The Korean Language: The Shocking Story From Kings to K-Pop
Summary
TLDRThis script narrates the rich history and complexities of the Korean language, from its mysterious origins to its modern popularity. Highlighting the creation of Hangul by King Sejong the Great, it discusses the language's resilience through Japanese occupation and the Korean Wave's global impact. The script also touches on the language's unique grammar, honorifics, and dialects, emphasizing the challenges and rewards of learning Korean.
Takeaways
- 😲 The Korean language is considered one of the top three hardest languages on Earth due to its complex grammar and unique rules.
- 🏰 The origins of the Korean language are mysterious, with ancient links to the Altaic language family and migration from Manchuria during the Bronze Age.
- 📜 Old Korean began around the 1st Century A.D. during the Three Kingdoms period, with the Shira language as the precursor to Modern Korean.
- 📝 For over 1,500 years, Koreans had to learn Chinese to read and write, as they did not have their own writing system until the invention of Hangul.
- 👑 King Sejong the Great invented Hangul, an alphabetic writing system, in 1443 to make writing accessible to all Koreans, regardless of social status.
- 📚 Hangul was initially resisted by the aristocracy, who continued to use Chinese characters, relegating Hangul to women's diaries and children's books.
- 🚫 Hangul faced a ban during the reign of a young and tyrannical king in 1504, who also expelled scholars from the university and turned it into a place of pleasure.
- 🌐 The Japanese occupation of Korea from 1910 to 1945 attempted to eradicate Korean culture and language, leading to a high illiteracy rate and the destruction of many historical records.
- 🛡️ The Korean Language Research Society undertook a language rescue mission, creating a massive Hangul dictionary and preserving it through difficult times.
- 🎉 Hangul Day is celebrated as a national holiday in South Korea, commemorating the introduction of the Hangul alphabet.
- 🌐 The popularity of Korean language learning has surged globally due to the 'Korean wave' of K-pop and K-dramas, attracting millions of learners worldwide.
Q & A
Why is the Korean language considered one of the hardest languages to learn?
-The Korean language is considered one of the hardest due to its complex grammar with unique rules, the requirement to learn a list of 1,800 essential Hanja (Chinese characters), and the importance of particles and honorific levels in speech.
What is the origin of the Korean language and its relation to other languages?
-The origin of the Korean language is mysterious with distant links to the Altaic language family, which includes Mongolian and Turkish. Proto-Koreans were migrants from Manchuria during the Bronze Age, and there are overlaps with Japanese, but they remain distinct languages.
Who invented the Korean writing system, Hangul, and why?
-King Sejong the Great invented Hangul in 1443 to create an alphabetic writing system that was easy for anyone to learn in just a few hours, as a way for his subjects to express their worries in writing.
What was the initial reaction of the aristocratic class to Hangul?
-The aristocratic class did not like Hangul because they did not want commoners to climb the social status ladder. They criticized and refused to use it, keeping it for women's diaries and children's storybooks.
How did the Japanese occupation of Korea impact the Korean language and culture?
-The Japanese occupation tried to eradicate Korean culture and language by outlawing Hangul, burning over 200,000 Korean history books and records, and forcing Koreans to change their names to Japanese ones. This led to a high illiteracy rate after the war.
What efforts were made to preserve and revive the Korean language during Japanese occupation?
-The Korean Language Research Society worked to keep the language alive by giving the alphabet its present name, Hangul, and writing a massive dictionary, which they hid in pickle jars and buried in the ground.
Why is there a national holiday for Hangul?
-Hangeul has its own national holiday because it is the only alphabet with such a distinction, recognizing its importance in Korean culture and history.
How does the Korean language differ between North and South Korea?
-North Korea abandoned Hanja and has a few Russian and English loanwords, preferring no loanwords and using them differently. South Korea uses more loanwords and has its own unique words created using English words not found in English, known as 'Conglish'.
What is the significance of the Jeju dialect in the context of the Korean language?
-The Jeju dialect is significant as it uses two letters removed from the old alphabet and is a critically endangered dialect spoken only by elderly people on Jeju Island. It has its own grammar system and different words, making it hard for mainlanders to understand.
Why has the Korean language gained popularity worldwide recently?
-The Korean language has gained popularity due to the 'Korean wave', which is an obsession with Korean music (K-pop) and TV shows (K-dramas) that has spread globally.
What is the structure of the modern Korean alphabet, Hangul?
-Hangul consists of 14 consonants and 10 vowels, with combinations representing five double consonants and 11 diphthongs, totaling 40 characters. They are arranged into syllable blocks written from left to right.
Outlines
📜 The Origins and Complexity of the Korean Language
This paragraph delves into the ancient and complex nature of the Korean language, highlighting its mysterious origins and the debate over its relation to other languages like Japanese. It discusses the migration of proto-Koreans from Manchuria during the Bronze Age and the linguistic overlap between Korean and Japanese. The script touches on the lack of surviving records from the early period and the significance of the oldest surviving Korean text. The narrative also mentions the invention of the Korean writing system by King Sejong the Great in 1443, who created an alphabetic writing system called Hangul to make literacy accessible to all.
👑 King Sejong's Hangul and Its Societal Impact
This section narrates the story of King Sejong's invention of Hangul, an alphabet designed to be easily learned and used by everyone. It details the resistance from the aristocratic class who feared the social mobility it could provide to commoners. Despite this, Hangul persisted and was eventually made the national script in 1446. The paragraph also covers the challenges Hangul faced, including a ban by a young, tyrannical king in 1504, and its eventual resurgence. It concludes with the story of the Korean Language Research Society's efforts to preserve the language during the Japanese occupation, culminating in the creation of a grand dictionary and the establishment of Hangul's own national holiday.
🌐 The Spread and Influence of the Korean Language
This paragraph explores the global spread of the Korean language, attributing its popularity to the 'Korean wave' of pop culture, including K-pop and K-dramas. It discusses the language's unique grammar, including the freedom in word order and the importance of particles and honorifics. The narrative also touches on the influence of Mandarin Chinese on the Korean language, with many loanwords incorporated into its lexicon. Additionally, it examines the differences between North and South Korean dialects, the use of 'Conglish' in South Korea, and the challenges of learning Korean as a foreign language.
🏝️ Jeju Dialect: A Unique Linguistic Heritage
Focusing on the Jeju dialect, this paragraph examines the unique linguistic heritage of Jeju Island, South Korea. It discusses the dialect's critically endangered status and the efforts to preserve it through education. The narrative highlights the differences between Jeju dialect and standard Korean, including distinct vocabulary and grammar. It also touches on the historical context that led to the development of this unique dialect, including the island's isolation and the resulting linguistic evolution.
🎶 The Korean Wave and Cultural Competition
In this final paragraph, the script discusses the global phenomenon known as the 'Korean wave,' which has significantly contributed to the popularity of the Korean language. It mentions the impact of K-pop and K-dramas on a worldwide audience and the cultural competition with neighboring Japan. The paragraph also hints at the upcoming exploration of the Japanese language's origins, suggesting a comparison with the complexities and rich history of the Korean language.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Korean Language
💡Altaic Family of Languages
💡Proto-Koreans
💡Three Kingdoms of Korea
💡Hangul
💡King Sejong the Great
💡Hanja
💡Jeju Dialect
💡Korean Wave
💡Cultural Imperialism
💡Conglish
Highlights
The Korean language is considered one of the top three hardest languages on Earth.
Korean's origins are mysterious with distant links to the Japanese language, but it remains unique.
Proto-Koreans were migrants from Manchuria during the Bronze Age, with both chorianic and japonic speakers.
Ancient Korean records are scarce, with only a few sources like poems, bamboo slips, and stone inscriptions surviving.
For 1,500 years, Koreans had to learn Chinese to read and write due to the lack of a native writing system.
King Sejong the Great invented Hangul, an alphabetic writing system, to make writing accessible to all.
Hangul was created in three years with the help of scholars in the Hall of Worthies, based on mouth shapes for sounds.
The new Hangul alphabet was initially met with resistance from the aristocratic class who favored Chinese characters.
Hangul was used in women's diaries and children's books, leading to the creation of beautiful poems and folk stories.
In 1446, Hangul was made the national script, but challenges to its use persisted.
Japanese occupation of Korea from 1910 to 1945 attempted to eradicate Korean culture and language.
The Korean Language Research Society undertook a language rescue mission, creating a massive Hangul dictionary.
North Korea abandoned Chinese characters (Hanja) post-World War II, while South Korea embraced Hangul for everyday use.
Korean grammar is complex with a free word order, verb placement at the end, and importance of particles and honorifics.
Korean is not tonal and has a simple stress pattern, in contrast to many other Asian languages.
The Korean wave of K-pop and K-dramas has sparked a global interest in learning the Korean language.
Korean dialects and regional variations highlight the language's diversity and cultural significance.
The Jeju dialect is critically endangered but efforts are being made to preserve and teach it to new generations.
Korean's difficulty for English speakers is acknowledged, but its cultural impact has driven a surge in learning.
Transcripts
the Korean language is an ancient
language that's recently become rather
popular
[Music]
but it is not all fun and games Korean
is ranked as one of the top three
hardest languages on Earth and you'll
understand why after I tell you the
story of This Magnificent language which
involves a wise King a psycho King an
orphan and a war nothing's ever easy
foreign
[Music]
foreign
is one of the world's oldest living
languages and its Origins are as
mysterious as the origin of the Korean
people they have distant links with
Japanese people but they're amazing
language really is one of a kind no one
actually knows what ancient Korean was
like some historians think it's a
distant relative of the altaic family of
languages which includes Mongolian and
Turkish but that is a very big fat maybe
we do know that proto-koreans were
migrants from Manchuria during the
Bronze Age that's this part of Northeast
China right here these tribes were
chorianic speakers but there were also
japonic speakers living alongside them
even now there are a few language
overlaps with Korean and Japanese but
they're still two completely different
languages so what was going on if you
are an ambitious linguist there is a
mystery to be solved here there is one
ancient book that might have some Clues
it's the oldest surviving record of
Korean language what happened to all the
other records well that is a story for
later on so is Korean an orphan and an
only child maybe that depends on whether
the language from this island is a
sibling of Korean or a dialect of Korean
but let's say that question for later
old Korean began in the 1st Century A.D
During the period known as the Three
Kingdoms of Korea one of these kingdoms
was called Sheila and when the Three
Kingdoms United they all spoke the Shira
language and this language is where
Modern Korean descends from but it's all
very mysterious almost nothing survived
from that time to give us Clues except
for 25 poems some bamboo and wooden
slips a few Stone inscriptions and a
handful of Buddhist texts explaining how
to read Korean but it was nothing like
the Korean you see around you
imagine if when it came to writing stuff
down you could only write stuff in a
different language to the one that you
speak well for 1 500 years if you were
Korean and wanted to read and write you
had to learn Chinese because Koreans
didn't have their own writing system in
fact Korean writing was invented by a
king a cool story coming up at first
they wrote In classical Chinese and then
somewhere around 500 A.D some Buddhist
monks had a go at using Chinese
characters to write in Korean and they
gave it a name the IDU script but how
could they write Korean using Chinese
how does that work well think of numbers
written as characters one two three four
no matter what language you speak
English French German you understand
what these characters mean right now
take that concept make it a whole
language you get Chinese but that's not
the writing that you want to know about
you want to know about this beautiful
writing
foreign
so people were writing Korean with
Chinese but it wasn't easy Chinese has
over 50 000 characters the grammar also
didn't match up Korean grammar is very
complex with its own unique rules
[Music]
another problem was that you could
record the meaning of Korean speech but
not the sound of it so the year 1443
rolled in and King sejong the great was
sad that his subjects couldn't Express
their worries to him in writing now King
sejon was a poet an inventor and a
scholarly type of guy so his bride's
idea that came next made perfect sense
he had heard stories about how people
were writing in the west writing out
their sounds logically just a few shapes
to make any sound amazing but he saw
some illogical things even in the Latin
alphabet I mean why do
have completely different written shapes
when they are said with exactly the same
mouth shape the mouse the same right I
mean I got her point so he personally
invented an alphabetic writing system
that would be so easy anyone could learn
it in just a few hours he said in his
own words in my pity for them I create
28 letters which all can easily learn
and use in their daily lives now there
is a story that he almost lost his
eyesight working on the alphabet
according to the junior Encyclopedia of
the Korean language it took three years
but let's be honest he had some help he
set up an Academy named it the whole of
worthies and got a bunch of Scholars to
work on his new alphabet so what was the
plan well since different mouth shapes
make lip sounds throat sounds tongue
sounds and teeth sounds why not make an
alphabet that's based on mouth shapes
indeed so he invented what's called a
featural alphabet meaning each letter is
shaped according to its features
Paul cool
cool
cool
this letter is the shape of the tongue
as it makes a Kia sound today the
alphabet has an easier name Hangul and
it's amazingly simple all of the letters
are just lines and circles the king told
people if you're wise you'll learn this
in one morning if you're stupid it will
take you 10 days are you up for the
Kings challenge if you are well I am
extremely excited to announce our new
story learning Korean program it's
called story learning because well you
learn Korean through the power of story
and not just that alphabet of course
this is a comprehensive program that
teaches you to learn and speak Korean
and it's very different to regular
methods because the entire course is
built around story which means you learn
in a much more natural in-depth way
exactly the same way as you learned your
native language as a child in fact
through story if you've seen my book of
Korean stories for example but maybe you
found it a little bit hard for you well
a new Korean course is the perfect way
to build up to being able to read and
understand a book at this level and then
go on to obviously speak Korean as well
the course is coming out soon by the
time you watch this video it may already
be out so if you want to find out more
you can click at the link below in the
description so how did King sejong's
subjects like his cool new alphabet well
actually the aristocratic class didn't
like it one bit they didn't want
commoners climbing the social status
ladder so they criticized it no one can
learn to read horizontally they said
silly westerners they feared and hated
the new script so much that they refused
to use it they kept using Chinese
characters for centuries after that and
Hangul was kept for things like women's
Diaries and children's story books they
even called it script for women and so
what did women do well they learned
Hangul and then they wrote hundreds of
beautiful poems and folk stories they
mostly sang about the hard life of a
woman who lived a closed and limited
life compared to men like this poet they
said she was a genius but at age 27 she
was found dead in her chair with most of
her poetry burned suicide I don't know
but pause and read these lines
[Music]
color poems are the oldest by a Korean
female Rider to survive history but at
one point it was considered a crime to
read her poetry which will make sense in
a minute there was also a practice of
mixing the two scripts together like in
this ancient book songs of the Dragons
flying to heaven in 1446 Hangul was
finally made the national script so all
was well in the end right
buckle up things are about to get messy
it was the year 1504 and there was a new
and very young king not really he was 13
years old his mum was completely crazy
with jealousy issues entirely his dad's
fault so he never exactly had a stable
upbringing or his 20s he was a terrible
Tyrant who committed treacherous acts
that I can't even speak about on this
channel but I will give you the mild
version he captured all the most
beautiful women in the land and forced
them to be his slaves but where to keep
them well since he didn't even like
Academia to start with he threw everyone
out of the university and made it a more
fun place so naturally the commoners
created posters mocking him in Hangul of
course so what did he do well he banned
Hangul didn't he and pleading with him
was a very bad idea by the time he died
he was your average homicidal maniac
Hangul eventually came back and anyone
was allowed to study again but in these
gripping language tales when does a good
thing ever last and if you're enjoying
this gripping language tale please like
the video subscribe to the channel so I
can keep making videos like this and
turn on that notification bell too
because you wouldn't want to miss the
next one would you
jumping ahead 400 years or so in 1910
the Japanese empire occupied Korea and
didn't leave until 1945 they believed
that they could make Koreans Japanese
and so they tried to eradicate the
Korean culture and its language they
outlawed hang on seriously again this
time it was all out war on Korean
culture they burned over 200 000 Korean
history books and Records wiping out the
memory of old Korean and the new rule at
schools and universities was do not
speak your language Koreans were even
forced to change their names to Japanese
ones and they shut down Publications and
censored the Press by the time the war
and colonization was over the illiteracy
rate in the country was close to 80
percent we need some language Heroes
right about now don't we well the Korean
language research Society had been
struggling to keep the language alive as
you can imagine it was time for a
language Rescue Mission risking torture
and prison they tried two big things in
1912 they gave the alphabet its present
name Hangul meaning Korean writing and
they decided to write a massive sick
volume Hangul dictionary hiding the
script in pickle jars and burying them
in the ground here they are right here
now that is bravery for you by the time
they were done it was 1957 and it had
taken them 28 years but the grand
dictionary of the Korean language
existed and from then on the day was
called hangout though still is pretty
cool that hangel is the only alphabet
with his own national holiday but what
was going on up north in the meantime
well after World War II and their
independence North Korea abandoned hanja
the Chinese writing they saw hanja as a
form of cultural imperialism and
completely rejected it they still do use
a lot of Mandarin Chinese borrowed words
although written in their own way and
you can find hanja in North Korean
dictionaries in the South meanwhile
Hangul was now the everyday written
language of newspapers magazines Bibles
and menus the great thing is that the
language survived even the fighting
between North and South Korea and I
don't think it is going anywhere at this
point can anybody guess why
foreign
people in the world who speak Korean and
7.5 million of them are ethnic Koreans
living in other countries if you haven't
guessed yet thousands of people are
studying Korean just to experience its
linguistic genius but there is an even
bigger reason the Korean is so popular
the language Works word order in Korean
is Freer than in English the only
general rule being that the verb usually
comes at the end of a sentence school
kids also have to learn a list of 1 800
essential hanja these are the Chinese
characters if you remember now here's a
weird question can Koreans write their
names in Handa if they want to well they
can but they're only allowed to choose
between
2854 characters see in 1991 the Supreme
Court made this ruling yep these kind of
rules still do exist modern Korean was
also heavily influenced by Mandarin
Chinese as many as half of the words are
loan words but also interesting is that
Korean has a whole bunch of words that
they created using Chinese characters
that don't actually exist in Mandarin
Chinese so if you see these words you
are not actually reading Chinese but
rather Korean other words like these
ones were borrowed from sino-japanese
and are used only in Korean and Japanese
by the way illiteracy is virtually
non-existent in Korean now thanks to
that easy alphabet and no more psycho
Kings at least in the South so naturally
you want to give this a bash yourself
right this Korean thing I'd love to know
if I've scared you or intrigued you let
me know what you think in the comments
the characteristic of Korean grammar is
that the predicate must be placed at the
end of a sentence which is a kind of
different thing from the English right
but other than that the order of
sentence is relatively free you can just
mix other grammatical elements in a
sentence it's still okay to understand
in spoken Korean in addition the Korean
language is the one that the particle
and the honorific level of speech is
important the grammatical element
particle also known as choza in Korean
it usually consists of one or two
syllables but it influenced the whole
meaning a lot sometimes it just makes
the whole meaning change therefore it is
essential to learn it and The Honorable
forum is so crucial that even some verbs
have another form only for the polite
conversation and when it comes to the
tears I don't think it's complicated
because there are only three ones
including past present and the future
unlike many other Asian languages Korean
is not tonal it used to be but they got
rid of the tones lucky you the general
rule is simply to evenly stress your
phrases and sentences but make no
mistake Korean grammar is not for
lightweights I think they just decided
to get rid of those tones out of
sympathy to be honest I just felt sorry
for us
ever heard of honorifics well Korean
uses certain words to show respect to
the listener or the person that you're
talking about in Korea it's really
important to get this right even for
foreigners but there's more the most
important special of all should be
and as for hey
they are used in Daily conversation a
lot for example
this means hello and this could be one
of the examples of heyoche because it
ends with you
if you're not sure which honor fillable
you should use you can just go with the
heyoche you will never go wrong with it
because it's a polite form and as for
your close friend you can use headte for
example
means I'd love to or it is good
you will see this in public situations
for example also ushipsio means welcome
as in when you have just arrived at some
places and there is a sign like also
shipsio welcome to this place also can
yourself lucky that you get away with
just learning these three because there
are seven speech levels in Korean
you can even play with it like by you
know choosing to use a humble level of
speech to make yourself appear lower
down in the hierarchy foreign
[Music]
Korean script uses 24 of the original 28
basic letters there are 14 consonants
and 10 vowels
[Music]
combinations of these letters represent
five double consonants and 11 diphthongs
so you actually end up with 40
characters in total the letters are
grouped in clusters of two three or four
and they're arranged into blocks that
represent syllables you write the
syllables consonants and vowels side by
side in one block now consonants are
based on the shape your mouth makes when
you pronounce them and vowels are made
from simple horizontal or vertical lines
these days Korean is almost always
written from left to right using western
style punctuation marks but you will
also see it written vertically reading
from top to bottom like you would expect
to see with Chinese or Japanese it is
described as one of the most scientific
alphabets ever made it's a very big deal
in the history of Korean culture because
after all angle has kept Korea free of
unintelligible dialects for nearly 600
years
tribe will have their first dictionary
of the Korean alphabet Hangul the
soul-based Asia development foundation
announced on Monday that it will launch
a three-year project to create the
dictionary it'll have words and meanings
of the tribe's own language written in
the Korean alphabet the seventy thousand
strong Churchill tribe has been using
hunger to complement its spoken only
language since 2009. how awesome is that
the churchia are an ethnic minority in
Indonesia and they speak a malayo
Polynesian language I wonder if writing
in Hangul is going to work out for them
[Music]
John
John 14 feet is
so here's something interesting the
Korean dialect this boy sings in still
uses two of the letters that were
removed from the old alphabet cheju is a
critically endangered dialect spoken
only by people on this island of South
Korea only the elderly people remember
this language but as you can see the
schools are doing something about that I
say language this time because there is
a bit of disagreement about whether this
is a dialect or a language but what's
the deal with using that ancient
alphabet well people from the island
were once forbidden to travel to the
mainland because officials were afraid
that they'd never come back so the
language evolved into its own thing the
Korean in cheju has a whole set of
different words some that are really
ancient foreign
[Music]
dialect has its own grammar system so
it's very hard for mainlanders to
understand but the Islanders themselves
can understand what Mainland people say
it works the other way altogether there
are six Regional dialects in Korea and
the main differences are where the
stress goes in words and how's this
Korean actually has different words for
dialect to differentiate the types
clever thinking Koreans that's why Jeju
is called Jeju bangun meaning from the
countryside while many other dialects
are called Satori meaning Regional if
you study Korean you'll probably learn
the regular Korean of Soul though which
also happens to be the easiest
officially there are two standard
varieties of Korean in Korea
Korean war in
I've had some differences in
pronunciation spelling grammar and
vocabulary North Korea has a few Russian
loanwords and some english ones but they
prefer no loan words obviously so they
replaced most of them they also use
their loan words differently to South
Korea but the biggest difference between
North and South might be this the Korean
word
it's from the word sharp period actually
means mechanical pencil
it's from the word service but it
actually means on the house or free of
charge among restaurants conglish is
English words written in Hangul so no
prize for guessing which side uses that
South Korea sometimes even makes up new
words using English words that we don't
have in English like this one it's a
contraction of long and distance meaning
a long distance relationship speaking of
relationships has Korean Won your heart
yet
I will get straight to it here Korean is
ranked in the top difficulty level for
English speakers by the U.S Department
of Defense no less you'll get that
alphabet in a day that's the easy part
and have a ton of fun writing it and
then take years to get decent at
speaking but just in case you don't know
why everyone's suddenly learning Korean
I'll tell you
[Music]
Korean culture is huge around the world
as you know it is so big it has a name
the Korean wave it's an obsession with
Korean music and shows you know that is
K-pop k-dramas it all started on April
the 11th 1992 when two groups performed
their music on TV for the first time
even hardcore American soldiers are into
K-pop and there's proof of that in this
video but let's not forget that Korean
has some serious cultural competition
just a Stones Throw across the sea in
Japan and in this video I tell you all
about where Japanese came from and I'll
give you a hint most people have it
completely wrong
関連動画をさらに表示
King Sejong and the creation of Hangul (Hangeul) part 1 | Joseon Dynasty 3 [History of Korea]
uma breve história da LÍNGUA PORTUGUESA
History of Language Development IC
Sejarah, Kedudukan, Fungsi dan Ragam Bahasa Indonesia
한국을 사랑한 이방인 호머 헐버트ㅣ뉴튜브 - 사진관 [94회] / YTN2
جلسه اول - دوره آموزش زبان برنامه نویسی C | سطح مقدماتی - متوسط
5.0 / 5 (0 votes)