Korean language as a linguistic phenomenon.

“What is Korean language?”-the puzzlement of millions people around the globe is

currently directed towards this issue. No wonder, why: Korean wave (Hallyu; 할 류 )
entails worldwide awareness and consequently popularity of South Korean culture.
Great example of how effectively soft power can work. Interest to Korean language has
deservedly increased and it is needed to be observed: Korean language is actually
worth attention in case it is unbelievably special among hundreds of other languages.
In this work we will follow the way of growth and development of Korean language as of
extraordinary linguistic creature and see what main criteria and components did
contribute language’s special and unusual structure.

The roots of Korean language are also unclear and are the subject of endless debates. No surprise. The more this issue is
discussed the more theories are born to explain the origin of Korean language. Without referring to the roots the overview
will not be bright and persuasive enough so it is a tool we use to help us clarify some aspects of the issue. Variants of
probable ancestors of Korean and how they differ from each other are amazingly impressive. Some linguists think that
Korean language is a part of Altaic family alongside to (unexpected) Turkic, Mongolic, Japonic and Tungusic languages.
Here is a pretty brief map to just have an image of what Altaic family supposedly is.

Although it is the most prominent link, Altaic family nowadays is no more widely accepted-in other words there is an
obvious lack of proves which prevent us from choosing this version as the only truth to believe. Other scientists would
doubt this opinion saying that Korean language shares ancient roots with the Dravidian languages. There is an enduring
yet unbelievable link between Korean and Tamil (dialect spoken in India) that is obvious in grammar constructions and
even vocabulary. This is a fact that there are around 4,000 words in Korean and Tamil that has similar meaning. Both
languages are agglutinative, follow the subject-object-verb order, have the same syntax features etc. However, such
similarities can be really called a coincidence in case Tamil people migrated to the Korean peninsula around the first
century AD. But those facts are unlikely able to give us a right to consider Korean as a Dravidian language.

Also, Korean is associated to Austronesian languages. Another map has some concise clarifications connected to this
theory.
Since there are no particular definitive proves for any of these affiliations, Korean language is commonly classified as a
language isolate. So, it means that Korean exclusively belongs to Koreanic language family. Isn’t it already amazing that
this language is a sole member of the entire family, that it has taken its own private place in the system of language
families without sharing this precious space? Of course, the main reason for such scientific decision is lack of evidence,
to be more exact-catastrophic lack of samples of older Korean writing. The oldest ones that people are aware of go back
in time not more than 1000 years. Comparing to Arabic with writing system established in 328 AD Korean is a pure
“teenager”. Old Chinese (1250 BC) is a wise granddad. But the practical lack of material is not the only obstacle to reach
the understanding. Until the 1443 Korean people were using Chinese characters to represent Korean words and sounds.
The main mechanism is similar to romanization: people were using linguistic units of other language to write words of
their own one. No doubt, Chinese characters could not adequately express Korean speech. Sometimes it was even hard to
decipher entire scripts. Korean language as well as others went through historical laboratory of evolution from first
century CE that was marked as a period of three kingdoms (Geoguryeo, Bekje and Silla) until present days. At this point
the statement that Korean is an isolated language is not truly reliable. We can’t speak about any phenomenon developing
independently from single cultural source. It emerged from languages of various groups of people who populated the
territory of Korean peninsula. The complication of understanding and associating Korean to any language family mainly
consists of specific impacts of other languages that are totally different. If elements of influencing languages usually
immerse into another languages turning into new words, forcing out old ones, changing grammatical issues and phonetic
norms, Korean absorbed it individually.

Throughout its history Korea was influenced by China due to trade, alliances and wars. Its pressure grew lower less than
a century ago. Cultural and national influence couldn’t sidestep the language. As it was briefly said earlier, Korean was
written with Chinese characters and it was used pretty well until 15th century although it seemed to never actually work.
Korean even featured 4 tones as its Chinese influencer. It is well-known that Chinese tone system as a fundamental
phonetic feature still exists (and will never disappear because some traditions are too strong to die) but modern Korean
(due to evolution processes) naturally canceled these tone distinctions. However, there are numerous dialects that still
follow this system. The prove that Korean used to be tonal as well as Chinese is that the first version of Hangul (Korean
writing system that we will discuss few words later) had dotes that were indicating tones. Here you can see it.
This phenomenon of Chinese language being interestingly but not fully immersed into Korean language is already a
linguistic miracle in some way. Korea historically has never spoken Chinese although its characters were used in writing
and the tension itself was huge. It survived through absence of its own writing system for 10 centuries but then something
more marvelous happened.

Of course, we can’t avoid discussing the creation of Hangul ( 한 글 )-splendid writing

system, perhaps one of the most scientific to perform in all language families. A
strong prove to insist this is that Hangul contributed to one of the highest literacy
rates (97% in South Korea and 100% in North Korea) in the world. No wonder, why.
“Differentiated from English and French, Korean is a unique language that can be
learned easily. One day is enough to master reading in Korean. Hangul is a very
scientific and convenient alphabet system for communication”,-the Nobel Prize winner
for literature Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clezio once said and in simple words the core of
Hangul significant advantage was expressed.

15th century. Another era, another king. But something was totally different. King
Sejong the Great of the Joseon Dynasty had rough but wise and emphasizing personality.
He concentrated his attention on economic development of the country and relations
with China but he couldn’t ignore language crisis that became too sharp at that
moment. “Being of foreign origin, Chinese characters are incapable of capturing
uniquely Korean meanings. Therefore, many common people have no way to express their
thoughts and feelings. Out of my sympathy for their difficulties, I have created a set of
28 letters. The letters are easy to learn, and it is my fervent hope that they improve
the quality of life of people”,-this quotation (translated in the modern way for easier
understanding) belongs to King Sejong. His intention to change destiny of the country
became major achievement and a turning point in further course of historical events.
Stubbornly following the goal of increasing literacy among the poor and also trying to
get rid of Chinese pressure King Sejong crafted new alphabet-6 centuries ago he could
never imagine that his invention will remain the most scientific alphabet ever devised.
So, basically the King with the help of group of linguists created a completely new
system of characters that were never seen before, that didn’t have previous images. We
have pretty similar example in Russian history when Peter the Great improved the
alphabet. The work of King Sejong was incredibly large and unbelievable. Hangul was
revealed in 1443, but became an appropriate and well-known system in 1446 when King
Sejong published Hunmunjeongeum (훈민정음: lit. The Proper Sounds for the instruction
of the people)-a script that was describing origin and main purposes of Hangul, giving
brief and simple examples, observing how important it is for vast majority of Korean
population to be literate and how simple Hangul designed for even non-educated
people to learn. This is how it looked like (we can see Chinese characters mixed with
Hangul for better understanding of the mechanism of newborn system; then there were
descriptions of correct pronunciation of all the letters):
“The bright can learn the Hangul in a single morning, and the non-bright can do so in
ten days”,-this is the main idea of this script. Speaking about my personal experience,
I learned how to read and write in Korean within two hours and afterwards my
puzzlement was a logical consequence of it: is this actually everything I need to know?
However, when linguistic freshman was officially represented to people, elites (mostly
Confucian scholars who educated in Chinese) opposed its introduction thinking that it
is a straight disrespect of traditions that were built by wise ancestors. But their
disagreement could never stop Hangul growing since it is even impossible to imagine
how this fantastic system wouldn’t become widespread. Nevertheless, it took some time
for Hangul to replace Chinese. For a long period of time Korea was using mixed script
consisted of Chinese characters (their Korean name is Hanja ( 한 자 ) mostly used for
content words and Hangul for functional words. Here is an example:

This is actually a Bible written in Korean mixed script. You can clearly notice Chinese characters among harmonized
syllables of Hangul-without even knowing both languages visually you can recognize the difference. Does it look
familiar?
Modern writing system of Japanese language works exactly like this using the base of mixed script (kanji-Chinese
characters, hiragana and katakana). They are also visually differ from each other.

Back at Hangul, it went through some hard times when it was used mostly by women and non-educated elders and was
opposed not only by elites but even by kings. But what is the secret of it to survive? As we know, time is rough and
merciless so how Hangul made it to remain almost the same 6 centuries later? Referring to the title of this article-it is a
pure phenomenon, a real evidence of the phrase “the easier the better”, a perfectly coordinated, independent and
transparent system to understand.

So, Hangul includes basic set of consonants and vowels that combines together turning into exact syllables. These are
consonants.

The secret point of them to be easily remembered deals with simple associations: letters literally mimics the shape of
mouth during the pronunciation of the relevant sound.
Here is an illustration. Let’s analyse the first letter ᄀ with is matching sound [k]. It
is the sound produced by tongue lifting up to the velum; it turns into the obstacle on
the way of air from throat to mouth and that is how the [k] is made. ᄀ ᅠ literally
represents the shape of tongue at this exact moment. Next is ᄂᅠ[n]. We raise the tip of
the tongue to the upper teeth involving alveolus in pronunciation process and again
Korean letter turns into scheme drawing of phonetic and biological mechanism of
speech. It turns out that the rest of consonants are made with the same principle-all
you need is your imagination.

Korean vowels has not only practically simple form and meaning but besides a philosophical point that retrospectives
briefly Asian perception of world. Vowels are based on three main elements that the world consists of: horizontal line is
Earth itself, flat ground, associated to yin, short strokes previously were dots and symbolize Sun and Sky with yang
nature and vertical line represents Human who struggles on the way between Heaven and Earth. Moreover, vowels are
made to indicate whether the word is dark or bright (based on the philosophy of Yin Yang). So they are bright and dark
vowels consequently.
You can see the distribution of vowels based on Yin Yang philosophy that contains
relations between men and women, human and nature, world and element. The simple
example of how incredible vowels follow along this principle. The word “ 어 머 니 ”
(“omoni”) means “mother”: using the scheme you can see that it starts with dark vowel.
Dark side belongs to Yin which represents woman spirit according to main philosophy
statements. “아버지” (“abeoji”) means father, starts with light sound that is Yang vowel
connected to man force and nature. Unbelievable, but still a fact.

However, perfect Korean alphabet (both syllabic and phonetic) faced the problem of absence of [w] sound originally. It
became necessary to create variety of possible combinations with it so diphthongs joined Hangul system.

It is not random that they are called compound sounds. It looks like elementary school math when you get complicated
numbers by summing up the easier ones. [W] sound can be made through the combination of [o], [u] or [a] sounds
phonetically so no new letters were needed to be invented. However, the philosophy order is too strict to be disrupted:
light horizontal vowels combines with exclusively light vertical vowels and vice versa.

Undoubtedly, nothing in the world is perfect and Hangul has its flaws as well, like, for instance, complicated and
completely extra phonetic assimilation that is caused historically, but this system might be called one of the most close-
to-perfection approached ones. Its evolution is unstoppable and it becomes one of the strongest proves for us to think that
Korean language is linguistically phenomenal invention. Anyway, it is the only writing system in the world that has its
own official holiday (we know that determination is a lead feature of Asian mentality and while people have not more
than 10 days of holidays for year in Korea they still celebrate the Hangul day-it makes us think about how valuable it is in
people’s minds and culture in general).

Another interesting specific of Korean language is speech level classification. In Russian we have formal (respectful)
form of verb and informal one: both are simple and used logically in formal situations (with people older, unwell-known
people, during special events) and in regular life with family and friends. In Korean this system is much more fragile-it
includes seven different levels of respect. In short words, there are seven various set of grammatical endings for verbs
that indicates the formality of any situation more meticulously than we usually are used to do.

Speech Level Level of Formality Situations to use

1. Hasoseoche ( Extremely formal and polite Traditionally used when addressing high
하소서체) officials

2. Hapsyoche Formal and polite Used between co-workers, strangers, to

 (합쇼체) customers or by TV announcers

3. Haoche Formal and neutral politeness Semi-formal level spoken mostly by old
generation
(하오체)

4. Hageche Neutral politeness Used by older people when they speak to

younger people
(하게체)

5. Haerache Formal and impolite Used to close friends, relatives of same

age or younger people
(해라체)

6. Haeyoche Informal and polite Commonly used between strangers of

equal age (mostly by women)
(해요체)

7. Haeche Informal and impolite Used between close friends and people in
informal, intimate situations
(해체)

In the table below you can see all the levels ranked from most to less formal. Although some levels are vanishing from
everyday speech due to similarities between some of them that excludes grammatically weaker ones, this is really
important to be aware of this system and use it properly in different situations. Otherwise, you may provoke a conflict or
be simply marked as uncultured, disrespectful person. This system has both strong advantages and weaknesses: on the
one hand, it supports incredible ancient traditions, regulate relations in society making respect and veneration significant
criteria of communication. On the other hand, Asian hierarchy tradition is a disease that young generation suffers from
being burdened with discriminating stereotypes, ageism etc. Anyway, time will never let something remain constant-in
some years we will see if young revolutionary people in Korea will be able to cancel this too detailed system of levels or
not. For us it appears as a beautiful example of Korean language’s phenomenal capability and stunning continuity with
traditions and history.

Korean language is able to take your curiosity faster than you expect once you meet
this language. Hangul as a unique writing system has withstood 6 centuries and proved
that it is made out of stone-it is too strong to be beaten by time. The fact that the
King himself worked on the creation of never seen before alphabet sounds like a fairy
tale but it is more truthful than we can even suppose. Unclear roots and unexpected
influence of Chinese language add the veil of secrecy to this language when you can’t
agree with any of theories of Korean origins. Levels of speech, huge differences
between Korean interpretations of two Korea, national holiday for writing, simple but
unwonted comparing to roman languages grammar, philosophical points piercing
language through, deep symbolism, loads of foreign words (Sino-vocabulary that came
from China: Korean even has two numeral systems: Sino-Korean which is used in most
occasions and Pure Korean that is used to speak about age and hours; huge amount of
Japanese words that came from different historical periods; English words, most of
them are terms but not only (for example, 주 스 (juseu) literally means “juice”), words
from European languages ( 빵 (pang) means “bread” and supposedly it came from
Portuguese), mixed script that was widely and continuously used-this is not the full
list of features confirming that Korean language as a system of various linguistic
categories strongly stands out from line of not only other Asian languages but from
most of languages the story of establishment we are aware of. Modern Korean is an
extraordinary mix of everything that has ever happened to Korea but it never forgets
how it all began. It obeys traditions and respects history gathering all the events, all
the cultural changes inside. “Asian Tiger” definitely speaks unbelievable language that
made its way “per aspera ad astra” and still fights for better place. Korean reflects the
character of the nation better than any mirror and impresses you with its new
linguistic sides and if it is not phenomenal then at least it is exceptionally
remarkable.