My Korean-English dictionary defines 언문 (諺文) as "the Korean script" or "the Korean letters," which is a reference to Hangeul (한글), but my Korean-Korean dictionary says that it was "a vulgar way of referring to 한글 in the past" (지난날, '한글'을 속되게 이르던 말).
According to my Chinese character dictionary, the 언(諺) in 언문(諺文) means "vulgar language (상말)." And since the Chinese character 文(문) means "characters," "letters," or "writing," that means the word 언문(諺文) literally translates as "vulgar letters" or "vulgar writing."
"Vulgar writing"? I find that interesting since the character 諺 (언) is composed of the characters 言(언) and 彦(언), which means "speech (言)" and "scholar (彦)," suggesting that the character 언(諺) might have once meant "scholarly speech."
Actually, the word 언문 (諺文) was originally not a specific reference to Hangeul (한글) but rather a general reference to any writing system in the countries bordering China that was not Chinese writing. For example, I have read the Manchu alphabet was also called 諺文 (언문).
Could the average Chinese read the non-Chinese writings of the countries surrounding China? I certainly doubt it, but probably some of China's "scholars" (彦 언) could, suggesting that 諺文 (언문) might have originally meant "scholarly writing."
 |
| Dong-A's Prime Korean-English Dictionary (1998) |
 |
| 동아 새국어사전, desk dictionary (1992) |
 |
| Hyewon Publishing's Chinese Character Dictionary (혜원출판사 활용대옥편), 2007 |
 |
| Hyewon Publishing's Chinese Character Dictionary (혜원출판사 활용대옥편), 2007 |
No comments:
Post a Comment