[KS] How Marvelous the Marvelous-Hangul-Hanja converter

[Adam Bohnet]

Dear Joobai:

I wonder if the lukewarm response to the Hangul-hanja conversion  
program was less a matter of South Korean hostility to hanja than of  
the value of the program itself. I haven't tried computerized  
translation from Korean to Japanese and Chinese, but I expect that it  
exists, and probably results in less funny results than the usual  
google translate from Korean to English. One can also already change  
hangul to hanja with HNC or Microsoft word at a pretty steady pace. To  
be sure, one usually has to spend some time sorting out the hanja that  
one wants, but I cannot imagine that the program you suggest would be  
much more accurate - have you tried it out?

And, if you really want to revive Classical Chinese learning in  
Korean, I think you had better pray that no such program ever gets off  
the ground!

And frankly, I doubt that Korean hostility to hanja exists any more -  
everybody seems to be studying Chinese and Japanese these days, and  
learning the Korean pronunciation of Chinese characters is usually a  
vital part of that learning process - if one goes into a class not  
knowing the proper Korean reading of a character, all laugh, as I know  
from bitter experience :-( .

In Korean Literature, for instance, my colleagues tell me that the  
argument whether classical Korean literature in hanmun is properly  
part of Korean Literature is long over, with classical Korean  
literature in hanmun now fully accepted as part of the canon. IMHO, in  
so far as it is possible to say that people are hostile to classical  
Korean literature, this is less a matter of classical Korean  
literature in particular than of Korean literature - or even  
humanistic education - as a whole, which is considered both  
superfluous and dangerously critical within the current neo-liberal  
order. Nor is this an exclusively Korean trend - in Canada, government  
hostility to the Humanities and Social Sciences (funding for  
historical archives in Canada has more or less been eliminated,  
whereas the long-form census has been destroyed) has grown into  
hostility to the Natural Sciences as well - with research funding for  
natural sciences being cut massively well before the recession.  
Perhaps culturla nationalism does not explain all trends in South  
Korea, in other words.

As for the following passage: "And, as for this point: Another is  
about the most current head of ?????, a US trained historical  
linguist, describing his assessment that Korean is in danger of  
extinction and how National Language Institute(?????) has been waging  
a crusade against ???(foreign words) and ??(Kanji/hanzi).  True to the  
rhetoric, this is precisely the campaign he and the National Language  
Institute have successfully waged."

Well Joobai, I must congratulate you on your excellent choice of  
friends and neighbourhoods if you think that there is a war against  
foreign words that is being waged successfully in Korea. English is  
hardly being kept out of the language to any significant extent,  
certainly not in academia or in entertainment or on shop-signs or just  
about anywhere.

Yours,

Adam






Quoting Kye C Kim <kc.kim2 at gmail.com>:

> *Apropos  "Nasty idea:.. streamlining the language ... erase traditional
> thinking...cutting access to traditional texts"*
> ...
> [Another nasty idea: the N wanted to train the minds of the people to be in
> conformity with official ideology by streamlining the language ( later ???
> ) - would not some people in the S also find it convenient to forcably
> erase traditional thinking by cutting access to traditional texts? - o.k.,
> sometimes my brain comes up with horrible ideas...]
>
> Dear Professor Sasse,
>
> Thank you for your post.  Your last few paragraphs of musing seemed to
> accurately reflect the history of language policies in N and S Korea.  With
> the particulars of Hanja/Hanzi, I believe Prof. Ledyards insightful comment
> on the earlier "Status of hanja education in Korea" thread, a decade ago,
> seems to serve as an accurate assessment, to wit "Hangul Only" is a fact of
> life in modern Korea.  This is well reflected in the media's and the
> public's lukewarm or *Not-Interested* response to the
> Marvelous-Hangul-Hanja converter news I mentioned.  With "Hangul Only"
> having been the "official policy" for almost a half century, perhaps
> anything else would have been a surprise. I recall below Prof. Ledyard's
> comment.
>
> *    I think it was totally obvious by the middle of the 1980s that Chinese
> characters were not to be a part of Korea's cultural future. When one
> considers Korea's vibrant modern literate life as reflected in both
> traditional publishing and on the internet --virtually all of it in
> hankul-only text-- the news that some former ministers of education   
> are urging
> more teaching of Chinese characters in the schools seems to be a vain and
> fatuous exercise indeed.  If the modern day culture has rejected Chinese
> characters and gets along very nicely without them, who is going to use the
> characters they want taught?  I write this with some sorrow, because I have
> always been an admirer of Korea's hanmun culture, and I
> believe that the cultural cost --in terms of understanding Korean history,
> literature, and values-- has already been and will continue to be great.
> But modern day Korean society thinks otherwise, and it will determine the
> future, not the former MOEs.*
>
> That being as it is for "kanji/hanzi," I was curious to see if your last
> paragraph, "A Nasty Idea," is possibly reflected in the Korean academia and
> the public press.  Interestingly, there is not a single study or scholarly
> article exploring the issue of "language, control/repression, thought,
> freedom, Korean(National) language."  My search of Korean Studies database,
> Library of National Assembly, and the useful Riss scholarly database came
> up empty.  The public press side was slightly different.
>
> I did a search in the news section of Nate.com, choosing to skip Naver.com
> and Daum.net as their coverage reflect their partisan role in Korean
> politics.  After trying out various keywords, I narrowed the search
> parameters to the following words: ?? ??/?? ?? ???/??, (?? ??/?? ??   
> ???/??) and
> optionally ??.
>
> There were altogether 58 articles over the last ten years that were caught
> by the news search.
>
> Of these 58 articles, only 4 or 5 actually describe the ?? ?? ?? ?? that
> you are describing.  2 or 3 articles are about ??? who is a critic and a
> linguist, trained in France(as per P. Harbsmeier's Biodiversity article,
> Mr. ??? is famous for declaring "We are all Greek!,".echoing Prof.
> Harbsmeier's comment about Hellenized nature of Latin tradition)  One of
> these articles tangentially touches of hanzi/kanji by poking fun at NK for
> loudly claiming to be actively pursing the purification aim(???) while
> hypocritically continuing to use all the Japan-speak they rail so
> "volumnously" against.  Of course, same criticism could be laid to S
> Korea.  *As to "Nasty idea:.. streamlining the language ... erase traditional
> thinking...cutting access to traditional texts," we actually have an
> exact-match.  Oddly, it has nothing to do with Kanji/Hanzi but everything
> to do with English.
>
> *This very recent article, on Hankyoreh, fully satisfies all the "Nasty
> idea" conditions you enumerated. The article is by ???, former professor of
> French literature at Korea University, and well known critic.  He invokes
> Orwell, naturally, and you should find it interesting that he echoes all of
> your hypothetical evils.  Here is the article
>
> [???] ????? *????* / ??? <http://news.nate.com/view/20120504n25584>??? ?? *|
> * 2012.05.04 19:25 ... ??? ? ??? ??? ???? *??* ??? ????, ? ?? ?? ... ??? *??
> *? *??*?? ??? *??*??. ?? ? ?? ??. ???? ... ??? *???*?? ???? ?? ???? ?????
> ?? ...In any case, your instinct does you service.
>
> Regards,
>
> Joobai Lee
>
>
> Searching the news for "?? ?? ?? ???," we had 44 results:
>
> http://search.nate.com/search/all.html?z=A&s=&tq=&sg=&nq=&sc=&afc=&thr=sbus&q=%BE%F0%BE%EE+%C5%EB%C1%A6+%BB%E7%B0%ED+%C7%D1%B1%B9%BE%EE&asn=000000540&csn=0&ml=1&sof=1
>
> Under the following search "?? ?? ?? ??," we have 14 results:
>
> http://search.nate.com/search/all.html?z=A&s=&tq=&sg=&nq=&sc=&afc=&thr=sbus&q=%BE%F0%BE%EE+%C5%EB%C1%A6+%B1%B9%BE%EE+%C7%D1%C0%DA&asn=000000540&csn=0&ml=1&sof=1
>
>
>
>
> On Fri, Jun 1, 2012 at 9:54 PM, Werner Sasse <werner_sasse at hotmail.com>wrote:
>
>>  Dear colleague,
>> thanks for patting me on the back...
>>
>> A few remarks:
>> 1. The link * GLOBALISATION AND CONCEPTUAL BIODIVERSITY *made wonderful
>> reading, thanks. Much to think about, thank you, especially if you made the
>> decision to live and work in Korea like I did...!
>>
>> 2. > "???(???)'s statement that "'???'? '???'? ??? ?"(Namaksin is
>> NamooSin distorted) may have to be inverted/upturned to "???? ???? ??/???
>> ?'(NamooSin is NamakSin distorted/evolved)?"
>> Yes, and I wonder why Choe Namseon of all people ever came up with that
>> idea.
>>
>> 3.>"Justas an aside, I don't recall ever seeing ???(NamakSin) or Koreans
>> portrayed as wearing wooden clogs in any modern portrayal of pre-modern
>> Korea, across movies, illustrations, or historical dramas(straw and leather
>> shoes yes, but no clogs). I wonder if Namaksin did not suffer the same fate
>> as the post-WWII cherry trees which were hacked, chopped, and burned down
>> to ashes immediately following liberation from Japan because of their
>> association with Japan(Cherry tree=Japanese), despite having been very much
>> a Korean favorite by tradition all through its history. This account is
>> provided in Prof Ramsey's *The Korean Language(2000)*. I guess I am
>> thinking of the way Japanese are always portrayed as wearing Geta(Clog
>> Nipponica), whether in thongs or kimonos."
>>
>> Interesting observation (and new to me who does not like to go to cinemas
>> or look TV) When I read this, immediatly the fact came to my mind that most
>> Japanese building have been erased, too. Plus , I stopped eating ???? and
>> nowadays eat ??? sometimes...
>>
>> 3. > "One wonders if same fate did not fell the Kanji in Korea, by
>> association with the first introduced general public education under
>> Imperial Japan."
>>
>> Well, I think it rather had to do with the fact that N-Kor had done this
>> and S-Kor language policy wanted to keep N- and S-Korean from drifting too
>> far apart. Vague memory, but was this not one of the arguments?
>> Also, the N-Kor language policy followed Hangeul-hakhoe policy (look at
>> who was in charge of the implementation in the academy and the university),
>> and there was also a sizable part in the S's linguistic community, where
>> these ideas were favoured.
>> [Another nasty idea: the N wanted to train the minds of the people to be
>> in conformity with official ideology by streamlining the language ( later
>> ??? ) - would not some people in the S also find it convenient to forcably
>> erase traditional thinking by cutting access to traditional texts? - o.k.,
>> sometimes my brain comes up with horrible ideas...]
>>
>> Best,
>> Werner Sasse
>>
>>
>>
>> ------------------------------
>> Date: Fri, 1 Jun 2012 20:23:00 +0900
>> From: kc.kim2 at gmail.com
>> To: koreanstudies at koreaweb.ws
>> CC: werner_sasse at hotmail.com
>> Subject: [KS] Hangul to hanja conversion online and the fate of cherry
>> trees Nipponica
>>
>>
>> Dear Professor Sasse,
>>
>> I would be happy to trade your sketchy( and impressive) memory any day for
>> my regrettable slip-of-the-finger which created  the non-existent Prof.
>> Harbmeir and left the real Prof.C. Harbsmeier and his famous
>> Coca-colanization presentation before the *Union Académique
>> Internationale in a limbo,** *(Link here : GLOBALISATION AND CONCEPTUAL *
>> BIODIVERSITY*<http://www.hf.uio.no/ikos/english/research/projects/tls/publications/Globalisation.pdf>
>> .)
>>
>> Thank you for your interesting post.  Your ???? citation seemed to be a
>> case of "*the exception proving the rule,*"  with the proposition ,
>> regardless of Heavenly bidding, that  "ANY Korean word would be writable
>> with Chinese characters."
>>
>> Interestingly, *"the exception proves the rule"* stands in the exactly
>> the same relationship to the Latin *"exceptio probat regulam in casibus
>> non exceptis"* as Prof Harbsmeier's modern EA languages' relationship to
>> modern English.  Placed against the German *"Ausnahmen bestätigen die
>> Regel"* or the French* "L'exception confirme la règle,"* the English
>> version seems oddly less immediately sensible.*
>>
>> *In light of your post, I guess ???(???)'s statement that "'???'? '???'?
>> ??? ?"(Namaksin is NamooSin distorted) may have to be inverted/upturned to
>> "???? ???? ??/??? ?'(NamooSin is NamakSin distorted/evolved)?
>>
>> Just as an aside, I don't recall ever seeing ???(NamakSin) or Koreans
>> portrayed as wearing wooden clogs in any modern portrayal of pre-modern
>> Korea, across movies, illustrations, or historical dramas(straw and leather
>> shoes yes, but no clogs).  I wonder if Namaksin did not suffer the same
>> fate as the post-WWII cherry trees which  were hacked, chopped, and burned
>> down to ashes immediately following liberation from Japan because of their
>> association with Japan(Cherry tree=Japanese), despite having been very much
>> a Korean favorite by tradition all through its history.  This account is
>> provided in Prof Ramsey's *The Korean Language(2000)*.  I guess I am
>> thinking of the way Japanese are always portrayed as wearing Geta(Clog
>> Nipponica), whether in thongs or kimonos.
>>
>> One wonders if same fate did not fell the Kanji in Korea, by association
>> with the first introduced general public education under Imperial Japan.
>>
>>
>> Regards,
>>
>> Joobai Lee
>>
>> 6/1/2012
>>
>> On Fri, Jun 1, 2012 at 2:14 PM, Werner Sasse   
>> <werner_sasse at hotmail.com>wrote:
>>
>>  Response to the following (sorry to be so late, I was travelling...),
>> and sorry to be a little sketchy, but I am writing from memory...
>>
>>
>> >Prof. Harbmeier recently noted that most recently modernized languages
>> despite sounding "native," are actually mirroring English concepts and
>> >rhetoric, under the guise of native sound. "???" appears to be just such
>> an instance, only Chinese replacing English. It is puzzling that ?? is
>> >used instead of ?? to calque "tree" ? as "wear"?  "
>>
>> ==> ?? is a fossilized form of an old Korean word. The development was ??
>> > ?? (??, ??a?, ??a? [a = arae-a]) . ?? is the Middle Korean form without
>> suffix and before -?. ModKor ?? comes from the latter...
>> ???? has ????
>> dial. also ??, ??, ??, ??, ??...
>>
>> ==> ? is Middle and Mod Korean for "shoe"
>>
>> No Chinese involved here
>>
>> Best wishes
>> Werner Sasse
>>
>>
>>
>> ------------------------------
>> Date: Mon, 28 May 2012 19:02:55 +0900
>> From: kc.kim2 at gmail.com
>>
>> To: koreanstudies at koreaweb.ws
>> Subject: Re: [KS] hangul to hanja conversion online
>>
>> Yes indeed! Heaven forbid, that "ANY Korean word would be writable with
>> Chinese characters."
>>
>> There was a news item last year describing a wondrous program capable of
>> making this automatic conversion from hangul to hanja.  Not surprisingly,
>> Korean media's and the public's response can best be described as "so
>> what," and "means nothing to me" and "does nothing for me."  All quite
>> true!  While 92% may sound good, if you imagine that 8% of your text is
>> gobbledy-gook, you really can not avoid ending up with gobbledy-gook.  Not
>> surprising and quite necessary.  But looked at from another perspective,
>> that is from the view of Chinese or Japanese students, wives, husbands,
>> children, etc (the only two hanzi countries remaining), who must wrestle
>> with Korean text, it could be a heaven-sent.  While the hanja to hangul is
>> easy as cake, hangul to hanja is not a trivial problem and still looking
>> for a solution.  It is also not so unimportant a problem as every
>> translation software's accuracy is just as equally determined by the
>> performance of hangul to hanja conversion.  Every time you look at the
>> translate.google or any translator and wonder why the output is
>> gobbledy-gook, this is always a large part of it.
>>
>> Prof. Harbmeier recently noted that most recently modernized languages
>> despite sounding "native," are actually mirroring English concepts and
>> rhetoric, under the guise of native sound.  "???" appears to be just such
>> an instance, only Chinese replacing English. It is puzzling that ?? is used
>> instead of ?? to calque "tree" ? as "wear"?  Yoo Kwang-on shows prescience
>> with his recent post about ??? which he glossed as ??'?.
>>
>> Altaic question?  Just how many words are we talking about here?  What
>> percentage of modern Korean?
>>
>> On Sun, May 27, 2012 at 12:02 PM, <gkl1 at columbia.edu> wrote:
>>
>> Hi List,
>>
>> Admittedly a huge number of Chinese words and compounds have become part
>> of Korean's vocabulary, just as a huge number of Greek and and Latin words
>> have become a part of the vocabulary of English (and the other European
>> languages too). But it's distressing to learn that people might think ANY
>> Korean word would be writable with Chinese characters. If that were so,
>> then Korean would be a language in the Sino-Tibetan family. It's hard
>> enough to get scholarly agreement on what language family CAN claim
>> Korean's ancestry, but any linguistic reference work would make it clear
>> that it's not a Chinese-type language.
>>
>> Gari Ledyard
>>
>>
>> Quoting Clark W Sorensen <sangok at u.washington.edu>:
>>
>>  Caren,
>>
>> Namaksin is a native Korean word, so it doesn't have corresponding
>> Chinese characters. However, any of the on-line dictionaries will give
>> the characters for Korean words such as at naver.com. The problem is
>> you have to input the Korean in hangul.
>>
>> Clark Sorensen
>>
>> On Fri, 25 May 2012, Freeman, Caren (cwf8q) wrote:
>>
>>
>> I?m asking this question on behalf of a colleague who is a sinologist.  He
>> asks:
>>
>>
>>
>> ?i want to see what chinese characters correspond to korean "Namaksin"
>>  wooden clogs.  Namaksin (???)
>>
>>
>>
>> Is there an online dictionary that gives the classic readings for korean
>> words entered in pinyin type western alphabet??
>>
>>
>>
>> Many thanks for your recommendations,
>>
>> Caren Freeman
>>
>>
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