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  • Chapter 6 - Korean Kugyŏl

  • from Part I - Korean Overview
  • Edited by Sungdai Cho, Binghamton University, State University of New York, John Whitman, Cornell University, New York
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Handbook of Korean Linguistics
    Published online:
    30 September 2022
    Print publication:
    25 August 2022, pp 133-174

  • Summary

    Chapter 6 focuses on loan character transcription systems. Loan character transcription systems for Korean started with the transcribing of proper names. The next step involved the practice of interpreting or reading Chinese characters in the vernacular; finally, methods were developed for writing sentences in the vernacular using Chinese characters. These practices represent a widespread phenomenon, found in many nations and periods of history, whereby a foreign writing system is used to write a local vernacular, beginning with the simple practice of reading the foreign writing in that vernacular, a practice which has been called “vernacular reading”. In Korea, the initial stage of sentence-unit transcriptions involved simply transposing Chinese character (sinograph) texts from Chinese word order into Korean; this evolved to a stage where grammatical particles and endings, so-called t’o in the Korean writing tradition, were inserted into the text. Korean kugyŏl developed as a method of facilitating the vernacular reading of Chinese texts in Korean as they are read. Kugyŏl appears to date from the Shilla period.