that time it was necessary to be fluent in reading and writing hanja in order to be literate in Korean, as the vast majority of Korean literature and most other Korean documents were written in hanja. Today, hanja play a different role. Scholars who wish to study Korean history must study hanja in order to read historical documents. For the general public, learning a certain number of hanja is very helpful in understanding words that are formed with them, in much the same way that understanding Ancient Greek, Latin, and other ancient languages can give a deeper understanding of the Modern English vocabulary. Hanja are not used to write native Korean words, which are always rendered in hangul, and even words of Chinese origin — hanja-eo (한자어, 漢字語) — are written with the native hangul alphabet most of the time.-
wikipedia
-Opinion surveys show that the South Korean public do not consider hanja literacy essential, a situation attributed to the fact that hanja education in South Korea does not begin until the seventh year of schooling.[11] Hanja terms are also expressed through hangul, the standard script in the Korean language. Some studies suggest that hanja use appears to be in decline. In 1956, one study found mixed-script Korean text (in which Sino-Korean nouns are written using hanja, and other words using hangul) were read faster than texts written purely in hangul; however, by 1977, the situation had reversed.[12] In 1988, 80% of one sample of people without a college education "evinced no reading comprehension of any but the simplest, most common hanja" when reading mixed-script passages-