What does 무동을 타다 mean?

ANSWER: to ride on someone's shoulders.

목말을 타다 means "to ride on another person's shoulders," such as when a young child rides on his or her father's shoulders while they are walking down the street or in a park. 목말 literally means "neck (목) horse (말)." But there is another Korean expression that also means "to ride on another person's shoulders." It is 무동을 타다, which literally translates as "to ride a dancing boy (무동 舞童)."

In old Korea, young boys used to entertain crowds by singing and dancing while either standing or sitting on the shoulders of older men. If they stood on the person's shoulders, the expression was 무동을 서다. If they sat on the person's shoulders, the expression was 무동을 타다. But neither expression makes sense to me.

서다 is an intransitive verb that means "to stand," and an intransitive verb does not take a direct object, so "a dancing boy stands" (무동이 서다) makes sense, but "to stand a dancing boy" (무동을 서다) does not make sense. If one wanted to say "stand up a dancing boy," wouldn't one normally say, "무동을 세우다?" since 세우다 is a transitive verb that can take direct objects?

I wonder if the Korean language has always had different forms for transitive verbs and intransitive verbs, or is the different forms a relatively recent development? Wouldn't a person need only to see or hear an object maker (을/를) or a subject maker (이/가) to determine if 서다 means "to stand" or "to stand (someone) up"?

타다 (to ride), on the other hand, is a transitive verb, which means it takes an object, so 무동을 타다 makes sense grammatically, but its meaning does not make sense since it suggests the adult is riding on the shoulders of the dancing boy, not vice versa. If you wanted to say "give the dancing boy a ride," then you would have to say 무동을 태우다. In other words, 타다 means "to ride," and 태우다 means "to give a ride."

So, the fact that 무동을 타다 means "to ride on another person's shoulders" suggests that Koreans in the past used one form, 타다, to mean both "to ride" and "to give a ride."

The following Korean video explains 무동을 태우다, but it does not mention 무동을 타다, which I suspect was the way Koreans originally said it.