[KS] Re[2]: Spelling of the name Korea

[Henny Savenije]

At 12:15 AM 9/15/99 , martin_holman at berea.edu wrote:
Martin (the principal of my primary school was called Martin Holman as well

>      >Actually the Portuguese Jesuits were fluent in Japanese, they knew
>      >the hiragana as well. (katakana didn't exist yet) katakana was
>      >invented when the need was felt that hiragana and kanji didn't
>      >fulfill the need to write down the introduced foreign words. That's
>      >why Tempura and most other introduced Portuguese words (actually
>      >Tempura comes from the Latin Quarter Tempurans, quarter times, Friday
>      >when the Portuguese ate fried fish) the introduced Dutch words
>      >however are all written in katakana.
>      *******************************************
>
>      Katakana did not exist yet in the 16th century? Perhaps we should
>      trace the origin of this odd notion? (Maybe it is because "k" follows
>      "h" in the alphabet, thus suggesting the proper hierarchy of
>      syllabaries.)

Well the textbook I have (packed by now, since we're going to move, so I 
can't quote) said so.

>
>      By the time of the Jesuits in Japan, katakana had been around for many
>      hundreds of years. It had been used to indicate the pronunciation of
>      Chinese texts well before the 10th century. It was not invented in
>      response to the adoption of Portuguese, Spanish, or Dutch words.

As far as I know (and that might not be much) it was invented since there 
was a need to write down words which were not Chinese or Japanese, katakana 
was and is used to write down words stemming from neither

>
>      Also, some words appear to be missing in the last sentence of the
>      quoted material above. I hesitate to guess what was omitted.

Sorry, you should add, were written in Kana


-----------------------------
Henny  (Lee Hae Kang)

Feel free to visit
http://www.henny-savenije.demon.nl
and feel the thrill of Hamel discovering Korea (1653-1666)


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