New Orthography for the Korean Language

New Orthography for the Korean Language

Infobox Korean name
hangul=조선어 신철자법
hanja=朝鮮語新綴字法
rr=Joseoneo sincheoljabeop
mr=Chosŏnŏ sinch'ŏlchapŏp

The "New Orthography for the Korean Language" was a spelling reform used in North Korea from 1948–1954. It added five consonants and one vowel letter to the hangul alphabet, making it a perfect morphophonological fit to the Korean language.

The reason for the reform is that some Korean roots change form and therefore cannot be written with a consistent spelling using standard hangul. The additional letters introduced in the "New Orthography" do not represent new sounds, but these situations where a sound changes, say from a /p/ to a /w/. Three were created "de novo" by modifying existing letters, two (ㅿ and ㆆ) were obsolete letters, and one (1) is a numeral.

For example, the root of the verb "to walk" has the form 걷 "geod-" before a consonant, as in the inflection 걷다 "geotta," but the form 걸 "geol-" before a vowel, as in 걸어 "georeo" and 걸으니 "georeuni." In "New Orthography," the root is an invariable , spelled with the new letter ㅿ in place of both the ㄷ in 걷 and the ㄹ in 걸: 다 "geotta," 어 "georeo."

Another example is the root of the verb "to heal", which has the form 낫 "nas-" before a consonant, as in 낫다 "natta," but the form 나 before a vowel, as in 나아 "naa." In some cases, there is an epenthetic "eu" vowel before a consonant suffix, as in 나을 "naeul." In "New Orthography," this variable root is written as an invariable , and the epenthetic vowel is not written: 다 NA’.DA for 낫다 "natta," ᄅ NA’.L for 나을 "naeul," 아 NA’.A for 나아 "naa."

#Silence.
#Makes the following consonant tense, as a final ㅅ does
#In standard orthography, combines with a following vowel as ㅘ, ㅙ, ㅚ, ㅝ, ㅞ, ㅟ
#In standard orthography, combines with a following vowel as ㅑ, ㅒ, ㅕ, ㅖ, ㅛ, ㅠ

As with all letters in North Korea, the names follow the formula "CieuC." For convenience they are also called 여린리을, 된리을, 반시읏, 여린히읗, 위읍, and 여린이.

The "New Orthography" also added two new digraphs to the lexicon, ㅭ "IPA|lʔ" and ᇬ "IPA|ŋk".

There were other changes that made the orthography more morphemic, without requiring the addition of new letters. For example, in the word normally spelled 놉니다 (top example in image at right), the politeness morpheme ㅂ is separated out in its own block. Such spellings can be found in medieval documents, but weren't normally seen in the 20th century.

The attributive ㄴ "n" morpheme at the ends of adjectives is also placed in a separate block, and the occasional epenthetic "eu" that appears before it is not written, unlike standard 은 "eun." A morphemic "h" is retained before this ending: 하얗다 HA.YAH.DA "hayata" "is white", 하얗ㄴ HA.YAH.N "hayan" "white" (standard 하얀 HA.YAN). 좋다 JOH.DA "jota" "is good", 좋ㄴ JOH.N "joheun" "good" (standard 좋은 JOH.EUN).


Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.

Игры ⚽ Нужно решить контрольную?

Look at other dictionaries:

  • North–South differences in the Korean language — There are a small number of differences in the standard forms of the Korean language used in the Democratic People s Republic of Korea (North Korea; hereafter the North ) and the Republic of Korea (South Korea; hereafter the South ), due to the… …   Wikipedia

  • Korean language North-South differences — The North South differences in the Korean language refers to the differences in the Korean language used in the Democratic People s Republic of Korea (North Korea; hereafter the North ) and the Republic of Korea (South Korea; the South. ) From a… …   Wikipedia

  • Korean language — This article is about the spoken Korean language. For details of the native Korean writing system, see Hangul. Korean 한국어, 조선말 Hangugeo, Chosŏnmal …   Wikipedia

  • Korean language — Official language of North Korea and South Korea, spoken by more than 75 million people, including substantial communities of ethnic Koreans living elsewhere. Korean is not closely related to any other language, though a distant genetic kinship… …   Universalium

  • History of the Welsh language — The history of the Welsh language spans over 1400 years, encompassing the stages of the language known as Old Welsh, Middle Welsh, and Modern Welsh …   Wikipedia

  • New Gulim — (새굴림) Category Sans serif Designer(s) HanYang System Co., Ltd. Foundry HanYang System Co., Ltd. New Gulim (새굴림/SaeGulRim) is a sans serif type unicode font designed especially for the Korean language script, designed by HanYang System Co.,… …   Wikipedia

  • History of the Spanish language — The Spanish language developed from vulgar Latin, with loan words from Basque in the north and Arabic in the southern part of the Iberian Peninsula (see Iberian Romance languages). Typical features of Spanish diachronic phonology include lenition …   Wikipedia

  • New Korean Orthography — Hangul 조선어 신철자법 Hanja 朝鮮語新綴字法 Revised Romanization …   Wikipedia

  • History of the Irish language — fol. 170r of the Book of Ballymote (1390), the Auraicept na n Éces explaining the Ogham script. The history of the Irish language covers the period from the arrival of speakers of Celtic languages in Ireland to the present day. The earliest known …   Wikipedia

  • Korean name — Infobox Korean name title=Korean name hangul=이름 / 성명 hanja= / 姓名 rr=ireum / seongmyeong mr=irŭm / sŏngmyŏng A Korean name consists of a family name followed by a given name, as used by the Korean people in both North Korea and South Korea. In the …   Wikipedia

Share the article and excerpts

Direct link
Do a right-click on the link above
and select “Copy Link”