![Hanja[1].png](https://i.imgur.com/DPSTKdY.png "Hanja[1].png")
How common actually is hanja mixed script in Korea nowadays? The impression I get is 'not very'. What contexts is it still used in, if any, and why did they stop using it very much?
>>702656
They should just use Hangul only.
>>702656
They stopped using it because it doesn't serve a highly aggluative language will and hangul is an incredibly good phonetic writing system that you can learn in literally in 30 minutes
>>702664
Hanja: 修道 (spiritual discipline), 囚徒 (prisoner), 水都 (city of water), 水稻 (paddy rice), 水道 (waterway), 隧道 (tunnel), 首都 (capital city)
Hangul: 수도 (spiritual discipline/prisoner/city of water/paddy rice/waterway/tunnel/capital city)
>>702702
Now try to use those words in context.
>>702664
Why do you say 'should'?
>>702738
Some of them are pretty distinct, but many of them could be confused; for example "They've begun construction of new waterways" and "They've begun construction of new tunnels" are both completely plausible statements. For that matter, "They're begun constructing a new capital city" is plausible too since Korean has no articles and no distinct plural forms.
>>702751
> for example "They've begun construction of new waterways" and "They've begun construction of new tunnels" are both completely plausible statements
Statements which are confusing only if you deliberately leave out the context which would make them obvious.
>For that matter, "They're begun constructing a new capital city" is plausible too since Korean has no articles and no distinct plural forms.
No, it's not plausible because are you fucking serious?
>>702763
Seems plausible enough to me; people have built new capital cities in the history of the world.
>>702793
It's not completely useless, obviously it can be used to communicate, but you have to write more carefully to avoid ambiguity. Speaking you don't have to be quite as careful because if someone doesn't know what you mean they can ask, e.g. "You mean 'duck' like the bird or 'duck like 'get down'?"
>>702889
It takes no effort at all to add a word or two to clarify. Learning kanji, meanwhile, takes a lot of effort to do the same thing.
>>702983
Adding the clarifying words isn't the hard bit; knowing when you need to add them is the hard bit. Noticing where one's own writing is unclear can be very difficult, because you wrote it and you already know what you're trying to say; it's hard to read from the perspective of someone who doesn't know what you know.
>>703020
It's obviously not that hard since we do it all the fucking time without shit breaking down.
한글 is god tier. I literally learned it in about 20 minutes last week.
>>703042
You learned to sound out words slowly and deliberately, you mean. One still needs practice to be able to actually be able to read text fluently.
>>702983
What about international communication value? If Korean were still written in mixed script then someone who reads Japanese or Chinese could pick up a newspaper and at least get the gist of what the stories are about (since most of the content words would be Sino-Korean)
>>702664
You idiot. Why do you think Japanese kept Han Characters?
For example if you remove the Chinese characters, you often loose the meaning and only have the phonetics.
It's like if English changed its spelling to a completely phonetic system. We would lose connection to the Latin root words. It makes no sense.
>>703133
前文
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 立脚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 恒久的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.
1987年 10月 29日
>Exactly. I read Japanese and when Han characters are used I can figure out a lot of what is in here.
>>702664
Speaking as a Japanese student, Chinese characters are pretty damn useful for getting the meaning of unfamiliar words. There are other benefits but I'm not sure if they're relevant for Korean.
>>703335
Now imagine if they also used hanja for native Korean words, like the Japanese do with their native words. For that matter, there's no 理由 we couldn't extend the same 概念 to 英語.
It's very rarely used, you are correct.
Some cases in which hanja is still used:
- In newspapers, usually as a shorthand for longer sentences (e.g. you can use 上/下 like you'd use up/down instead of "is increasing" in the title of an article to make it shorter). Some expressions ("stiff drop/crash" 暴落, "big increase" 急増) are also written in hanja, I guess for emphasis/shock value.
- Common characters like 大 are used in commercials or on TV, once again for emphasis.
- Proper names: chinese/japanese names, toponyms would have the hanja written in parenthesis next to the hangeul phonetic transcription. Korean names are also still largely based on hanja even if they are written in hangeul 90 percent of the time. Hangeul based names like 하늘 or 사랑 also exist but they are not that popular anymore.
- In academic writing or literature to clarify the meaning of an ambiguous word.
You still have to learn like 1000 hanjas at school but very few people remember more than a 100 later in life. Even many grad students in literature or humanities can't read more than 100.
Hangeul us nice but there are many advantages to a mixed script system:
- hanja is largely self explanatory so it's easy to guess the meaning of words ypu don't know. That happens often even for native speakers when you're dealing with older or technical texts.
- easy to make up new words or expressions
- no ambiguities
- easy to read for chinese/japanese speakers even with limited command of the language.
- it's not that hard to memorize. Especially since korean only has one (or in some rare cases two) reading per character.
>>703031
>>703020
>>702983
You know, for a board about anthropology you guys sure suck at looking at things like anthropologists.
Korea is a high context culture with a high context style of speaking, so using a purely phonetic writing style is sorta at odds with their established way of thinking. Sure they CAN explain a bunch of shit, but they don't like to as much as we do.
It works really well for us in the West, because we drown everything in exposition. It makes things a little trickier over there, though. That's why hanja isn't dead yet.
>>703133
>What about international communication value?
What about it? Is Kanji relevant as an international language? Are you from the 18th century?
>>703574
You know, for a guy acting like such a prissy know-it-all faggot, you sure suck a lot of dicks.
Korea literally uses a purely phonetic writing system. Chinese characters are very rarely used, even in newspapers. Here, this link is made for you: https://ko.wikipedia.org/wiki/%EB%8F%99%EC%84%B1%EC%95%A0
Honestly you should ask yourself what the fuck you are doing, trying to imagine what Korea is, and what language they use, based on some half-baked television "anthropology" of what their culture must be, instead of going by what it actually is.
>>703858
For an example of something that has no chinese shit, you sure picked a bad choice.
Korea is high context. Fact.
Here's one of many peer reviewed sources confirming this:
DOI: 10.1002/(SICI)1520-6793(199809)15:6<507::AID-MAR2>3.0.CO;2-A
Assuming this context has literally zero impact on the way they speak would be pretty dumb. Context determines practically everything about behavior.
Fucking weeaboos on this board too.
>>704585
I bet you can't read cursive.
>>704865
>common core will kill cursive
what a shame
>>704509
Your argument makes no sense.
Hanja is good for clarifying meaning when context isn't enough.
So the more high-context a culture is, the less hanja it's gonna need.
also good job at finding the only hanja on that whole page and proving everybody's point that it's only used very rarely (and in parenthesis as an extra indication)
>>705760
"Torture poison prisoner crime"? Or am I not reading that in the correct direction? What direction am I supposed to read that in?
>>703833
It allows anyone who can read Japanese to at least get the gist of a Chinese newspaper article and vice versa even though they likely couldn't understand one word out loud; that's gotta count for something.
What did south Korea want to part from?
Did North Korea abandon hanji, too?
But I cannot approve of that they throw letters away because I think that it is accumulation of ethnic intellect.
>>705840
Or they could just learn English like the rest of the world. What is the point of an international language that only vaguely works between less than a handful of countries?
>>705835
You should read this with your heart
>>707702
It allows anyone using the writing system to understand each other whether they understand each other speaking or not. If you have an alphabet, the only people who can understand the written text are people who can understand the spoken language, at least if spoken slowly and clearly.
>>708174
Yeah that must why English is such a failure of an international language and everyone is communicating with kanji.
>>707664
It's not modern, Hangul was adopted in the 1400s. But yes the north, as part of the anti-cultural cuck projects that always accompany communism did totally abandon Hanja for even informal uses.
![aGhSEun[1].jpg](https://i.imgur.com/p1bm7OB.jpg "aGhSEun[1].jpg")
>>708205
The adoption of hangul didn't immediately spell the disappearance of hanja; for a long time they were used together, like in the picture.
>>703403
Maybe we could use hanja for Greek/Latin roots.
>>707712
/v/ strikes again.
>>708403
That could work pretty well. So for example 'hydrogen' could be 水源, 'philosophy' could be 愛哲, 'telephone' could be 遠音, and so on. I've done some other experiments with subjects like this.
>>708447
>'telephone' could be 遠音,
Kyon-kun, 遠音.
>>708205
>Let's use the writing system actually developed for our language, instead of continuing to suck Chinese micro-penis
>Anti-cultural.
>>702656
the problem with hangul is that it's TOO phoenetic. if there were duplicative vowels that would make it so that most words wouldn't share spelling and they could make it distinct
hanja was a fine system DESU. it's an iq test built into communication. it allows people to judge each others intelligence based on how they speak. and it keeps idiots from speaking and writing in the first place. keeping idiots out of the public sphere is crucial to confucian societies, and korea is the furthest left of the asian societies. coincidence?
>>708771
It's perfectly possible to judge people's intelligence based on how they use a phonetic writing system. I'm doing it now.
>>708810
funny.
you know exactly what I mean, or should if you have any business in this topic.
someone who is dumb is essentially incapable of communicating. hanzi sets the bar very high.
it stops the devolution of language to a very large extent, which is why even modern chinese is very archaic in many respects.
a good example is fallacious concepts such as "mansplaining" it just doesn't work in east asian languages. or the subtle shift in meaning of words, such as racism shifting from judging people unfairly based on race, to something that whites do exclusively against blacks, and never vice versa.
if you're familiar with sapir whorf or similar linguistic theories, hanzi essentially stops dead in its tracks a number of logical fallacies, full bar.
n stuf liek dis and shieeet just doesn't work in hanzi. those people can't communicate, and are aware of it, and are forced into shame and silence.
>>708722
The alphabet we're using right now was originally developed for Latin. Should we go back to using futhark, or else adopt a new system made specially for English?
>>708707
I know that it's 電話 in much of the Sinosphere; 遠音 would be representing *the morphemes of the English word*. Generally, the fewer compounds whose readings have nothing to do with either individual component's reading (like 大人 and 明日 in Japanese) the greater ease of reading.
>>708838
you really have no idea what you're talking about do you?
> korea is the furthest left of the asian societies
sk is run by the daughter of an extreme right wing military dictator who serves corporate interests.
any idiot can learn hanzi. do you think the billion of literate Chinese are all geniuses? the social distinction of hanzi only worked in the middle-ages when there was no universal free education.
>>708838
'Cept Sapir-Whorf is largely discredited.
>>709119
I didn't say it was incredibly far left. but it's still further left than singapore, japan, and even taiwan (and obviously china.)
hanzi continues to serve as a distinction of class and education. are you one of those idiots that thinks english registers suddenly disappeared just because of universal k-12? register still exists. hanzi is cool because register is displayed much more clearly. it's more difficult for idiots to convey thoughts and pretend that they're coherent.
>>709120
lots of science has been "discredited" by the peer review process. you realize peer review is incredibly corrupt, right?
to pretend that sapir whorf isn't applicable, you would have to pretend that words don't subtly shift meaning depending on context without strict lexical rules.
look at the word "tolerate." tolerate went from something you begrudgingly accept, but disapprove of, to something which you love, applaud, and laud the virtues of.
compare the sentences
"I tolerate his abuses." vs "he does not tolerate gays." surely in the latter example the racist kkk member DOES tolerate gays, he disapproves, it is obvious, but he does not harass them. but the problem is that he does not CELEBRATE gays. that makes him "intolerant"
it's called signal amplification. traditional societies and registers within languages generally limit this. hanzi does an excellent job of this. to deny that sapir whorf exists, you will have to deny signal amplification, whereby words take on increasingly extreme meanings, thereby CHANGING the way individuals think about the concept and limiting the scope of thought of which they are capable
a more cogent example is of COMMUNIST CENSORSHIP. if sapir whorf was false, then chinese would be able to think "freely" despite censorship because a lack of words and information does not constrain thought.
YET surely someone like you would surely say that censorship HAS indeed hindered chinese thought. that means sapir whorf is correct.
>>702676
>Learn in 30 min
this is a meme. I lived there.
try one or two weeks. Kids take about a month.
>>705019
I never said it wasn't used sparingly, just that it isn't dead. And that it won't be dead any time soon.
High-context means less is explicitly communicated. It means using less words to say the same thing, because you rely on nuance and mutual understanding to get you there.
That's specifically why hanja is good. It clears up ambiguity with less words than saying "oh, I mean seong as in sexuality, not as in anger or as in the property of being a specific quality." Sometimes that's just a good thing.
>>709168
You are clearly misunderstanding the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is that *the structure of the language itself affects the manner of thinking*.
>>709178
expat living in korea as a stereotypical degenerate yeong-eo sangsamneem - You see Hanja only occasionally, I've never had to learn a single character for functional use. However, I suspect a certain level of ability with it is linked to adult/literary prestige. I know I see far more of it on academic works in bookstores.
>>709196
Could it be said that it's a bit like knowing Latin in the Anglosphere?
Less each generation. The older generation, in their 70s-80s still know it and for many it was their first script so they're the ones more comfortable in it (or sometimes it's their default from my experience).
The younger generations still have it in school but don't progress beyond an elementary level. They simply don't use it and those that know it are history nerds who are needed to read ancient records that were written before Hangul. Signage in Korea is also almost completely devoid of Hanja (you'll still see it in small print in the subway stations). The younger generations may also despise it and Hangul is a way for Koreans, who are usually very nationalistic, to use something "of their own" instead of something foreign like Japanese or Chinese.
This creates some weird Korean language. When Korean was more based on Hanja, there was a reference as to what those words mean and sentences could make more sense. Now, there are a lot of Korean words borrowed from English but used with Hangul so meaning is almost completely devoid in the meta language. The Korean word for "notebook" is literally "notebook-uh" in sound. Written in Hangul it's 노트북. Nowhere in the Hangul can someone separate "note" and "book" to come up with "notebook" because it's all sound. So now you've got millions of kids in Korea learning sounds and memorizing meanings without the process of deduction to learn or make new words like English classes elsewhere in the world do. Using Hangul by itself when it had a Hanja background just makes noise without meaning a lot of the time like here >>702702
>>709179
are you suggesting that the register of a language is unrelated to struture, that the ability of words to rapidly morph, or inability thereof, is unrelated to structure, or that the ambiguities in a language lack the ability to confuse people, thereby influencing their thought?
because if you argued any of the above, I'd call you an idiot.
strawmanning sapir whorf with "news anchor" vs "news woman" doesn't disprove it.
if the lexical structure of a language is fixed, leading to precise clarity and an inability to intentionally lie to people, that influences the thoughts the users of the language have.
>>709196
Again, point to a single place where I said it's abundant and thriving.
When I say it's "not dead," that implies it's got to be pretty damn close. It's hanging in there like Zsa Zsa Gabor.
But like Zsa Zsa Gabor it's probably going to stick around for at least another century or so.
Because it still is genuinely useful in some applications, especially to a high-context culture (this too is changing thanks to Westernization).
>>709199
Learning Latin does wonders on using English. If you want to sound and be smart, Latin makes it easier to think of expanded vocabulary on the fly and write like you know something.
>>703325
I noticed in Japan that many Japanese can communicate with the Chinese without saying a word; they'll just write in Kanji and the Chinese will write back. Little misunderstanding there.
This probably explains why the Japs and the Chinks get along better than the Gooks and the Japs wars aside. Korea felt culturally isolated from the rest of Asia when I lived, Hangeul being a major barrier to communication with foreigners. How many countries use their own alphabets? Is Korea one of 2 or 3 countries that can claim this?
>>709199
Yeah, that's not a bad analogy, Or French might be better - loanwords etc.
Btw knowing a bit about latin and etymology and they think I'm a god here at explaning shit. Eg. goodbye originally being 'god be with ye' blows their minds. They only rote learn english, they never investigate the roots of language so they're starving for genuine insight.
>>709202
Oh yeah, I largely agree with you. But the prestige thing isn't likely to go away soon, especially in a society like this. Plus they use sino-korean numbers and certain chinese loanwords are used for nuances of meaning outside of korean - I'm not 100% but I suspect using these in conjunction with hanja implies something as well, perhaps to do with formality in writing.
>>702656
Korea, Japan, and Viets adopted Chinkscript without thinking what was the logic behind it.
>Be China
>Have shitloads of Ethnicities who speak various languages.
>Introduce unphonetic script to streamline bureaucracy among these nigs.
>Effective.
Meanwhile Koreans, Nips, and Viets are pretty much one people with one language.
>>709260
>Be Korea/Japan/Vietnam
>Need to communicate with China
>????
>Others now have Hanzi
>Can communicate with them too.
You didn't think this through now did you?
>>709260
viets are at least 5 differnt groups of people with different languages you sperg
in addition, hanzi came primarily in the form of trade registers and tax receipts crossing LARGE territorial gaps. to bridge a similar distance would be like irish trading with persians. as is, continental european trade relied on people completely fluent in latin.
and again, hanzi provided a convenient shield for the vietnamese and koreans against mongol administration. keeping others out is as important as educating the people within
>>709260
>Koreans, Nips, and Viets are pretty much one people with one language.
Are you okay there?
>>709168
>>709202
Oh you're the same "high-context-culture" guy, makes sense.
You really have no idea what you're babbling about.
> Chinese can't think "freely"
OK, there's plenty of free-thinkers in China buddy. I don't know where you got that notion from.
> Hanzi serves as a distinction of class and education.
No it doesn't, at least not on a significant level. Yeah, if you claim you know tons of hanzi people will be like "oh you're so smart". But if you write something stupid, it doesn't matter how many hanzis you use, you'll still sound stupid and everyone will still think you're stupid.
A good example in Korea would be the traditionalists in the vein of Kim Beom-Bu: they used a shitload of obscure hanjas in their bullshit writings, deplored that Koreans stopped using them and they've been the laughingstock of Korean academia (a large part of which doesn't use and doesn't even know that many hanjas) for the past 20 years.
> South Korea is more to the left than Communist China
OK bro.
Then what do you make of North Korea?
> Claims Sapir-Whorf works with hanjas
You do realize Korean is exactly the same language with hanjas and without them? Sapir-Whorf, even supposing it's valid, applies to the structure of language, not the writing system.
>>709710
High-context fag here, Sapir-Whorf fag isn't me. Do they even look like similar writing styles?
I don't even think he even knows what Sapir-Whorf is.
I'm not making some outrageous claim myself.
I'm just saying that, while Hanja may be on life support, it's not going anywhere soon.
Think of Hanja as Terri Schiavo, and high-context culture as George W. Bush.
>>709426
I think he means "each" but you're right that he could have worded it better.
>>709710
I'm not the high context guy, and you're dumb.
1. if chinese can think freely, then there is no problem with censorship, according to you.
2. hanzi serves as an iq test as a barrier to any given conversation. it's an iq test that functions in real life, and prevents movements like black lives matter from even getting off the ground.
3. china is no longer communist you idiot. and well, if you look at north korea, they also use hangul "for the people." I usually exclude worst korea because it's an outlier in any discussion.
4.>sapir whorf
I never said hanja alone did this
种族主义 is translated as racism
literally translated it means racial doctrine, or species doctrine
this FIXES the meaning because of how explicit it is. no one can go around saying that it's impossible for blacks to be racist against whites because of *manufactured excuse* racism=power+prejudice.
no. that's not how it works. it's a racial doctrine. excplicitly. this is a function of the language, being agglutinative, made more explicit by the hanja
it also makes it harder to deny that race exists. coming from the characters, variously, the charaters for type, or clan. you can no more deny that race exist in chinese or japanese than you can deny that clans, families, or types of people exist. the concept is made plainly abundant because the language is rooted in reality, in this particular concept. there is little room for deception.
denying sapir whorf, you are essentially saying that every environment is an ideal environment for conveying information. which is fucking STUPID. languages convey ambiguity. sometimes on PURPOSE. that structure then influences how we think.
look at quantitative representations in language. japanese in particular has very precise ways of describing probability AND how one arrived at the conclusion one did. in western languages we just have "probably."
it becomes more explicit how one came to the conclusions one did. less gossip
