The Sound of the Middle Korean Classical Chinese language (Numbers & Sample Texts)

This video was made for educational purposes only.

Please support me on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/user?u=16809442

Special Thanks to Medve

故愚民有所欲言 (Classical Chinese) to
故·로愚民·이有所欲言·ᄒᆞ야·도 (Middle Korean Classical Chinese) to
(cf ·이런젼·ᄎᆞ·로어·린百ᄇᆡᆨ姓·셔ᇰ·이니르·고·져·호ᇙ·배이·셔·도 (Middle Korean))

Middle Korean Classical Chinese was a variant of Classical Chinese in Medieval Korea. Before the Korean Alphabet was created, every document in Korea had been written in Classical Chinese. However, because Middle Korean and Classical Chinese were completely different languages, Koreans tried to make it easier for themselves to read. One of the results was 구결 (Gugyeol), particles from Middle Korean. They inserted the particles into Classical Chinese sentences and changed the language, which had been originally an isolating language, to something similar to an agglutinative language. Those particles marked some cases, tenses, moods and honorifications which were usually implied by context in Classical Chinese. Similar system was developed in Japan, but while it changed the sentence order of Classical Chinese and translated it into Japanese, the system in Korea usually kept the sentence structures so that they remained as Classical Chinese. By the particles and the phonology of Middle Korean, Koreans made their own traditions of reading Classical Chinese. Gugyeol were usually written as the Gugyeo script, which were developed by simplifying Chinese Characters like Katakana in Japanese. However, after the Korean Alphabet was created, the particles were usually written with the alphabet.

King Sejong, the king of the Joseon dynasty and the inventor of the Korean Alphabet, was also interested in the phonology of Chinese. He thought the sounds of Chinese characters in Korea (Hanja) were changed too much from that of Middle Chinese, and tried to modify them. As a result, researching the phonology of Middle Chinese, he made ‘Standard Rhymes of the Eastern States’, which he thought as proper sounds of Chinese characters in Korea. They were used for a hundred years in official documents, but finally, the government gave it up and admitted the use of vulgar sounds.

Music:    • Traditional Korean Music – Korean Festival  

Want your beautiful language to be featured?
My email:
Otipeps24@gmail.com