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Korean Languages
Koreanic is a small language family consisting of the Korean and Jeju languages. The latter is often described as a dialect of Korean, but is distinct enough to be considered a separate language. Alexander Vovin suggests that the Yukjin dialect of the far northeast should be similarly distinguished. Korean has been richly documented since the introduction of the Hangul alphabet in the 15th century. Earlier renditions of Korean using Chinese characters are much more difficult to interpret. All modern varieties are descended from the Old Korean of the state of Silla. The little that is known of other languages spoken on the peninsula before the Sillan unification (late 7th century) comes largely from placenames. Some of these languages are believed to have been Koreanic, but there is also evidence suggesting that Japonic languages were spoken in central and southern parts of the peninsula. There have been many attempts to link Koreanic with other language families, most often wit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Language Family
A language family is a group of languages related through descent from a common ''ancestral language'' or ''parental language'', called the proto-language of that family. The term "family" reflects the tree model of language origination in historical linguistics, which makes use of a metaphor comparing languages to people in a biological family tree, or in a subsequent modification, to species in a phylogenetic tree of evolutionary taxonomy. Linguists therefore describe the ''daughter languages'' within a language family as being ''genetically related''. According to '' Ethnologue'' there are 7,151 living human languages distributed in 142 different language families. A living language is defined as one that is the first language of at least one person. The language families with the most speakers are: the Indo-European family, with many widely spoken languages native to Europe (such as English and Spanish) and South Asia (such as Hindi and Bengali); and the Sino-Tibetan famil ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Genetic Relationship (linguistics)
Two languages have a genetic relationship, and belong to the same language family, if both are descended from a common ancestor, or one is descended from the other. The term and the process of language evolution are independent of, and not reliant on, the terminology, understanding, and theories related to genetics in the biological sense, so, to avoid confusion, some linguists prefer the term genealogical relationship. p. 222. An example of linguistic genetic relationship would be between the Romance languages, such as Spanish, French, and Romanian, all descended from the spoken Latin of ancient Rome.Lewis, M. Paul, Gary F. Simons, and Charles D. Fennig (eds.)''Ethnologue: Languages of the World'' Seventeenth edition. Dallas, Texas: SIL International, 2013. Language relationships can inform to some extent about possible genetic relationships in the biological sense. For example, if all languages stem from a single origin, it strongly implies that all humanity may have been collec ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Samguk Yusa
''Samguk yusa'' () or ''Memorabilia of the Three Kingdoms'' is a collection of legends, folktales and historical accounts relating to the Three Kingdoms of Korea (Goguryeo, Baekje, and Silla), as well as to other periods and states before, during and after the Three Kingdoms period. "Samguk yusa is a historical record compiled by the Buddhist monk Il Yeon in 1281 (the 7th year of King Chungnyeol of Goryeo) in the late Goryeo Dynasty." It is the earliest extant record of the Dangun legend, which records the founding of Gojoseon as the first Korean nation. The ''Samguk yusa'' is National Treasure No. 306. Samguk yusa is a history book which is composed of five volumes in total and is divided into nine parts within the five volumes. The samguk yusa can be described to the documentation of tales and legends, which are categorised by the two parts such as extraordinary historical events and diverse Buddhist narratives. This book deals with various historical sources such as tales of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hyangga
''Hyangga'' () were poems written using Chinese characters in a system known as ''hyangchal'' during the Unified Silla and early Goryeo periods of Korean history. Only a few have survived: 14 in the ''Samguk yusa'' and 11 by the monk Kyunyeo. Features Written using Hanja in a system known as ''hyangchal'' the ''hyangga'' are believed to have been first written in the Goryeo period, as the style was already beginning to fade. A collection of ''hyangga'' was compiled in the late 9th century by Wihong, the prime minister of Queen Jinseong of Silla, and the monk Taegu-Hwasang, but was since lost. The surviving ''hyangga'' consist of 14 recorded in the ''Samguk Yusa'' and 11 in the '' Gyunyeojeon'' by Kyunyeo. The name ''hyangga'' is formed from the character for "back-country" or "rural village" () – which was often used by the Silla people to describe their nation, specifically to distinguish these distinctly Silla poems from "pure" Chinese literature – and the character fo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sino-Korean Vocabulary
Sino-Korean vocabulary or Hanja-eo () refers to Korean words of Chinese origin. Sino-Korean vocabulary includes words borrowed directly from Chinese, as well as new Korean words created from Chinese characters, and words borrowed from Sino-Japanese vocabulary. Many of these terms were borrowed during the height of Chinese-language literature on Korean culture. Anywhere from 30-60 percent of Korean words are of Chinese character origin. Many of these words have also been truncated or altered for the Korean language. History The use of Chinese and Chinese characters in Korea dates back to at least 194 BCE. While Sino-Korean words were widely used during the Three Kingdoms period, they became even more popular during the Silla period. During this time, male aristocrats changed their given names to Sino-Korean names. Additionally, the government changed all official titles and place names in the country to Sino-Korean. Sino-Korean words remained popular during the Goryeo and Jos ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jilin Leishi
The ''Jilin leishi'' was a Chinese book about Korea written in 1103–1104 by Sūn Mù (孫穆), an officer of the Chinese Song dynasty embassy to Goryeo. The original work is lost, but fragments reproduced in later Chinese works provide vital information about Early Middle Korean. The original work is believed to have consisted of three volumes covering the customs, government and language of Korea, with various historical documents as appendices. All that survives is excerpts quoted in the two Chinese encyclopedias, the ''Shuō fú'' (說郛) from the Ming dynasty and the ''Gujin Tushu Jicheng'' (1726). The original Ming work was itself lost, and survives in 1647 and 1925 editions, whose compilers had access to the original. The surviving fragment of the ''Jilin leishi'' consists of a brief introduction dealing with Korean customs and government, and a glossary of over 350 Korean words and phrases, grouped in 18 semantic categories. For example, the first entry is 天曰漢捺 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Middle Korean
Middle Korean is the period in the history of the Korean language succeeding Old Korean and yielding in 1600 to the Modern period. The boundary between the Old and Middle periods is traditionally identified with the establishment of Goryeo in 918, but some scholars have argued for the time of the Mongol invasions of Korea (mid-13th century). Middle Korean is often divided into Early and Late periods corresponding to Goryeo (until 1392) and Joseon respectively. It is difficult to extract linguistic information from texts of the Early period, which are written using adaptations of Chinese characters. The situation was transformed in 1446 by the introduction of the Hangul alphabet, so that Late Middle Korean provides the pivotal data for the history of Korean. Sources Until the late 19th century, most formal writing in Korea, including government documents, scholarship and much literature, was written in Classical Chinese. Before the 15th century, the little writing in Korean was ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Palatalization (sound Change)
Palatalization is a historical-linguistic sound change that results in a palatalized articulation of a consonant or, in certain cases, a front vowel. Palatalization involves change in the place or manner of articulation of consonants, or the fronting or raising of vowels. In some cases, palatalization involves assimilation or lenition. Types Palatalization is sometimes an example of assimilation. In some cases, it is triggered by a palatal or palatalized consonant or front vowel, but in other cases, it is not conditioned in any way. Consonant Palatalization changes place of articulation or manner of articulation of consonants. It may add palatal secondary articulation or change primary articulation from velar to palatal or alveolar, alveolar to postalveolar. It may also cause a consonant to change its manner of articulation from stop to affricate or fricative. The change in the manner of articulation is a form of lenition. However, the lenition is frequently accompanied ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hamgyŏng Dialect
The Hamgyŏng dialect, or Northeastern Korean, is a dialect of the Korean language used in most of North and South Hamgyŏng and Ryanggang Provinces of northeastern North Korea, all of which were originally united as Hamgyŏng Province. Since the nineteenth century, it has also been spoken by Korean diaspora communities in Northeast China and the former Soviet Union. The characteristic features of Hamgyŏng include a pitch accent closely aligned to Middle Korean tone, extensive palatalization, widespread umlaut, preservation of pre-Middle Korean intervocalic consonants, distinctive verbal suffixes, and an unusual syntactic rule in which negative particles intervene between the auxiliary and the main verb. History and distribution The Hamgyŏng dialect is the Korean variety spoken in northeastern Hamgyŏng Province, now further divided as the North Korean provinces of North Hamgyŏng, South Hamgyŏng, and Ryanggang. However, not all of Hamgyŏng speaks the dialect. The Kor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mutually Intelligible
In linguistics, mutual intelligibility is a relationship between languages or dialects in which speakers of different but related varieties can readily understand each other without prior familiarity or special effort. It is sometimes used as an important criterion for distinguishing languages from dialects, although sociolinguistic factors are often also used. Intelligibility between languages can be asymmetric, with speakers of one understanding more of the other than speakers of the other understanding the first. When it is relatively symmetric, it is characterized as "mutual". It exists in differing degrees among many related or geographically proximate languages of the world, often in the context of a dialect continuum. Intelligibility Factors An individual's achievement of moderate proficiency or understanding in a language (called L2) other than their first language (L1) typically requires considerable time and effort through study and practical application if the two l ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jilin
Jilin (; alternately romanized as Kirin or Chilin) is one of the three provinces of Northeast China. Its capital and largest city is Changchun. Jilin borders North Korea (Rasŏn, North Hamgyong, Ryanggang and Chagang) and Russia (Primorsky Krai) to the east, Heilongjiang to the north, Liaoning to the south, and Inner Mongolia to the west. Along with the rest of Northeast China, Jilin underwent an early period of industrialization. However, Jilin's economy, characterized by heavy industry, has been facing economic difficulties with privatization. This prompted the central government to undertake a campaign called "Revitalize the Northeast". The region contains large deposits of oil shale. Name The name "Jilin" originates from ''girin ula'' () , a Manchu phrase meaning "along the river", shortened to Kirin in English. This Manchu term was transcribed into ''jilin wula'' ( t , s ) in Chinese characters and shortened the first two characters, which are tran ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture
Yanbian (; Chosŏn'gŭl: , ''Yeonbyeon''), officially known as the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture, is an autonomous prefecture in the east of Jilin Province, China. Yanbian is bordered to the north by Heilongjiang Province, on the west by Jilin's Baishan City and Jilin City, on the south by North Korea's North Hamgyong Province and on the east by Primorsky Krai in Russia. Yanbian is designated as a Korean autonomous prefecture due to the large number of ethnic Koreans living in the region. The prefectural capital is Yanji and the total area is . The prefecture has an important Balhae archaeological site: the Ancient Tombs at Longtou Mountain, which includes the Mausoleum of Princess Jeonghyo. History In the Ming dynasty, Yanbian was governed by the Jianzhou Guard () and in the late Qing dynasty the area was divided into the Yanji () and Hunchun () subprefectures. From 1644 to the 1800s the Manchurian administrators of the Qing state attempted to separate Northeast Ch ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
