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A descriptive study on the Chinese pronunciation of Korean Hanja at the syllable level
Author(s)
Date Issued
2018
Conference
Citation
Luo, X., Yang, Y., Sun, J., & Chen, N. (2018 Oct 22). A descriptive study on the Chinese pronunciation of Korean Hanja at the syllable level. Buckeye East Asian Linguistics Forum 3, Columbus.
Type
Conference Paper
Abstract
Korean has a large number of Sino-Korean words, which are etymologically rooted in logographic
Chinese characters (Hanja) but are pronounced with Korean phonology and written in alphabetic
Hangul (Wang, Yeon, Zhou, Shu, & Yan, 2016). Sino-Korean words serve as a useful source for
Chinese native (L1) speakers to learn vocabulary in Korean as a second language (L2) (Im & Lee,
2008). Correspondence between the Korean and Chinese pronunciation of Hanja has been
measured at the phonemic level (Im & Lee, 2008). However, since Chinese L1 speakers tend to
apply “whole-word processing” when reading words in an alphabetic L2 (Akamatsu, 2003, p. 210),
it is vital to have a better understanding of the correspondent relation between the two languages
with regards to Hanja pronunciation at the syllable level instead of at the phoneme level.
From a historical linguistic perspective, Korean language started receiving and using
Chinese characters and imitating pronunciations of Chinese characters since the era of Old
Chinese (or Archaic Chinese, 上古漢語) and Ancient Chinese (or Middle Chinese, 中古漢語)
(Moon, 2005). However, the modern pronunciations of Chinese characters in Mandarin and
Korean appear to be very different because the pronunciations changed a lot in China due to
historical reasons, such as wars and cultural communications with other ethnic groups since the
Jin Dynasty (Moon, 2005). The changes in the pronunciations of Chinese characters in Mandarin
happened in various aspects. For example, the disappearance of final consonants or checked
tones (e.g., 入聲, such as -k, -m, -t, -p) in the Chinese pronunciation of Chinese characters,
except for n and ng, is one of the major sources of the difference in pronunciation between the
two languages. In ancient Chinese, the pronunciations of many characters (e.g., 福, 感, 習)
contain a final consonant. As time went by, such final consonants disappeared. However, the
final consonants still exist in the pronunciation of Chinese characters in Korean and varieties of
Chinese (i.e., Cantonese).
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