[KS] (no subject)

Kevin O'Rourke seoulkor at hotmail.com
Wed Apr 13 07:56:41 EDT 2011


Is there any documented evidence of the language in which the early diplomats (von Mollendorf, William Aston, Foote and McLeavy Brown) communicated wiith Korean officials? How good were the hanmun skills of the Koreans? How good were their Japanese skills? Did Kim Okkyun speak Japanese?

Kevin



Date: Tue, 12 Apr 2011 13:23:58 -0700
From: ed4linda at yahoo.com
To: ansonjae at sogang.ac.kr; koreanstudies at koreaweb.ws
Subject: Re: [KS] Earliest European account of Korea?

 In 1597 Jan Huyghen van Linschoten published Itinerario: Voyage ofte schipvaert van Jan Huyghen van Linschoten naer Oost ofte Portugaels Indien, 1579-1592 (Travel account of the voyage of the sailor Jan Huyghen van Linschoten to the Portuguese East India) in 1596.
An English text edition of the Itinerario was published in London in 1598, entitled Iohn Huighen van Linschoten his Discours of Voyages into ye Easte & West Indies.  This was later published as Hakluyt Society Works #70, The Voyage of John Huyghen Van Linschoten to the East Indies.
In the Hakluyt version is the following passage:
"A little beyond Iapon under 34 and 35 degrees not farre from the coast of China, lyeth an other great Iland, called Insula de Core, whereof as yet there no certaine knowledge, nor wares that are there to be found."
A footnote to the Hakluyt text states: " Cirea is not an island, but a peninsula, as all will know. The Catholic missionaries have furnished all that is known of Korea . . .  ."
This perhaps was the earliest published mention of Korea in European literature.


Dr. Edward D. Rockstein 

ed4linda at yahoo.com   

”I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration ” — Bene Gesserit Litany Against Fear


--- On Mon,
 4/4/11, Brother Anthony <ansonjae at sogang.ac.kr> wrote:

From: Brother Anthony <ansonjae at sogang.ac.kr>
Subject: [KS] Earliest European account of Korea?
To: koreanstudies at koreaweb.ws
Date: Monday, April 4, 2011, 10:19 AM

I am wondering if the 30 pages (pp 529-560) devoted to Korea in Volume 4 of  the "Description g?ographique, historique, chronologique, politique, et physique de l'empire de la Chine et de la Tartarie chinoise etc etc"   published in 1736 by Jean-Baptiste Du Halde S.J., (1674-1743) consitute the earliest 'scholarly' account of Korea published in Europe (as opposed to the vivid anecdotes of Hamel) and whether everyone realizes that the book is available online at the Internet Archive in various formats (including PDG) ?  See  : http://www.archive.org/details/descriptiongog04duha   Obviously Chinese works are cited as the main source for the historical account but who was "Pere Regis" whose Memoires are given as the source of the geographical account pp529-537? 

I have added this and other books in French from the Internet Archive to my list of old books about Korea http://hompi.sogang.ac.kr/anthony/BooksKorea.htm 

Brother Anthony
Sogang University, Dankook University, RASKB
http://hompi.sogang.ac.kr/anthony





 		 	   		  
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