[KS] uri

[dmccann at fas.harvard.edu]

This reminds me of the etymology of the Japanese word aru, to exist, which I
discovered came from the Korean word al, egg.  Interesting thing is, it was a
Japanese dictionary!  But which came first?


David



Quoting Ruediger Frank <ruediger.frank at univie.ac.at>:

> And here comes something even less directly related, yet not completely
> unrelated: In Russian, there is a similar way of saying "we" when actually
> meaning "I", for example "me and my mother" would literally be "us with mom"
> (my s mamoj). In other words, this is not necessarily a purely Korean
> phenomenon. I guess Russian is not the only example. What about "we won" (wir
> haben gewonnen) meaning "our team has won" in German (at least)?
> Cheers,
> Rudiger
>
>
> on Montag, 21. Juni 2010 at 02:54 you wrote:
>
>
> Thank you, Ross, for that very interesting piece.
>
> Perhaps this is not directly related, but I witnessed some very interesting
> aspects of "uri" while raising my daughter in Korea. Not only my daugher but
> all of her "pure Korean" friends as well naturally used the words "I/my"
> almost exclusively. I saw and heard all of them say in Korean "my house," my
> school," "my Mommy/Daddy," etc. Of course, they were quickly
> corrected/reprimanded by parents and teachers until they capitulated and
> began to use "we/our" almost exclusively where they had once felt that "I/my"
> was more natural. In a word, "uri" is not somehow "organic" to Korean-ness or
> Korean language but rather externally injected and enforced.
>
> JMF
>
> --- On Sun, 6/20/10, Ross King <jrpking at interchange.ubc.ca> wrote:
>
> From: Ross King <jrpking at interchange.ubc.ca>
> Subject: Re: [KS] uri
> To: "Korean Studies Discussion List" <koreanstudies at koreaweb.ws>
> Date: Sunday, June 20, 2010, 12:34 PM
>
> I discuss this a bit in this chapter:
>
> 2007a. Language and national identity in the Koreas. In: Andrew Simpson
> (ed.), Language and national identity in Asia. Oxford: Oxford University
> Press, pp. 200-235 (references in back of book):
>
>
> "10.5.1.4 Korean as an Embodiment of National Characteristics
> One important genre of the class of popular South Korean works on Korean
> language is
> what might be called the ‘lexical fetish’ category, and within this one
> finds an
> interesting sub-genre – a kind of psychoanalytical ‘pop etymology’ that
> attempts to
> read Korean national traits from lexical semantics.
>      For example, Ceng Howan (1991) is titled ‘The Imagination of Korean:
> the Nation’s
> Emotions and Consciousness as seen through the Origins of Korean
> Vocabulary’, and
> there are many other works of a similar orientation, linking national
> characteristics to
> aspects of the Korean language. One particular word that attracts constant
> attention is
> the first-person plural pronoun wuli ‘we; our’. This is the first member
> of the most
> common designation for ‘Korean’ in much of this literature: wulimal –
> literally ‘our
> language’, and is given special discussion in many essays, bringing to mind
> Silverstein’s
> (2000: 115) reminder that ‘nationalism is an imaginative sense of
> Bakhtinian ‘‘we-voicing’’
> ’, serving to distinguish the in-group as nation from outsiders. Though
> this
> general sub-genre is much less in evidence in the North than in the South,
> the everpresent
> first-person plural pronoun interestingly shows up in works produced in
> the North, too, for example ‘Wuli ‘‘we’’– the pronoun of love and
> faith’ (MH 2003
> Vol. 2: 213)."
>
> MH = Munhwae haksup, North Korea's popular/populist language planning
> journal.
>
> The Silverstein reference is:
>
> Silverstein, M. (2000), ‘Whorfianism and the Linguistic Imagination of
> Nationality’, in P.V.
> Kroskrity (ed.), Regimes of Language: Ideologies, Polities, and Identities
> (Santa Fe, New Mexico: School of American Research Press; Oxford: James
> Currey), 85–138.
>
> One can also find various little pseudo-etymological essays in popular South
> Korean works about language:
>
> Chen, Soyeng. 1994. Pukkulewun alilang: wulimal eyseyi [Shameful arirang:
> Essays on
> Korean]. Seoul: Hyenamsa, has an essay on 'the cozy blanket of wuli';
>
> Pak, Kapchen (1974/1982). Ewen swuphil: mal uy kohyang ul chaca [Etymological
> essays: in
> search of the hometown of language] and Pak, Kapchen (1995). Caymiissnun ewen
> iyaki [Fun etymologies] both have a little essay on 'wuli'.
>
> Yi, Otek (1995/1996, vol. 3) (a very conservative, ultra-nationalist language
> ideologue) has this: "5.4. Wuli cip and na uy cip" (which, if I recall
> correctly, says what you would expect re collectivism vs. individualism).
>
> Si, Cengkon, Ceng Cwuli, Cang Yengcwun and Choy Kyengpong. 2003. Hankwuke ka
> salacintamyen [What if Korean were to disappear?]. Seoul: Hankyeley Sinmunsa,
> in Chapter 5, has a section on "Teasing out the meaning of ‘wuli’ in
> ‘wulimal’".
>
> Anyway, 'wuli' is a favorite of Korean language ideologues, and there are
> also fanciful etymologies connecting the pronoun to the Korean word for
> 'fence' (cf. wulthali).
>
> Imho, wuli is a great example of a 1st-person plural pronoun in a language
> that does not have the occasionally-found inclusive/exclusive grammatical
> distinction for "we" (i.e., two different pronouns for "we," where one is "we
> = including you, my interlocutor," and "we = excluding you, my interlocutor),
> but nonetheless ends up _functioning_ like an exclusive 1st-person plural
> pronoun because of Korean ethnonationalism.
>
> RK
>
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
>
> > Date: Sun Jun 20 00:52:16 PDT 2010
> > From: "will pore" <willpore at gmail.com>
> > Subject: [KS] uri
> > To: "Korean Studies Discussion List" <Koreanstudies at koreaweb.ws>
> >
> > Dear List:
> >
> > For any comparative Asian linguists, Ural Altaic linguists (?), or, maybe
> even Korean linguists on the list, I would like to inquire if a pronoun
> similar to the Korean we (i.e. uri) occurs with the same frequency/prominence
> in any related languages to the same degree that it does in Korean. Should we
> accept the assertion that I nearly always have had that the prominence of
> that pronoun in Korean is due to a particular Korean mindset alone? I have
> never read a discussion of this phenomenon by a Korean language scholar,
> however. I am not presenting this question merely as a random thought of mine
> or as a puzzle for the illumination of others on the list, but as part of a
> larger study.
> >
> > I will greatly appreciate any authoratative replies.
> >
> > Regards,
> >
> > Will   -- William F. PoreAssociate ProfessorGlobal Studies ProgramPusan
> National University
> --
> Ross King
> Professor of Korean and Head,
> Department of Asian Studies,
> University of British Columbia,
>
> and
>
> Dean, Korean Language Village,
> Concordia Language Villages
>
> Mailing address:
> Ross King, Department of Asian Studies, UBC
> Asian Centre, 1871 West Mall
> Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z2
> CANADA
>
> vox: 604-822-2835
> fax: 604-822-8937
> http://www.asia.ubc.ca/people/faculty/ross-king.html
>
>
>
>
>