Traditional Culture Encyclopedia - Traditional festivals - & lt The Chinese letters in Daejang Geum are written in Chinese characters, and ancient Korea also used Chinese characters? What about now? Can they read Chinese characters now?

& lt The Chinese letters in Daejang Geum are written in Chinese characters, and ancient Korea also used Chinese characters? What about now? Can they read Chinese characters now?

Korean law stipulates that phonetic symbols are used as special characters. 1948 After independence, in order to carry forward the national spirit, the government enacted a special law on Korean phonetic characters, stipulating that official documents can only be written in phonetic characters. However, due to historical reasons, Chinese characters are temporarily allowed to be used concurrently. Since 1970, Chinese characters in Korean primary and secondary school textbooks have been cancelled, and Korean phonetic symbols have been used completely. In the next 30 years, Chinese characters were completely abolished in primary schools, and only 1800 Chinese characters were taught to junior high school and senior high school students. This is the reason why Korean people aged 20-40 almost don't understand Chinese characters at all. They are called "the generation of phonetic characters".

The consequences brought to this generation are the lack of classical cultural literacy, the separation from tradition, the complete separation from East Asian cultural circles, and deep isolation and sorrow. The younger generation in Korea don't even know Chinese characters, so it's even harder to write Chinese characters. Many people can't write their names in Chinese characters, and neither can their parents' names. After leaving school and entering the society, they had to teach themselves Chinese characters. Korean adult correspondence institutions are all over the country.

Because the younger generation who can only read phonography accounts for the majority of readers of newspapers and magazines, the newspaper industry has overused phonography for a long time. As a result, the printed words changed from vertical to horizontal. Therefore, the difference between the generation who are familiar with Chinese characters and the generation who are committed to phonography is called the difference between "vertical generation" and "horizontal generation" in Korea.

Phonetic words are easy to learn, but there are "blind spots"

Korean phonetic characters consist of 10 vowels and 14 consonants. Its advantage is that it is easy to learn. Even foreigners can read correctly as long as they master the spelling combination method. However, being able to read aloud is one thing, and understanding the meaning is another. There are serious "blind spots" in Korean phonetic symbols that all use pinyin characters.

Korean words are similar to Japanese words, and 70% of them come from ideographic Chinese. If you only use phonetic words to record things, there will obviously be confusion. Because there are many homophones.

Take Korean surnames as an example. Zheng Heding, Jiang Hekang, Liu and Lin are all homonyms. In addition, there are many homonyms in the words. For example, 22 words such as story, ancient temple, investigation, old saying, leaving and dying are homophones; Fraud, morale, death and social flags are homophonic; Maneuver, transfer, prophase and war stories homonym; Input and income are homonyms ... they are often encountered in newspapers, because the use of phonetic alphabet makes readers feel headache about its meaning, and they need to guess like riddles (try to imagine that we abandon Chinese characters and use Chinese Pinyin to read the ancient poem "A lonely smoke in the desert, a long river sets the yen"-a ghost), which is quite time-consuming. It's like the Japanese reading a telegram sent under a pseudonym. If the telegram uses pseudonyms and Chinese characters, the meaning will be clear at a glance. Chinese characters, as hieroglyphics, are easy to identify in appearance. But phonetic characters can't. Due to the limited use of phonography, almost all Korean newspapers, magazines and street signs use phonography. Japanese who come to Korea feel embarrassed that they can't read road signs and shop signs. Japanese tourists who don't know Korean road signs feel more like foreign countries in Korea than in Hong Kong. All Japanese who have been to Korea complain that they can't read street signs.

It is not Japanese tourists who suffer the most, but the younger generation of South Korea who only know phonetic characters. When they got off the plane at Narita International Airport in Japan, they didn't know the exit sign written in Chinese characters. As a non-Chinese character cultural circle, Korean students studying in Japan should receive Chinese character education again. Korean college students can't read books mixed with Chinese characters, and they are also struggling to read classical literature. The professor lamented the students' lack of knowledge of Chinese characters. In this way, the ancient Korean culture will be buried in the hands of the next generation.

In addition, this joke happens from time to time: the police let the suspect go because they couldn't understand the name written in Chinese on the ID card. Those who advocate using all pinyin characters have also noticed the above disadvantages and want to replace Chinese with pure Korean.

However, just as Japan has Yamato language that has nothing to do with Chinese, South Korea also has pure Korean language. Like language, Yamato lacks abstraction and language creativity. Advocates of phonography have also coined some words, such as describing airplanes as "flying devices" but they can't be popularized. In South Korea, people are suffering from "knowledge anemia" while using pinyin in an all-round way.

Before 100, only Chinese characters were used.

Korea was a country that only used Chinese characters before 100 years ago. Not only official documents, but also words in daily life. The ruling class and two classes in Korea use Chinese characters to write letters and create. North Korea's ambassador to Japan of Tokugawa shogunate chose an official with high attainments in Chinese as his post. They talked with Japanese Confucians and monks in Chinese characters and improvised China's poems. North Korea is just a common people who have no connection with Chinese characters.

Korean phonetic characters were created in 1443. Sejong of the Korean dynasty ordered the creation of an easy-to-learn phonography for ordinary people. According to the king's command, scholars created a phonography composed of 1 1 vowels and 14 consonants. When this official script was promulgated, it was called "training the people to correct their pronunciation". However, the ruling class still only uses Chinese characters. Women and children use pinyin. Articles written in pinyin are called proverbs and are discriminated against.

After the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895, South Korea launched the "Civilization" movement. In the reform of "changing Zhang", the feudal system was impacted, and the solar calendar was introduced into South Korea. Since then, the excessive use of Chinese characters in books and texts has changed to the combination of Chinese characters and pinyin characters. South Korea became a Japanese colonial era, and it was determined that "Chinese (referring to Japan) and Chinese characters should be used at the same time". At that time, North Korean phonetic alphabet scholars were regarded as followers of anti-Japanese thought and were brutally suppressed. During the Second World War, the Governor's Office ordered the dissolution of the Korean Society that studied phonography, and some scholars were arrested and imprisoned. Due to the above historical reasons, the use of phonography became a symbol of nationalism and was regarded as a symbol of anti-Japanese patriotism.

1945, South Korea was rescued from colonial rule. New Korea advocates nationalism. Scholars of phonetic writing stand at the forefront of carrying forward the national spirit and put forward that all phonetic writing is equal to patriotism. 1948 as soon as the government was established, it immediately enacted the special law on phonograms, which stipulated that all official documents should use phonograms. However, the additional clauses of official documents allow the use of Chinese characters and phonetic symbols.

Take Pinyin as a symbol of nationalism.

South Korea vigorously promoted the comprehensive application of phonography, starting from 1950 Korean War. During the war, young people from all over the country joined the army for training. Because of the uneven academic qualifications, I can't read textbooks mixed with Chinese characters. So first of all, phonetic symbols are used uniformly in the army. Then spread to the whole society to use phonography.

On the other hand, the use of Chinese characters was completely abolished in the northern part of Korea from 1949, and phonography was gradually used. However, in 1968, under the instruction of Kim Il Sung, the scheme of using all pinyin characters was revised, and Chinese character education was gradually restored. At present, Korean primary school students learn Chinese characters from the fifth grade until they graduate from high school, learning a total of 1500 Chinese characters. I will study again in college 1500. * * * Teach 3000 Chinese characters. Also in 1968, South Korean President park chung-hee ordered that from 1970, the use of Chinese characters was banned in official documents and forcibly abolished in textbooks. Behind President Park's insistence on using phonography, he emphasized indigenous democracy to explain his paranoia. At that time, President Park tried to ban * * * for life and confront those who demanded European and American-style democracy. In order to advocate indigenous democracy, we should try our best to emphasize the indigenous system and spirit of each country, and on this basis, promote the pinyin of words. In short, the president abolished Chinese character education.

There is nothing wrong with monopolists talking nonsense in culture.

In view of the critical pressure of public opinion on the abolition of Chinese character education, the Korean government began to revise the policy of completely abolishing the use of Chinese characters.

1972 decided to resume Chinese character education in junior and senior high schools. 1974 decided to learn 1800 basic Chinese characters (junior high school 900, senior high school 900). Chinese characters in brackets are also allowed in national common language and national history textbooks.

However, in a society where most people use phonography, young people are not interested in learning Chinese characters, and the university examination questions do not contain knowledge of Chinese characters, so students have no pressure to learn Chinese characters. Learning Chinese characters, which belongs to hieroglyphics, is suitable for learning from primary school. If you start learning from middle school, the effect is not good, resulting in a generation that does not know Chinese characters.

The argument between the two factions escalated gradually.

With the complete abolition of Chinese character education, people began to feel inconvenient and set off various forms of movements demanding the restoration of Chinese character education.

170 More than 70 social organizations jointly formed the National Chinese Character Education and Promotion Federation, and held a general mobilization meeting on 10/99817, putting forward the slogan of "receiving Chinese character education from primary schools and getting rid of the cultural crisis". The General Assembly passed resolutions: 1, primary school 1000 Chinese characters; 2. Textbooks from primary school to high school are mixed with phonetic symbols; 3. Official documents, street signs, signboards and other Chinese characters are allowed to be mixed with phonetic symbols; 4. Reward the news media to adopt the mixed method of Chinese phonetic alphabet.

Congress also proposed the "Abolishing Special Phonetic Characters Act" to Congress. More than 7,000 celebrities from the political, financial, academic, religious and literary circles agreed to jointly sign.

However, ideographs are not silent. 1997165438+1in late October, the special practice promotion association of pictophonetic characters centered on the Korean pictophonetic character society issued a statement in several major newspapers, emphasizing that "it is more necessary to use pictophonetic characters unswervingly after more than half a century of Korean liberation". Their intention of attacking each other for praising Chinese characters is to return to the old dynasty, saying that Chinese characters users try to use Korean national language as a dialect, while phonetic symbols are only allowed as "proverbs" to describe dialects. The Association for the Promotion believes that the function of Korean phonetic alphabet is not only absolutely superior to Chinese characters, but also embodies the spirit of national autonomy, so it advocates the whole phonetic alphabet. They also advocate resolutely and thoroughly implementing the policy of "using only pinyin characters" and demand that the current Chinese character education in middle schools be stopped immediately. In addition, the Association actively promoted the establishment of 65438+ 10 9, the day when phonetic symbols were published, as a legal public holiday.

In order to maintain the special method of phonetic notation, they launched a vigorous100000 signature campaign.

The debate between the two sides about whether to resume the use of Chinese characters has escalated into not only a theoretical debate, but also a national emotional issue.

Those who emphasize that the total abolition of Chinese characters has brought chaos to society believe that the recent political chaos and economic crisis are due to the lack of humanistic knowledge of the "Zhuyin generation", which has caused confusion in ethics, philosophy, thought and morality. In the Chinese character cultural circles of China, Japan, Taiwan Province, Singapore and Hongkong, only South Korea used phonetic symbols in particular isolation, which hindered cultural exchanges and economic development.

Phonetic theorists strongly attack each other. In order to rationalize their theories, they use sophistry and lies, and spend a lot of money to publicize rumors and confuse people. In the case of serious political corruption, spending huge sums of money to set off a cultural movement is just like engaging in a political movement. I don't know what its purpose is. They also gathered powerful people in an attempt to influence South Korea's cultural policy with money and power.

The Korean press has different opinions on both sides, which makes the debate between the two sides more intense.

The debate spread to other fields.

In today's calculator era, it is difficult for South Korea to avoid the problem of Chinese characters. Invented the computer Chinese character conversion function, an epoch-making leap, and solved the complex writing problem. The biggest disadvantage of Korean phonetic alphabet is that there are too many characters. In South Korea, under the guidance of special phonetic alphabet, computer components are backward in Chinese character conversion function and do not have the direct conversion function of Chinese characters. In addition, there is less demand for components. It will take some time to develop if computers with mixed pinyin and Chinese characters are popularized.

Whether to resume Chinese character education is not only a matter for some scholars and educators, but also a matter of national plan and cultural foundation. In recent years, China has received hundreds of thousands of Korean tourists every year. China's tour guide said with emotion, "Every time Japanese tourists hear the introduction of ancient poems, idioms and allusions, they all know the origin of their ancient culture and sound enthusiastic. And Koreans are stunned. "

Korea has a strong Confucian tradition since ancient times. The younger generation knows nothing about the most basic Analects. Confucian tradition has become an empty shelf. Koreans who have studied "having ample food and clothing and knowing etiquette" don't know Chinese characters. There are even cases where history students go to the library and can't even read the ancient books of North Korea and South Korea in their own country.

Advocates of restoring the use of Chinese characters criticize those who specialize in ideographic characters for suffering from cultural isolation and feel that their arrogance is not enough. They also insist on imposing patients on the next generation and increasing the number of "illiterate disabled children".

This cultural war is still going on, and it is not clear when it will end. The biggest victims are the educated generation.