A guide to korean characters docx

CONTENTS INTRODUCTION The Korean Writing System Hints on Learning Hangu'l History of Chinese Characters The Six Categories of Chinese Characters Hints on Learning Hanja Explanation of a

I

i

Consonants

t I Stressed Consonants I As~irated Consonants 1

I Basic Consanants a (two basic consonants (sgort line added to

written together) basic consonants) I

8 ;ng (final;

no sound

as initial)

lo * h

'Slightly different than basic consonant number six

Basic consonants k, t, p, and ch are ~ronounced as g, d, b,

and j, respectively, when occurring as medials Stressed con-

sonaots are pronounced with more stress by far than their

unvoiced English counterparts, g, d, b, s, and j Aspirated

consonants are said with an unabashed explosion of air Initial

"r" is pronounced akin to its Spanish counterpart

Vowels

Other Diphthongs (combinations of various vowels)

The "0" written with each vowel is an unvoiced consonant which functions to indicate where an initial consonant maybe affixed to the vowel when writing a syllable See the inside back cover for information on forming syllables

-

-

"Y" Diphthongs (short line added

(hut)

3 9 o (heme)

'Pronounce without

"I" Diphthongs (vowel #6 added

to basic vowels)

la 01 ae (hat) 2a O)) e (se_t) 3a 4 oe (w_et)

(E) 5a 5 iii

(we)*

pursing the lips

A Guide to

KOREAN

CHARACTERS

SECOND REVISED EDITION

by

BRUCE K GRANT

For Audrey Michele Denise Mirae Bruce Maynard Monique and Taylor

Elizabeth, New Jersey 07208 U.S.A

Published simultaneously in Korea

by Hollym Corporation; Publishers

14-5 Kwanchol-dong, Chongno-gu, Seoul, Korea

Phone: (02)735-7554 Fax: (02)730-5149

ISBN: 0-930878- 13-2

Printed in Korea

PREFACE

This book was designed as a guide for those who wish to learn written Korean It presents for the first time in English the information necessary to read and write hangiil, the Korean alphabet, and the 1,800 Chinese characters taught

in Korean schools A Guide to Korean Characters contains simplified charts explaining hang5l and models showing exactly how to write each of the 1,800 Basic Characters Sam- ple vocabulary words, selected on the basis of frequency of use, are included for each character This handbook also functions as a character dictionary since its entries are ar- ranged in stroke-count order and it contains both a radical and a phonetic index

I am very grateful to those who have helped in the prep- aration of A Guide to Korean Characters Mr Cho PyTing-ha was indefatiguable, and the writing models in the text are examples of his graceful calligraphy Dr Ch6n Y6ng-ch'd and Mr Yi Pang-h5n kindly read the entire manuscript and made many useful suggestions I am indebted to Mr Chu Shin-wgn, Chief Editor at Hollyrn Corporation: Publishers, for his patient guidance I alone, of course, am responsible for errors

July 1979

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

The Korean Writing System

Hints on Learning Hangu'l

History of Chinese Characters

The Six Categories of Chinese Characters

Hints on Learning Hanja

Explanation of a Sample Character Entry

Commonly Abbreviated Characters 33 7

Characters with Multiple Readings 338

The 900 Middle School Characters in Textbook Order 339

Hangill Writing Models

syllable Writing Models

insidejront cover inside back cover

INTRODUCTION THE KOREAN WRITING SYSTEM

Korean is a member of the Altaic family of languages and

is very similar to Japanese It has been spoken on the Korean peninsula for more than 2,000 years but has enjoyed an in- digenous writing system since only the fifteenth century Chinese exerted an early influence on Korean, and loan words from the Chinese now comprise about sixty percent of the Korean vocabulary

Chinese is essentially uninflected, while Korean is poly- synthetic So different, in fact, are the two languages that Chinese and English have more in common than do Chinese and Korean Ancient Koreans found Chinese ideographs unsuited to phonetically represent their richly inflected lan- guage, so they adopted written Chinese itself Literate Koreans wrote one language, classical Chinese, and spoke another, Korean, until the dawn of the twentieth century, a period in excess of 1,500 years

In 1440, King Sejong of the Yi Dynasty set a group of scholars to the task of inventing a means of writing the Ko- rean language The resulting phonetic alphabet was prom- ulgated in 1446 but did not enjoy widespread use Hangiil, as

it is now called, is perhaps the most scientific alphabet in general use in the world

In 1972, the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Korea directed that 1,800 Sino-Korean characters, hanja, be taught

in all middle and high schools in the nation These are com- monly called the Basic Characters, and each is treated in this book Modern Korean is written in a mixed script in which

hanja is used for Chinese loan words and hangiil for purely

Korean items

The Korean alphabet is so simple that its sixteen totally

distinct letters can be learned in minutes with the aid of the

hangiil-in-a-hurry charts at the inside front cover of this book

Use these charts to decode hangal appearing in the book

and elsewhere until it becomes entirely familiar to you The

charts at the inside back cover illustrate how to write each

hangGI letter and how to combine the letters into sylla-

bles

Korean consonants are pronounced much as they are in

English, though they annoyingly assume different shades of

sound when they appear as initials, medials, or finals The five

stressed consonants are pronounced with greatest possible

stress but with no expulsion of air For example, "tt" ( r-c ) is

pronounced akin to the d of don't inUDon't do that!'' The

aspirated consonants are pronounced with a heavy expulsion

of air The "k' "( 3 ) is similar, for example, to the k of kill

in ill that rattlesnake!" Vowels are pronounced essentially

as noted on the inside front cover Access to a native speaker

is recommended for refined pronunciation

HISTORY OF CHINESE CHARACI'ERS

1n.ancient China, pieces of bone and shell were incised with

characters and then heated The resulting cracks among the

characters were used by oracles to foretell the future Thou-

sands of such "oracle bones" have been unearthed The char-

acters on them, the oldest extant, date from about 1,400 B.C

Virtually all principles for the formation of ideographs are

evident on the oracle bones, suggesting a long period of de-

velopment prior to 1,400 B.C After that time, characters

underwent a continuing evolution of form that ended about

2,000 years ago with the development of the "square char-

acters" still used today The following chart traces four char-

acters through this evolution and illustrates character styles

which a modern reader is likely to encounter Dates are very

approximate

THE SIX CATEGORIES OF CHINESE CHARACTERS

Characters traditionally have been classified into Six Cate-

gories according to how they were originally fabricated or how

they later accrued meaning An understanding of these cate-

gories can bring a sense of order to the beginning reader who

is likely to be bewildered by a forest of seemingly unrelated

graphs Moreover, the characteristics of the different types of

hanja suggest varying learning strategies for their mastery

The Sung Dynasty scholar, Ch6ng Ch'iao, apportioned 24,235

characters to the Six Categories, and his results provide an

indication of the relative size of each category (Kwtin, page

2 See Bibliography.)

Category One: Simple Pictographs

Simple Pictographs were the first type of character

fabricated by the ancient Chinese They picture objects, such

as tree,* The trunk, branches and roots of a tree can be seen

even in this modern form of the character Another Simple

Pictograph is (sun) This stylized character was originally

round, and the line in its center represented rays of sunshine

Only 608 of the characters classified by Cheng Ch'iao are

Simple Pictographs, but they are important because many of

them are the building blocks from which other hanja are made

A Simple Pictograph is easily learned by associating its

shape and meaning

Category Two: Simple Diagrams

Simple Diagrams were among the earliest characters made

and depict relationships for which no picture can readily be

drawn Two common examples are I: (up) and (down) The

diagrammatic nature of this pair is readily apparent Simple

Diagrams are best learned by associating shape and meaning

Ch$ng Ch'iao allotted 107 of his characters to this category

Category Three: Simple Compounds

A subsequent development in the history of characters, Sim-

ple Compounds are truly ideographic They were made from

two or more existing characters whose combined meanings provide a clue to the denotation of the compound The Simple Compound resulting from the union of R (sun) and * (tree)

is R The new character is pronounced 3- (tong), and signifies ''east," taking its meaning from the "sun" rising from behind

a "tree" in the "east." A Simple compound is best learned

by relating its meaning to that of its constituent elements Of the graphs classified by Ch2ng Ch'iao, 740 were Simple Compounds

Category Four: Phonetic Compounds About ninety percent of the characters of Ch2ng Ch'iao,

21,811 hanja, are Phonetic Compounds These graphs can

be characterized as semi-ideographic and semi-phonetic since each is composed of a semantic element which furnishes a hint

to the general meaning of the compound and a phonetic element which provides a direct clue to its pronunciation The phonetic clue in the vast majority of Sino-Korean char- acters is a significant potential mnemonic aid but is widely regarded as of limited value Chinese lexicography obscures the phonetic relationships among characters, and some Phonetic Compounds which share an identical phonetic ele- ment have differing readings either because they were not originally homophonous or because their pronunciations diverged during centuries of phonetic and dialectic evolution Nevertheless, it is likely that the phonetic clue is underexploited rather than overexploited by students

of hanja Category Five: Derived Meanings Derived Meanings originally belonged to one of the first four categories of characters The evolution of Chinese gen- erated a need to assign abstract meanings to characters with concrete denotations Graphs of this type took on abstract meanings but maintained their original denotation as well An example is 9, originally a Simple Pictograph of a man sitting with crossed legs Its derived meanings are "exchange, com-

INTRODUrnON

municate, intercourse, mix, join." This leap in meaning is

comprehensible to anyone who has watched old Korean

gentlemen sit cross legged by the hour and "communicate"

with cronies Chtng Ch'iao assigned 372 of his characters to

this category Its characters are best learned by relating their

original and derived meanings

Category Six: Arbitrary Meanings

Characters of this type also belonged to one of the first four

categories and took on additional denotations, but they sur-

rendered their original meanings altogether An example

is jff , a Simple Pictograph of a growing stalk of grain Other

characters possessed the same meaning, but there was no

character for "to come," which was pronounced the same as

% As a homophone, % was pressed into service to denote

"to come" and has maintained only that meaning for millenia

Graphs of this category account for 598 of the characters of

ChSng Ch'iao They are best learned arbitrarily

HINTS ON LEARNING IiANJA

There is no royal road to learning characters, but the task

is not as difficult as it may appear, either The sheer number

of hanja is daunting; large character dictionaries may run to

50,000 entries But no one need learn anything like this ridic-

ulous number, and fewer than 300 discrete graphs compose all

others A study in Taiwan showed that the most common 400

characters in use there comprised fully seventy-three percent

of all written material (DeFrancis, page xix.)

The learning of Chinese characters will unavoidably entail

some memorization Homemade flash cards and repeated

writing of characters can be valuable memorization aids Any-

thing, including hanja , is easier to learn when approached as

part of a meaningful context Those already participating in

a Korean language program can easily meld specific informa-

tion about the 1,800 Basic Characters into their language

materials Those undertaking independent study can meld

INTRODUCTlON characters into available selections of written Korean The vocabulary words accompanying each character in this book can also supply a measure of meaningful context The 900 middle school characters in the appendix can be useful because the most common and frequently used characters appear in this list in the order they are first learned by Korean pupils

Early attention to radicals, the 214 characters under which all others are listed in hanja dictionaries, is recommended for all Familiarity with the radicals is requisite to the full use

of a dictionary, and many radicals are numbered among the discrete graphs which comprise all others The radicals can

be found in the radical index of this handbook

A student of hacia will find it valuable to develop the habit

of estimating to which of the Six Categories a target character belongs since this will enable him to choose an appropriate learning strategy for it Consult the preceding section of the Introduction for suggestions on learning strategies for each of the Six Categories of Chinese characters

The vast majority of characters, perhaps ninety percent of all hanja, belong to the Phonetic Compound category Each graph of this type mntains an internal clue to its own pro- nunciation One beginning student schooled himself to look for this internal phonetic clue, and, on a quiz, successfully matched readings to eleven of thirteen Phonetic Compounds

he had not previously encountered The student will be well advised to make it a practice to estimate the reading of a target character, whether newly-encountered or unrecalled, by assigning to it the pronunciation of its major component elements

A forthcoming handbook by the present editor will contain some 2,000 characters arranged in sets Each graph in a set contains the same phonetic element and shares an identical

or similar reading as well The mnemonic value of a set of characters which both look and sound alike can be appreciated

by perusing the following chart

lNTRODUCTJON

Phonetic Compound Set

EXPLANATION OF A SAMPLE CHARACI'ER ENTRY

The character entry below is typical of the 1,800 in A Guide

to Korean Characters

The main character of the sample entry, 2 , is one of the

Basic Hania taught in a11 Korean secondary schools It appears

first in a large-type, slightly-abbreviated form common in

published material In the box beneath the main character is

listed the radical under which it can be found in a character

dictionary This radical is given in its unabbreviated form,

while it may appear in the main character in its common,

abbreviated form (A chart of abbreviated radicals appears

on page 348.) The number to the right of the radical indicates

the number of strokes in the non-radical portion of the main

character, datum that is vital when using a hanja dictionary

INTRODUrnON The 1,800 main entries are numbered consecutively For 7 ,

this number is 238 These character numbers are used in cross

references and indices

To the right of the main character are nine squares in which its proper stroke order is progressively illustrated The com- plete pen-written form of the main character occurs as the final entry in these squares It is important to compare and contrast the written and printed forms of the main character since both will be encountered in reading materials

The formal definition, or h u n , of the main character occurs

in the upper left corner of the area following the writing models The hun for the sample character is 2 x 1 This is followed to the right by English definitions of the main char- acter and by its reading, or u'm, in boldface hangiil In the sample entry, this iim is xi The hun and iim are ordinarily said together as a verbal means of identifying a character Sample voc3bulary words comprise the remainder of the entry:These were selected on the basis of frequency of use in the language Usually, three such words are included in an entry The hanja typeface used for sample words is the stylized variation increasingly common in published material Compare and contrast these with the main character typeface

in an entry

A Guide to Korean Characters is designed to aid in learn- ing hangiil and hania As a mini-dictionary, its English def- initions are not exhaustive For the convenience of the reader and to exploit limited space, many English definitions appear

in verbal, adjectival or adverbial form even though Korean referents may occur only as nouns

English definitions were purposely inserted between hanja

entries and their hangiil readings in order to cause the eye of the reader to encounter first hanja and then its English mean- ing before coming to pronunciation This arrangement may

facilitate the learning process by obliging the reader to relate form and meaning for milliseconds before dealing with pro- nunciation

INTROWCTION

WRITING CHARACI'ERS

A general rule of writing is to make the graphs of uniform

size no matter how simple or complex they may be Hanja are

listed in character dictionaries in ways inextricably related to

stroke count (See How to Use a Character Dictionary, p.347.)

A character must be written, therefore, with strokes of con-

stant shape set down in unvarying order Details regarding

stroke type and stroke order are provided below, but the

reader will doubtless find the writing models accompanying

each character in the text to be a more practical calligraphic

guide

Types of Strokes

The following chart illustrates eighteen types of strokes

used in writing characters The samples are done in brush

style, but the principles also apply to pen calligraphy Gen-

erally, perpendicular strokes are made from top to bottom,

while horizontal strokes are made from left to right Even

when it includes an angle, a stroke is written without lifting

Seven auxiliary rules also control the order of strokes

3 ~orizontal strokes usually are written first when they cross perpendicular ones

4 Sometimes the reverse is true

5 A center stroke is written first, then the left and final-

ly the right

6 An enclosure precedes its contents

7 Diagonals running to the left precede diagonals flow-

ing to the right

8 A piercing perpendicular-stroke is written last

9 A piercing horizontal stroke is written last

GLOSSARY

Basic Characters Basic Characters are the 1,800 hanja taught by order of the Ministry of Education since 1972 in all Korean middle and high schools Their formal name is "Basic Characters for Use in Classical Korean Instruction" (hanmun kyoylakyong kich'o hanja)

Basic Hanja See Basic Characters

Chinese Characters See Six Categories of Chinese Char- acters

Classical Korean Classical Korean (hanmun) is classical Chinese used by Koreans as their written language for more than 1,500 years

alphabet promulgated in 1446 but not widely used until the

present century

Ideograph An ideograph is a symbol representing an object or an idea but not the sound associated with that object

or idea in spoken language

Polysynthetic Polysynthesism is the grammatical practice

in Korean of combining word elements into a single word that can be the equivalent of phrases or even a sentence in English Phonetic Compound One of the Six Categories of Chinese characters, Phonetic Compounds comprise some ninety percent of all characters They are semi-ideographic and semi- phonetic

Reading - The iim, or pronunciation, of a character is its reading

Semantic Element A semantic element is that part of a Phonetic Compound, usually one-half the total character, which provides a hint to the general meaning of the compound

Simple Compounds One of the Six Categories of Chinese

characters, Simple Compounds were formed from two ele-

ments whose combined meanings provide a clue to the deno-

tation of the compound They are ideographic

Simple Diagrams One of the Six Categories of Chinese

characters, Simple Diagrams depict relationships for which

a picture cannot readily be drawn

Simple Pictographs One of the Six Categories of Chinese

characters, Simple Pictographs are drawings of objects They

were the first characters fabricated by the ancient Chinese

Sino-Korean Characters Chinese characters as they are

used in the Korean language

Six Categories of Chinese Characters A traditional

classification of Chinese characters into six types accordmg

to how they were originally fabricated or later accrued mean-

ing The Six Categories are Simple Pictographs, Simple Dia-

grams, Simple Compounds; Phonetic Compounds, Derived

Meanings and Arbitrary Meanings

1 and 2 strokes

seventy years

1

2 strokes 2 strokes

3 strokes I 3 strokes

k His Royal Majesty

kfi$f@ high society

kg senior official

man, gentleman;

a rooming house

74 till now, up to the present P5

n 3 die, perish; be lost; absent rb-

#t flee, run away, escape

@ -t- be destroyed, collapse, fall 9 o,F

12 & defect, seek foreign refuge 9 9

A '8 mediocre; common, ordinary % .'k

3 knife blade, knife edge ?!

& A bladed weapons; $!q

bayonets; weapons

$ XJ kill oneself with a dagger xioJ

~ I J \ large and small; size,

hg fields and mountains

1 stream bank, riverside

CLl)ll mountains and rivers

T #9i a thousand years f- lf a thousand characters

a population; inhabitants 0 ?

k ti4 land, real estate

f nature of the soil

p TI] evening edition +&

4 morning and evening; E"?

breakfast and dinner

3 strokes 4 strokes

Branches; snake

Ze 42d of the 60 binary terms 9 x 1

of the sexagenary cycle

zek#d literati purge of 1545 + A ~ A ) #

red and yellow

A.$? colors; red and green 9 4

!+fl#L\ fidelity; a sincere heart ?J%Q>J

4 strokes

et cetera; thus and thus,

A 9 now, the present time

4 strokes 4 strokes

04 % difficulty, distressed

JE @ misfortune, bad luck

#$E unexpected misfortune calamity, disaster

I4 8 a year of famine wicked, bad

4 strokes

Korea in 1592

Z 19th of the 60 binary terms od

of the sexagenary cycle

4 strokes 4 strokes

direction; square; region;

plan; recipe; just now

f i method, way, means

6 argue pro and con

Fj X the end of the month, end 3 2

* g- the planet Jupiter

f( E1Jj civilization; culture 39

2 (:h a literatus, a man of letters 9 *J

3 a dry measure (18 liters, .4-

.Ic !3 father and mother,

sliced boiled meat

cow, ox

+ f L cow's milk

"Read classics into a 5 4

COW'S ear", cast pearls

5 strokes 5 strokes

E$ the world, the earth

j&L the world; society;

#$IT office boy; errand girl;

commit to; pay

f ask, solicit, request; charge +EL

with, entrust with

3% 3d of of the the sexagenary 60 binary terms cycle 9 6

transfer, hand over,

genie

@ (& Taoist immortal; hermit, AJAJ

ascetic; a spirit

(h), hermit, ascetic; a spirit; "J

Taoist immortal

5 strokes 5 strokes

good; tenn of respect command, order

5 % brothers, sisters, brethren g 41

a% husband of a girl's elder 3 +-

Iffff books, publications

f f f f ~ a m ~ h l e t , booklet

+$E the winter solstice

4 publish; engrave, cut

5 strokes

$ occupy; seize, take,capture ;do qj

occupy, possess (territory) $ 4

possess, occupy (property)

jff come and go; lending and 4 4

borrowing; transactions

A 9 now, the present

{ merely, only; but,

however, provided that,

on condition that

5 strokes

%W exclaim, cry out

p4~& a cry, shout, shriek

~ 4 % impeach, censure,

denounce, arraign

f J !@ hit, strike; a blow

fJ h$ destroy, break down

fJ calculate, reckon

Z!i! New Year's Day

5 strokes 5 strokes

a k mother and daughter homeland, mother

ilc ,$!& the freezing point

*$ij a glacier; an icebound river MJ

X#$ disintegrate, fall to pieces; q q

break up, collapse

% f i commit a crime 3 *A'

4 perpetual, eternal, long 54

#'% sweetness, a sweet taste ;Id- nl

be born; produce; life; d

student; raw, fresh;

arbitrary, forced living, existence %

survival, survive 4' +

5 strokes

use, employ forms; stationery

EEI k cultivated land, fields

means; source; permit

t; the sexagenary cycle

0 A Caucasian, white man

5 strokes

Ffia skin, the skin

Emm superficial, shallow

&% a conveyor belt

purpose, object, goal

2~ contradiction

3% $% contradictory terms p+$ A\

marshal; display, set forth

% ti arrows and stones 4 "4

(in ancient warfare)

$$ % a poisoned arrow + 4

E; 9 bow and arrow 3 4

6 ,a kerosene

6 stone implement

2 & exchange, interchange

2 & negotiate, bargain

# incident, affair, matter

Branches; boar, pig

&@ Watch of the Boar, the period 4 A )

between9 and 11 P.M

% '? Year of the Boar d d

Day of the Boar 4 "2

& intend; contemplate; 7 ) E

undertake

a 5 3 prostrate; yield; humble; q

hide, lie in ambush;

suppress; secret {A surrender, capitulate 32 +

3 {A three "dog daysw of summer +

hide, conceal oneself; "d-+

dormant, latent

6 strokes 6 strokes

O ? E a trillion; omen, sign E

9 indication, sign; omen ~2 Zi?

9 a hundred million and a 04

thewhole,all

+@ pan-national, nation-wide, JJ %

the whole country

eg, completely, entirely

communism

' % combined, joint 3 - 5 5 o o

#EZ% communism

2 1 3 &@ be common, be common to + g

1 rli B@ again, repeated 4

4 7 )tF 9 arrange in order; enumerate, 34

classify; each one;

file, rank; series

& & each, every; all;

a lucky dream, dream

6 strokes

s o \ & return; Mohammedan; 4

time, occasion

EZE the present, now;at present; gxq

this world; present tense

&E& exist, be extant S 4

%@ site, position, location; & 31

6 strokes 6 strokes

arrange safety, security

& $$?j place of a ceremony

f$$ & a ceremony, a rite

k%@ Watch of the Dog,

) 4% harvest; collect; receive what +

is due, gather together;

bind; bring to an end income, earnings $- "d

1

' ) I

~ k%famous Buddhist temple l

in KyZingju dating from 691 A.D

'I;- & military spearhead 34 %!

3% region, state, province f

J + l f $ S provinces and counties ?%

h ,,.I, the nine provinces of Silla j'- 7

91.1 9 $ state governor f zlA\

254 $#I first and tenth of a month 9

36 crooked, bent, false P

tkf& hereafter, in the future

a 1 4 rivers and mountains,

$1 4 rivers and lakes,

scenary, retreat

6 strokes

@ & lotus pond; pond

gray; ash color,

the common people i'Zg& department store

fl one - hundred days

6 strokes .1

nl* 4; % brown rice, 8J ~1

unpolished rice rice/grain dealer D \ ~ A J

6 strokes

fif $ boating; a boat ride

E $3 skiff, small boat

IhJg the body, the flesh

8 self, oneself; himself,

fE'% residence, home, house

lid OUBs'l in any event, anyway

% slightest, any, little

7 strokes

13 strive, endeavor

7 strokes

-7 ,

z 0

-%4

'