[KS] "The Origins of the Korean Alphabet"

[Frank Hoffmann]

Hello All:

A couple of things to check to get to the bottom of this:

1. We know for sure that …
(a) The earlier "identified" 정기원 (鄭基元) wrote his name in English 
as either "Kei Won Chung" (see New York Times link below), or as 
"Kei-won Chung," exactly as in this thesis--*and* also the same in his 
1940 Brill publication _TheTa-ming shih-lu_. 
New York Times article (WWII period): 
http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F20B10FE3C58167B93C7AB178AD85F468485F9
(b) We do know that the referenced 鄭基元, the one working for 
Princeton Library and also working at Princeton as an assistant 
professor, as it seems, and during the war for OSS, did his PhD at 
Princeton. And there is *no other* PhD listed for anyone using this 
particular name: Kei-won Chung !

2. Is there any sort of documentation that the female scholar, 정계원 (
鄭啓元), ever studied in the U.S.??? (I could find nothing, in a quick 
search.) I see her at the 경성여자사범학교 (that seems the full name) 
in 1934 to 1939 ! The Princeton U thesis is from 1938. Seems very 
unlikely to be by here then (look at the dates):
http://db.history.go.kr/url.jsp?ID=jw_1937_1126_0330  (1937)
http://db.history.go.kr/url.jsp?ID=jw_1938_1139_0150  (1938)
http://db.history.go.kr/url.jsp?ID=jw_1939_1394_0470  (1939)
If that would be her dissertation, then one then wonders where the 
thesis of the before mentioned 鄭基元 is. Since he even taught at 
Princeton, most obviously that thesis should easily be identified. 


Best,
Frank




On Fri, 6 Sep 2013 15:33:57 +0000, King, Ross wrote:
> Dear Colleagues: 
> 
> Our colleague Professor Kim Juwon at the SNU Linguistics Department 
> has kindly sent me a copy of this thesis and has also rather 
> complicated the discussion around the author's identity. 
> 
> Some of you might remember I had hazarded a guess of 정계원 as the 
> hangul for the author's name, but Frank Hoffmann and others reckoned 
> it to be 정기원 and matched this name with a plausible person. 
> 
> But according to Professor Kim,  the author is more likely 정계원(鄭啓
> 元, female), not 정기원, who was an instructor
> at 경성여자고보. He also points out that the attention to Sanskrit in 
> her discussion of the origins owes to the fact that she wrote her 
> thesis before 1940 when the Hunmin chong'um haerye-bon was 
> discovered. 
> 
> The bibliographic information again:
> 
> The Origins Of The Korean Alphabet;
> A Dissertation presented, to the faculty of Princeton University
> in Candidacy for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy
> by Kei Won Chung, 1938
> 
> 
> Table Of Contents
> Introduction
> Chapter 1 The Composition of the Yi-do
> Chapter 11 The Development of the Korean Alphabet
> Chapter 111 The Source of the Korean Alphabet
> Chapter IV Sanskrit through Buddhism
> Chapter V The Seal Character Theory
> Chapter VI The Aramaic-Mongolian Theory
> Chapter Vll The Theory of Sanskrit Origin
> Chapter Vlll Expansion of the Sanskrit Alphabet
> Chapter IX Consultation with Whang Ch!an
> Conclusion
> 
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> Ross King
> Professor of Korean and Head of Department
> Department of Asian Studies, University of British Columbia
> Asian Centre, 1871 West Mall
> Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z2
> vox: 604-822-2835
> fax: 604-822-8937
> ross.king at ubc.ca

--------------------------------------
Frank Hoffmann
http://koreanstudies.com