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Hanja
Hanja (Hangul: ; Hanja: , ), alternatively known as Hancha, are Chinese characters () used in the writing of Korean. Hanja was used as early as the Gojoseon period, the first ever Korean kingdom. (, ) refers to Sino-Korean vocabulary, which can be written with Hanja, and (, ) refers to Classical Chinese writing, although "Hanja" is also sometimes used to encompass both concepts. Because Hanja never underwent any major reforms, they are mostly resemble to ''kyūjitai'' and traditional Chinese characters, although the stroke orders for some characters are slightly different. For example, the characters and as well as and . Only a small number of Hanja characters were modified or are unique to Korean, with the rest being identical to the traditional Chinese characters. By contrast, many of the Chinese characters currently in use in mainland China, Malaysia and Singapore have been simplified, and contain fewer strokes than the corresponding Hanja characters. In Japan, ...
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Chinese Characters
Chinese characters () are logograms developed for the writing of Chinese. In addition, they have been adapted to write other East Asian languages, and remain a key component of the Japanese writing system where they are known as ''kanji''. Chinese characters in South Korea, which are known as ''hanja'', retain significant use in Korean academia to study its documents, history, literature and records. Vietnam once used the '' chữ Hán'' and developed chữ Nôm to write Vietnamese before turning to a romanized alphabet. Chinese characters are the oldest continuously used system of writing in the world. By virtue of their widespread current use throughout East Asia and Southeast Asia, as well as their profound historic use throughout the Sinosphere, Chinese characters are among the most widely adopted writing systems in the world by number of users. The total number of Chinese characters ever to appear in a dictionary is in the tens of thousands, though most are graph ...
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Sino-Korean Vocabulary
Sino-Korean vocabulary or Hanja-eo () refers to Korean words of Chinese origin. Sino-Korean vocabulary includes words borrowed directly from Chinese, as well as new Korean words created from Chinese characters, and words borrowed from Sino-Japanese vocabulary. Many of these terms were borrowed during the height of Chinese-language literature on Korean culture. Anywhere from 30-60 percent of Korean words are of Chinese character origin. Many of these words have also been truncated or altered for the Korean language. History The use of Chinese and Chinese characters in Korea dates back to at least 194 BCE. While Sino-Korean words were widely used during the Three Kingdoms period, they became even more popular during the Silla period. During this time, male aristocrats changed their given names to Sino-Korean names. Additionally, the government changed all official titles and place names in the country to Sino-Korean. Sino-Korean words remained popular during the Goryeo and ...
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Gojoseon
Gojoseon () also called Joseon (), was the first kingdom on the Korean Peninsula. According to Korean mythology, the kingdom was established by the legendary founder named Dangun. Gojoseon possessed the most advanced culture in the Korean Peninsula at the time and was an important marker in the progression towards the more centralized states of later periods. The addition of ''Go'' (, ), meaning "ancient", is used in historiography to distinguish the kingdom from the Joseon dynasty founded in 1392 CE. According to the ''Memorabilia of the Three Kingdoms'', Gojoseon was established in 2333 BCE by Dangun, who was said to be born between a heavenly prince Hwanung and a bear-woman Ungnyeo. While Dangun is a mythological figure from the legends for whom no concrete evidences have been found so far, some interpret the legend of Dangun as the reflections of the sociocultural situations involving the kingdom's early developments. Regardless, the account of Dangun has played an i ...
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Hunminjeongeum
''Hunminjeong'eum'' () is a document describing an entirely new and native script for the Korean language. The script was initially named after the publication but later came to be known as hangul. Originally containing 28 characters, it was created so that the common people illiterate in hanja (Chinese characters) could accurately and easily read and write the Korean language. Four letters among the 28 were discarded over time. The original spelling of the title was 훈〮민져ᇰ〮ᅙᅳᆷ ''Húnminjyéongeum'' (in North Korean version ''Húnminjyéonghʼeum''). The Hunminjeongeum was announced in Volume 102 of the ''Annals of King Sejong'', and its formal supposed publication date, October 9, 1446, is now Hangul Day in South Korea. The Annals place its invention to the 25th year of Sejong's reign, corresponding to 1443–1444. UNESCO included the 1446 manuscript publishing the Hunminjeongeum in the Memory of the World Programme. History Before Hangul, the Korean alphab ...
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Sejong The Great
Sejong of Joseon (15 May 1397 – 8 April 1450), personal name Yi Do (Korean: 이도; Hanja: 李祹), widely known as Sejong the Great (Korean: 세종대왕; Hanja: 世宗大王), was the fourth ruler of the Joseon dynasty of Korea. Initially titled Grand Prince Chungnyeong (Korean: 충녕대군; Hanja: 忠寧大君), he was born as the third son of King Taejong and Queen Wongyeong. In 1418, he was designated as heir after his eldest brother, Crown Prince Yi Je, was stripped of his status. Today, King Sejong is regarded as one of the greatest leaders in Korean history. Despite ascending to the throne after his father's voluntary abdication in 1418, Sejong was a mere figurehead while Taejong continued to hold the real power and govern the country up till his death in 1422. Sejong was the sole monarch for the next 28 years, although after 1439 he became increasingly ill, and starting from 1442, his eldest son, Crown Prince Yi Hyang (the future King Munjong), acted as regent. ...
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Hangul
The Korean alphabet, known as Hangul, . Hangul may also be written as following South Korea's standard Romanization. ( ) in South Korea and Chosŏn'gŭl in North Korea, is the modern official writing system for the Korean language. The letters for the five basic consonants reflect the shape of the speech organs used to pronounce them, and they are systematically modified to indicate phonetic features; similarly, the vowel letters are systematically modified for related sounds, making Hangul a featural writing system. It has been described as a syllabic alphabet as it combines the features of alphabetic and syllabic writing systems, although it is not necessarily an abugida. Hangul was created in 1443 CE by King Sejong the Great in an attempt to increase literacy by serving as a complement (or alternative) to the logographic Sino-Korean ''Hanja'', which had been used by Koreans as its primary script to write the Korean language since as early as the Gojoseon period (spa ...
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Korean Language
Korean ( South Korean: , ''hangugeo''; North Korean: , ''chosŏnmal'') is the native language for about 80 million people, mostly of Korean descent. It is the official and national language of both North Korea and South Korea (geographically Korea), but over the past years of political division, the two Koreas have developed some noticeable vocabulary differences. Beyond Korea, the language is recognised as a minority language in parts of China, namely Jilin Province Jilin (; alternately romanized as Kirin or Chilin) is one of the three provinces of Northeast China. Its capital and largest city is Changchun. Jilin borders North Korea ( Rasŏn, North Hamgyong, Ryanggang and Chagang) and Russia (Prim ..., and specifically Yanbian Prefecture and Changbai County. It is also spoken by Sakhalin Koreans in parts of Sakhalin, the Russian island just north of Japan, and by the in parts of Central Asia. The language has a few Extinct language, extinct relativ ...
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Logogram
In a written language, a logogram, logograph, or lexigraph is a written character that represents a word or morpheme. Chinese characters (pronounced '' hanzi'' in Mandarin, ''kanji'' in Japanese, ''hanja'' in Korean) are generally logograms, as are many hieroglyphic and cuneiform characters. The use of logograms in writing is called ''logography'', and a writing system that is based on logograms is called a ''logography'' or ''logographic system''. All known logographies have some phonetic component, generally based on the rebus principle. Alphabets and syllabaries are distinct from logographies in that they use individual written characters to represent sounds directly. Such characters are called '' phonograms'' in linguistics. Unlike logograms, phonograms do not have any inherent meaning. Writing language in this way is called ''phonemic writing'' or ''orthographic writing''. Etymology Doulgas Harper's Online Etymology Dictionary states that the term 'logogram' was deriv ...
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Stroke Order
Stroke order is the order in which the strokes of a Chinese character (or Chinese derivative character) are written. A stroke is a movement of a writing instrument on a writing surface. Chinese characters are used in various forms in Chinese, Japanese, and Korean. They are known as '' Hanzi'' in ( Mandarin) Chinese (Traditional form: ; Simplified form: ), ''kanji'' in Japanese (), and ''Hanja'' in Korean (). Basic principles Chinese characters are basically logograms constructed with strokes. Over the millennia a set of generally agreed rules have been developed by custom. Minor variations exist between countries, but the basic principles remain the same, namely that writing characters should be economical, with the fewest hand movements to write the most strokes possible. This promotes writing speed, accuracy, and readability. This idea is particularly important since as learners progress, characters often get more complex. Since stroke order also aids learning and memor ...
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Literary Chinese
Classical Chinese, also known as Literary Chinese (古文 ''gǔwén'' "ancient text", or 文言 ''wényán'' "text speak", meaning "literary language/speech"; modern vernacular: 文言文 ''wényánwén'' "text speak text", meaning "literary language writing"), is the language of the classic literature from the end of the Spring and Autumn period through to the either the start of the Qin dynasty or the end of the Han dynasty, a written form of Old Chinese (上古漢語, ''Shànɡɡǔ Hànyǔ''). Classical Chinese is a traditional style of written Chinese that evolved from the classical language, making it different from any modern spoken form of Chinese. Literary Chinese was used for almost all formal writing in China until the early 20th century, and also, during various periods, in Japan, Ryukyu, Korea and Vietnam. Among Chinese speakers, Literary Chinese has been largely replaced by written vernacular Chinese, a style of writing that is similar to modern spoken Mandar ...
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Classical Chinese
Classical Chinese, also known as Literary Chinese (古文 ''gǔwén'' "ancient text", or 文言 ''wényán'' "text speak", meaning "literary language/speech"; modern vernacular: 文言文 ''wényánwén'' "text speak text", meaning "literary language writing"), is the language of the classic literature from the end of the Spring and Autumn period through to the either the start of the Qin dynasty or the end of the Han dynasty, a written form of Old Chinese (上古漢語, ''Shànɡɡǔ Hànyǔ''). Classical Chinese is a traditional style of written Chinese that evolved from the classical language, making it different from any modern spoken form of Chinese. Literary Chinese was used for almost all formal writing in China until the early 20th century, and also, during various periods, in Japan, Ryukyu, Korea and Vietnam. Among Chinese speakers, Literary Chinese has been largely replaced by written vernacular Chinese, a style of writing that is similar to modern spoken ...
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Mainland China
"Mainland China" is a geopolitical term defined as the territory governed by the People's Republic of China (including islands like Hainan or Chongming), excluding dependent territories of the PRC, and other territories within Greater China. By convention, the territories that fall outside of the Chinese mainland include: * Hong Kong, a quasi-dependent territory under PRC rule that is officially designated a " Special Administrative Region of the PRC" (formerly a British colony) * Macau, a quasi-dependent territory under PRC rule that is officially designated a "Special Administrative Region of the PRC" (formerly a Portuguese colony) * Territories ruled by the Republic of China (ROC, commonly referred to as Taiwan), including the island of Taiwan, the Penghu (Pescadores) islands in the Taiwan Strait, and the islands Kinmen, Matsu, and Wuqiu (Kinmen) offshore of Fujian. Overseas Chinese, especially Malaysian Chinese and Chinese Singaporeans, use this term to describe people ...
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