Korean and Japanese Languages

[nanyangguy]

I know that Korean and Japanese languages are totally different from Chinese. Their grammar and sentence structures are not the same as Chinese language in nowadays. However, the Japanese and Korean used "汉字(漢字)"(Hanzi) a very long time ago. Japanese called it "Kanji" while the Koreans called it "Hanja". If the grammar of these two languages are not the same as Chinese language, how are the people of that time possible to use Hanzi? Are the grammar of these two languages same as Chinese language?

I have another question. Are the grammar and sentence structures of Korean language similar to Japanese language? Anyone who know the answer, please reply.

[Atreyyu]

try to find something here:

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Japanese

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Korean

And remember, that dialects Pyongan, Gangwon, Hamgyong and Hwanghae don't use Hanja. (These dialects are all north. It was next good idea of Kim to delete Hanja)

[HashiriKata]

Are the grammar and sentence structures of Korean language similar to Japanese language?

With some minor exceptions, the two languages are grammatical twins.

Are the grammar of these two languages same as Chinese language?

No, very different.

If the grammar of these two languages are not the same as Chinese language, how are the people of that time possible to use Hanzi?

I can even use hanzi to write English. Ok, let's assume that the British didn't have a medium for writing down English and they came into contact with this great Chinese civilisation. The illustration below is one of the possible ways they could use hanzi to write English:

(I go) 我 去

(She goes) 她 去es

(Three students went) 三 学生s 去nt

In the three examples given above, you just read as you would in English. The hanzi there are for indicating the (substantial) words and the letters are added to indicate English grammatical inflections, which don't exist in Chinese.

One of the questions you may ask is where and how do they get the extra symbols (letters) for indicating inflections. These extra symbols could also derive from hanzi, as is the case in Japanese:

The sound "a" is written as　あ in Japanese, and is a simplified form of/ derived from 安(Chinese)

The sound "i" is written as い　in Japanese, and is a simplified form of/ derived from 以(Chinese)

The sound "u" is written as う　in Japanese, and is a simplified form of/ derived from 宇(Chinese)

PS: As you can see from the above examples, hanzi can be borrowed as meaningful words (学生, 去, etc) or just for the (approximate) sounds (安, 以, 宇, etc).

[Ian_Lee]

If the grammar of these two languages are not the same as Chinese language, how are the people of that time possible to use Hanzi?

It is quite possible for the Japanese and Koreans to do so in those times.

First, what we are talking about is not the vernacular Chinese introduced in Modern China but Classical Chinese in the ancient time. Classical Chinese is very different from vernacular Chinese in structure, grammar and even vocabulary. Usually grammar is far less rigid in Classical Chinese, i.e. verb can be regarded as noun and/or vice versa, so the less strict rule can help ease the learning difficulty of Koreans and Japanese who used SOV.

Second,Classical Chinese learning was confined to a very limited segment of the society -- the aristocrats and scholars. In feudal Korea and Japan, their societies were very stratified that peasants and artisans had no chance/need to learn. In China, even though there was more social mobility, it is still very rare for ordinary folks to enroll in school.

And even for Chinese learners, it would still take them years of hard study before they could manage the Classical Chinese. And I bet it would take the Koreans and Japanese longer time to accomplish the task.

P.S. And Chinese character is a pictograph. It carries a meaning but not a definite pronunciation in most cases. So the Koreans, Japanese, and even Cantonese, Fujianese use it to convey a meaning in writing. But the pronunciations of them may be way different from what the character is pronounced in Mandarin.

[Ferno]

The sound "a" is written as　あ in Japanese' date=' and is a simplified form of/ derived from 安(Chinese)

The sound "i" is written as い　in Japanese, and is a simplified form of/ derived from 以(Chinese)

The sound "u" is written as う　in Japanese, and is a simplified form of/ derived from 宇(Chinese[/quote']

Very interesting!

安 = an --> あ = a

以 = yi --> い = i

宇 = yu --> う = u

How is it possible that the origional Chinese characters that the Japanese borrowed from their alphabet are still pronounced so similar [identical maybe, with the "y" sound being swallowed] today? (in the relatively modern Mandarin dialect... which dialect was the main one back then?)

[nipponman]

How is it possible that the origional Chinese characters that the Japanese borrowed from their alphabet are still pronounced so similar [identical maybe, with the "y" sound being swallowed] today? (in the relatively modern Mandarin dialect... which dialect was the main one back then?)

Well, I think it is pure coincidence. Because Japanese pronunciation does not come by way of mandarin, but an older dialect, probably closer to cantonese (I don't know though). You would be surprised though, the pronunciations in Japanese used to be alot closer to mandarin sounds. There were things like (from chinese to Japanese middle, to Japanese today), shang->shan->shou, guang->kwan->kou etc.

nipponman

p.s. In chinese you don't pronounce the y in yi unless it comes after a vowel or a word that ends in "n".

[流]

What HashiriKata wrote shows why Japanese "kanji" have so many different reading.

Japanese uses a mix of kana and kanji, and looks like this:

事件の背景として、南京の前にも、日本軍は移動中に上海、蘇州、無錫、嘉興、杭州、紹興、常州のような場所でも捕虜や市民への虐殺・略奪を続けていたとされ、日本軍兵士・将校の従軍日記や回想録から、進軍中にそれらが常態化していたのではないかと疑われている。

Look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanji

Or for hanja, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanja

[bhchao]

First, what we are talking about is not the vernacular Chinese introduced in Modern China but Classical Chinese in the ancient time. Classical Chinese is very different from vernacular Chinese in structure, grammar and even vocabulary.

And Chinese character is a pictograph. It carries a meaning but not a definite pronunciation in most cases. So the Koreans, Japanese, and even Cantonese, Fujianese use it to convey a meaning in writing. But the pronunciations of them may be way different from what the character is pronounced in Mandarin

加 was pronounced 'ka' during the Tang dynasty, rather than 'jia'. The former pronunciation is used to pronounce 加 today in Kanji.

[Ferno]

why wouldn't Japanese have their own word for "add"?

[Mark Yong]

In a separate forum thread that I wrote (http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/9426-literary-chinese-bridging-the-east-asian-nations), I explored the theory that a revival of Classical/Literary Chinese in the East Asian nations (China, Japan, Korea... and, to a certain extent, Vietnam) could help to bridge the linguistic gap between these nations.

I am therefore curious to know what the percentage of Japanese and Koreans today can read some Classical/Literary Chinese, and from there, explore whether the concept of 筆談 (to communicate in writing) can still be used today.