Hangul jamo issues - (OT) Usage of HAN in Korea

[Soobok Lee]

[somewhat off the topic, but maybe interesting subject. ].
On Tue, Jan 09, 2007 at 05:36:16PM +0900, Yangwoo Ko wrote:
> 
> Soobok Lee wrote:
> >On Tue, Jan 02, 2007 at 02:07:22PM -0500, John C Klensin wrote:
> >>I have no way to know whether it is true, but it has been widely
> >>reported that CJK characters have been completely eliminated
> >>from the writing system for the Korean language in the North, so
> >>we might assume it is possible to do without them. 
> >
> >That effort was in the early 1950~60s only in north korea. The leaders
> >in north korea once denounced CJK as "legacies of old feudal system",
> >and even they once stopped teaching CJK  in schools.
> 
> Wrong. Use of "hangul only" was established as law since 1948 when South 
> Korean government was founded. But, Han characters had been widely used 
> because, you know, it is hard to change the legacy.

You are right, depending on how to interpret "completely eliminating CJK chars".

Communist North Korea had eliminated Han Ideo from newspaper,textbooks and laws
almost for 20 years from 1949~1968 around. The policy was _binding_ and sweeping.
North koreans who spent 1949~1968 as students, still have difficulty in
reading Chinese chars, because there had been complete *blackout* of Han Ideo.
But NK resumed CJK teaching from 1969 under direction of the KIM IL SEONG, who
declared that NK's hangul-only policy was wrong in 1964. The main behind reason why he
turned into pro-CJK-teaching is that about 50% or more hangul words are just the
pronunciation of CJK words, like hiragana reading of Kanji words.
For learning and creating new hangul words, CJK chars are still important and useful.
They realized that too lately after 20 years of experiments. 
North Korean gov defined  3000 CJK chars for teaching middle 
schools to university students in 1972.

South Korea adopted Hangul-only policy in 1945 and put it into law in 1948.
But that was not binding (no penalty, close to recommendation ) and so not 
been respected until 1970 in schools. 
For the brief moment of 1970 , South korean gov attempted to eliminate
Han Ideo chars from school textbooks, but resumed CJK teaching right after 
confronting fierce opposition to the policy, around 1971 the very next year.
Even during 1970, some teachers made separate handouts to teach Han Ideo to 
students. 
Even Korean laws texts have contained Han Ideo chars from 1948 into recent days
withoout any disruption.
So, there had been no "completely elimination of Han Ideo" in SOUTH.
That was impossible in this non-communist country.

>From 1972, South Korea gov defined 1800 Han ideo chars for teaching.
>From 1995, South Korea gov allowed to teach 600 basic han ideo chars even 
to elementary students. 

Korea(old Choseon) had been using CJK Han Ideo chars from BC 7th century or before. 
Hangul was created in the 15th century (AD) by King Sejong to overcome widespread illiteracy.
CJK characters are allegedly invented by TAEHO BOKHI (mainland Sang?/Eun?-Dynasty ?), 
who are believed to a  DONG-YI TRIBE from which  korean people
originated. CJK han ideo chars are common cultural heritage which koreans,japanese
and chinese people has used and enriched for thousands of years.

http://www.korean.go.kr/nkview/nklife/1999_2/9_7.html

http://kin.naver.com/open100/db_detail.php?
d1id=11&dir_id=110104&eid=swMSFpH5M6OBkuCaDhxM3/4wGV3953AO


> 
> The most dramatic change has happened due to the wide deployment of 
> computers in 1980s. Korean people found that it is very cumbersome to 
> enter Han characters while hangul is very easy and quick to enter.
> 
> >
> >But,that changed.
> >
> >Middle/highschool students began to learn CJK characters very hard.
> 
> This is somewhat different story. As far as I can tell, this new 
> phenomenon is mostly due to the quick rise of China as a 
> market/competitor of Korean economy.

See above.

> 
> >North Korean national charset has thousands of CJK characters now.
> >
> >As many english words have latin origin, many hangul words have CJK
> >origin. Those hangul words is just the pronuciation of CJK one.
> >That is why CJK cannot be separated from hangul words completely.
> >CJK is part of korean word and so language.
> 
> Learning roots is a good way to understand more about words. But, this 
> does not imply that we should invite old root forms into our common life.

I agree with you that we have no need for _frequent_ use of CJk in everyday life.

But, You and I have CJK fullnames given when we are born. 
It is useful to represent our  CJK names to chinese and japanese people.
And business names as well.  

Regards,

Soobok