The Localization Process Of Chinese Characters In Korea And Japan

As the typical symbol of the Chinese culture, the Chinese characters has a long history of thousands years. As one of the hieroglyphic characters, the Chinese characters have been utilized and developed since long time ago in East Asia. Although the Chinese characters belong to the field of philology, as one existence of the civilization, it has close relation with the factors of history, politics and culture. In the past thousands years, taking the ancient China Central Plain as the center and the Chinese characters as the important inter-medium for spreading the culture to Korean peninsula, Japan, Vietnam and other regions around, the called East Asia Cultural Circle has emerged. Then the Chinese characters were continually developed and evolved into other characters format in other language systems of some regions. Observing the localization process of the Chinese characters in each region of East Asia has become a significantly important research subject, in order to standardize the utilization and maintain the well development of the Chinese characters,This paper is based on the Chinese character culture and the theories of language time-space, language contact and evolution, also through observing the localization process in the regions of Korea, Japan and Vietnam, to verify the influence and mission of the Chinese characters in East Asia. There are four phases in the observation-the spread of Chinese characters, the acceptation of Chinese characters, the utilization of Chinese characters after new characters being created, and the utilization of Chinese characters in the evolution.The Korean Peninsula (ROK and DPRK after the Korean War), Japan, Vietnam, etc. are areas that belong to the same cultural circle. They accepted advanced Chinese culture with Chinese characters as a media, marked their native languages with borrowed Chinese character, and integrated Chinese character into their native language systems. In this way, the advantages and charm of Chinese character were utilized successfully to a certain degree. Although these areas created new languages successfully, the authority of Chinese character as official character did not disappear immediately. The phenomenon of inconsistency between spoken and written languages also gave Chinese character lasted appearance in these areas. However, in the process of borrowing Chinese character, these areas realized that their own languages did not work with Chinese, which made them unable to express their ideas and ideologies perfectly. Then, the arrival of modern civilization and the pursuit of Western civilization have become the important background for Chinese character to lose its position as official character, as well as the motivation for those areas to realize the consistency between spoken and written languages. During the process of intaking Western culture in those areas, although a large Chinese vocabulary was still needed to translate foreign languages, Chinese was always perceived by them as the product of a backward country, and a language that was hard to understand.Although today’s Vietnam and DPRK have totally abandoned Chinese character in their language using and life and have created new language systems, they still use a large number of borrowed Chinese characters. Along with the development of modern economy and the acceleration of communication, the pool of borrowed Chinese character will be enlarged. In ROK, a country that has been under the influences of external forces, Chinese character is considered as external written language, and even is connected with national purism and independency. In Japan, Chinese character is always considered as part of Japanese, and the study of Chinese character, Chinese education in schools and a series of Chinese character related policies are developing in a stable and mature manner:In order to maintain the purity of their nationality and to solve problems such as the difficulty in understanding Chinese character, ROK and Japan also consciously limit the usage of Chinese character through adoption of policies and school education. Even though, they have met all kinds of problems in this process. That is to say, although ROK has achieved not to use Chinese character as marking in their daily life, the way that using Chinese character along with the native character in the fields of marking people’s names, places, road marks, etc. is still kept. The Japanese government adopted consistent Chinese character policies such as "Toyo kanjihyo"(list of Chinese characters for general use) and "Table of Chinese Character Most in Use", so that the public can still commonly use Chinese characters in their daily life.In the process of the perfection of their own language systems, these areas adopted Chinese character marking and applying methods that fit their own language systems, so that they would not suffer from great economic damage and the imminent social chaos that may caused by abolishing Chinese character. Until today, the influence of Chinese character in these areas is of great value, and the proportion of borrowed Chinese vocabulary exceeds50%of the respective vocabularies of ROK, Japan, Vietnam and DPRK. In some vocabularies, people are unable to master the meaning of some words or the relationship between one word and its derivative if people do not know Chinese characters. The utilization of Chinese character in Korean Peninsula, Japan and Vietnam has both similarities and differences. It is fair to say that the development of Chinese character at different phases of development also varies. From the beginning of modern world to the world today, these areas have debated on "Abolishment of Chinese Character","Restriction of Chinese Character","Simplification of Chinese Character", etc. For the better development of Chinese character, it is necessary for us to make scientific and workable choices for its future.This thesis expects to make the following points explicit:First, exceeding the comparative studies between two countries in the past, and taking the Korean Peninsula, Japan and Vietnam as subjects of study;Second, although "spread" and "acceptance" are two different concepts, they are considered as the same phase or process in many studies of Chinese character. This thesis separates these two concepts as the phase that Chinese character work as foreign character and the phase that Chinese character internalize as native character respectively. This thesis will sort out the channels through which Chinese character was spread into the studied areas and to clarify the background against which Chinese character infiltrated into the social lives of these areas;Three, although Chinese character is no longer in the language systems of Vietnam, DPRK etc., it still influences these areas to different degrees. It is necessary to refer to the character using of Vietnam and DPRK during their modernization and consult to their related character policies, so that the utilization of Chinese character, the marking methods and the coding of Chinese character can be understood more specifically;Four, the formation of East Asia Community is an event of high profile for East Asian countries, and is represents a brand new future outlook of East Asian cultural circle. During the development of East Asia Community, the Chinese character related problems during modernization are the research subjects need to be improved and standardized. To understand the Chinese character problems in these areas is beneficial to the healthy development of East Asia Community.This paper has seven chapters.The1st chapter is the introduction part, including the study background and objective, relevant research trend, study rationale, method and ranges.The2nd chapter has three parts. The1st part is the discussion about the relationship between the world character; and cultures; the2nd part is about the formation, development and the evolution in each stage of the history of the Chinese characters system; the3rd part has given the summaries for the previous relevant researches. In the conclusion part, this paper has indicated the deficiencies of previous researches and made relevant clarifications.The3rd chapter is the discussion about the spread process of Chinese characters in East Asia. It has mainly observed on the background and what key impacts the factors of politics, history and culture has given in the spread process of Chinese characters. It’s more relevant to the politics at the beginning of the spread of Chinese characters; furthermore, in order to make other region of East Asia to keep close touch with and to get further understanding of ancient China, they accepted and mastered Chinese characters to review abundant the Chinese literatures. Also, for Korea, Japan and Vietnam which did not have their own characters during that period that they all urgently needed Chinese characters to record their own languages. All above mentioned factors have promoted the development and spread of the Chinese characters in East Asia.The4th chapter has discussed about the acceptation process of the Chinese characters in East Asia. As one symbol of the advanced Chinese culture, the Chinese characters have spread to Korea, Japan and Vietnam and become popular through the ways of politics, culture and education. During this period, as one recording method, the internal functions of the Chinese characters have begun to be valued. The spread of the Chinese characters has obvious different phases. The ruling class and nobles mastered the Chinese characters and made it as the current characters in East Asia. Due to the different race and culture, when utilizing the Chinese characters to record the local languages each region has developed their own format for the acceptation of the Chinese characters. During this phase, the East Asia Culture Circle which is based on the Chinese characters, of which the generality has been reduced, but the individuality has been strengthened.The5th chapter has discussed the utilization process of the Chinese characters after the creation of new characters. The creation of the new characters is based on the lead of modern times and establishment of modern states. With the modern times’beginning, Korea Japan and Vietnam all has promoted the localization process of the Chinese characters from imitation phase to creation of new characters. Therefore the new characters of’Hunminjeongeum’,’Kana’and’ZiNan’were created during this period. Following the spread of the western culture and the establishment of the modern states, the East Asia Culture Circle was nearly to collapse and have to bereconfigured. As the core factor of the culture circle, the generality of the Chinese characters in East Asia was under crisis. But at the beginning of the creation of new characters, no region of East Asia succeed to immediately make the consistence between characters and languages, that these new characters could only be utilized as one of the assisting methods. The Chinese character was still popular in the society, although it has lost its function of generality.The6th chapter has discussed the evolution of characters and the policies of Chinese characters in each region of East Asia, which mostly identified the problems of Chinese characters and was influenced by factors of politics, economic and culture. By analyzing the glottopolitics of each region of East Asia, we will get the background and real reason for why Chinese characters could be maintained in these regions, and to identify the problems for using the Chinese characters.The7th chapter has three parts. The1st part is the comprehensive analysis, has made a summary for each step of the localization process of the Chinese characters, listed the new points and research results of this paper. The2nd part is about the establishment of the East Asian Community and the problems of modern Chinese characters, has indicated the necessity for establishing the East Asian Community and the researching trend of the modern Chinese characters. The3rd part is the conclusion, emphasizing that we can not blindly believe the theories which lack of practicalness and scientific basis, or blindly insist the puerility of languages, but we should consider the development of the utilization of Chinese characters to standardize its utilization and maintain its well development.Reviewing previous research on the Chinese characters, most of which are only based on the perspective of linguistics, to detect the structure and format of the Chinese characters, or to make comparison among the Chinese vocabularies. And there’re only seldom researches which based on the external factors of history, politics and culture to analyze the whole development process and observe the impact of these factors to the Chinese characters. Different from previous studies, this paper is not only in the level of comparison research in the field of linguistics, but also considering the factors of history, politics and culture, and regarding the Chinese characters as one part of the formation and development of the East Asia Culture Circle. Considering many other external factors impacting the development of the Chinese characters, this paper has re-clarified its localization process in each region of the East Asia, issued queries for the previous studies and given the final answers to all these queries.Through Chapter3to Chapter6, this thesis put emphasis on examining the localization of Chinese character and how this process was influenced by political, historical and cultural factors in the Korean Peninsula, Japan and Vietnam. The thesis observes, as these areas belong to the some cultural circle, their Chinese character localization have similarities, as well as differences. For example, the use of phonogram has developed to a mature stage in ROK and Vietnam, while Japan still insist on using the marking method that combines phonogram and ideogram. As Masaaki Nomura pointed out, it is possible that the utilization of Chinese character is restricted to sentences centered on Chinese and no Chinese character based spoken marking system is already established are part of the reasons that the Korean Peninsula and Vietnam entered into a period with only phonogram in relatively short time. Because Japan stresses on the consistency between spoken and written languages based on Chinese character, the country till today still uses the marking system that combines phonogram and ideogram. The following is a simple summary of the discussion and conclusion of this thesis.First, the discussion and conclusion regarding the spread of Chinese character in Korean Peninsula, Japan and Vietnam.First of all, this thesis discussed in detail of various ideas provided by the previous literatures regarding to the deciding factors of the spread of Chinese character to Korean Peninsula, Japan and Vietnam. This thesis concluded that the most important factor is the political needs in the exchange with ancient China, not the need in introducing advanced Chinese culture or the social needs for character.Then, there are many other factors concerning the spread of Chinese character, such as war migration, interpretation of Chinese books, introduction of religion and introduction of Chinese feudalism. However, through analysis, this thesis concluded that it was the Chinese management system or education system spread to Korean Peninsula, Japan and Vietnam by Chinese people that became the prerequisite for Chinese character to develop into official language in these areas. At first, Chinese character was accepted in these areas because of political needs, however, these areas themselves also tried to create a civilized society though introducing advanced Chinese culture and Chinese institutions. In the meantime, they no longer stuck into the language environment with only spoken language, and gradually made Chinese character a marking method.Second, the discussion and conclusion regarding the acceptance of Chinese character in Korean Peninsula, Japan and Vietnam.It is fair to say that Chinese character realized its spatial spread through external political, historical and cultural factors, thus, it cannot integrate into the internal language systems of these areas in this process. The acceptance and spread of Chinese character are two concepts, which it the reason that the author separates these two strictly. Further more, when it enters into "acceptance" phase, Chinese character still cannot develop maturely and stably in the internal language system of these areas, even when Chinese character has developed beyond the stage of being limited to politics, economy and culture. To put it in a simple way, the acceptance of Chinese character is the transition of localization. It means people in these areas who were used to use spoken language would be able to make use of the advantages of Chinese character to express their emotion and ideas to the largest degree when they have mastered the phonographic and ideographic functions of Chinese character. This is why the native characters of these areas stood out in this period. This is the natural choice when people pay attention to the internal function of Chinese character, and when Chinese gradually adapted to the development of local languages as it conflicted with the local languages.The acceptance process of Chinese character discussed in this thesis can be divided into mainly two phases:borrowing and imitating. In the borrowing phase, Korean Peninsula and Japan paid more attention to the phonographic function of Chinese character, while Vietnam paid more attention to the ideographic function. This is also one of the deciding factors that Chinese character and word furans totally disappeared in Vietnam later. This thesis also noticed the changes of the external political, historical and cultural functions of Chinese character in the process of acceptance. During this period, the many external functions of Chinese character did not wither as the internal functions got stronger. While the ruling classes of these areas actively promoted Chinese character among the public, Chinese character’s position as official character was strengthened, and the external functions were also reinforced. According the background research, this phenomenon occurred mainly because Korean Peninsula, Japan and Vietnam created new characters in order to further deepen the localization of Chinese character, and the new character systems were still immature and unstable.Three, the discussion and conclusion regarding the localization process of Chinese character in Korean Peninsula, Japan and Vietnam.The aggressive wars and colonial policies of European and Japanese imperialism are usually accused as serious historical issues in the previous literatures. These actions force controlled the national consciousness and use of languages in the invaded and colonized areas. This made the East Asia cultural circle facing the crisis of falling apart, and the internalized East Asian values were denied. With the introduce of Western culture and advanced technologies, these areas realized national liberation and modernization, and established modern countries adapting to their own conditions, bringing new prospects to their character using. By this time, the universal promotion of new characters and the realization of the consistency between spoken and written languages made Chinese character no longer maintain its position as official language, while the new national languages of these areas stared to act as the official languages.Based on the synchronic theory, combining the internal factor of language system, character creation theory, and other political, historical and social factors, this thesis illustrated the historical process of how Korean Peninsula broke away from Chinese character and created new character, the social background that Japan had to choose the marking method that combines kana and Chinese character, and the reason that word furans and Chinese character totally disappeared in Vietnam.Four, the language policies and Chinese character related problems in Korean Peninsula, Japan and Vietnam.As language policies have great influence on the utilization of Chinese character, this thesis focused on ROK and Japan after the Korean War and studies the Chinese character related policies adopted after the beginning of modernization and the utilization of Chinese character. In order to set up a stable and mature plan for future utilization of Chinese character, this thesis also made a brief introduction on the language polices of DPRK and Vietnam. Through study, the thesis illustrated the fundamental reasons that ROK and Japan have not entirely abolished Chinese language when they have been restricting the use of Chinese character. Relatively speaking, the ROK official departments that are in charge of carrying out language policies are lack of force, so that the strong opposition from the pro-Chinese character and the estrangement exist between the policies and the actual language life lead to the lack of consistency of ROK’s language policies, and the policies of abolishing Chinese character and combining Chinese character are carried our alternatively. In Japan, the firm attitude from the pro-Chinese character and the interference of language policies from the media made Japan unable to abolish Chinese character, and the country has gone on a path that is gradually broadening the usable range of Chinese character and tacitly approving the use of Chinese character.Influenced by different historical paths, cultural background and social environment, Chinese character has been becoming more and more different in Korean Peninsula, Japan and Vietnam. Through engaging with other languages, Chinese character and those languages influenced each other and integrated with each other. Today, ROK and Japan insist on the marking method that combines their native character and Chinese character, Vietnam chooses Roman character as its national language marking, and DPRK uses Korean special method.The localization of Chinese character in this thesis proves that Chinese character is a powerful symbol that works beyond a linguistic concept. Korean Peninsula, Japan and Vietnam used to use entirely different national languages, and it was the Chinese character that linked these areas. The areas use Chinese character has the same Chinese character culture identity, and this common identity embodies the characteristic of being influenced by multiple factors. This community centered on Chinese character will be facing a new prospect as Chinese character is gradually disappearing in some areas and its utilization is being restricted. The concept of "East Asia Community" is formed against such backdrop.The East Asia Community is the new goal in East Asia area, which is a brand new envision after the financial crisis in Southeast Asia. East Asia Community is a new community with members from East Asia, not including the USA, Australia or Netherland. The members of East Asia Community include China, Japan, ROK and ASEAN, among which China, Japan and ROK are the supporting party to support ASEAN the leading party. It is of vital importance for all the parties to overcome the difficulties and cooperate actively so that the community can enjoy a successful and mature development. Because the areas in the community are in different development stages under the influence of political, historical, economic and cultural factors, they need to avoid the cooperation being hindered by differences in values, religions and viewpoint on history.In the21century, how to bring the internal and external functions of Chinese character into play has been a concern and focus of academic circles. The famous Japanese scholar, Shuichi Kato, made a speech on "The Revival of Chinese Character" when attending the "Japan&Education and Japanese Studies" international academic conference in November,2000. He pointed out that the development of the revival of Chinese character needs to be analyzed on the basis of the establishment of East Asia Community.For the mature development of East Asia Community and the settle of the utilization of Chinese character, it seems that an unification is the best choice. However, this is hard to realize in real life. Especially in the modern world with advanced internet and information technology, the utilization of Chinese character still faces problems such as number, font, unified coding, the proportion of Chinese character in combined marking method, etc. To solve these problems needs a long time, and the possibility of the unification of Chinese character still needs to be tested in theory and in practice.As to the latest studies home and abroad, there have been a number of studies and solutions trying to solve the above mentioned problem. For example,"Theory and Practice of Modernization of Chinese-The Unified Chinese Character Pattern Operation Code in China, Japan and ROK" published by Zhao Shujiao and Zhao Liang provides excellent reference for the comparative study of CJK coding. This study explicitly illustrated the basic concepts of Chinese character and its coding, and the design principle of general coding. It also introduces the CJK coding with stress, increases people’s knowledge about Chinese character coding and emphasizes the importance of international Chinese character coding. The Green Book on Chinese Language Situation, series B "The Contrastive Analysis on the Generally Used Chinese Characters in China, Japan and ROK" published by China National Language and Character Working Committee also refers to Chinese character coding. This series observes that the publish of "Table of Chinese Character in General Use" and "Education of Chinese Character" is early than "ISO/IEC1064" or at the same time, and compared the generally used Chinese characters in the three countries. The following arc the main findings of the study: First, after the CJK coding was recognized, the annotation of the significance of simplified Chinese character, traditional Chinese character, variant Chinese character is added;Second, those Chinese characters that have subtle font differences yet can be seen as the same character were classified.Researches and studies abroad include The Little Dictionary of Homograph in Japanese, Chinese and Korean compiled by Japanese linguistic Sato Koshi. The dictionary uses Chinese characters on the newspapers, guidance in public places, TV shows, news reports etc. in Japan, China, ROK and Taiwan as subject of study. Through detailed collection, analysis and field investigation, the dictionary recorded300Chinese characters and Chinese words of the highest frequency of use under strict standards, and annotated these characters’different meanings when they are used in China, Japan and ROK. The Little Dictionary of Homograph in Japanese, Chinese and Korean is compiled to maintain permanent friendly relationship among East Asian countries and areas, and to enhance contact and exchanges in the fields of economy and culture. Its goal is to build good relations with mutual trust, mutual respect and mutual understanding, which gives it high value of research.The development of human characters needs to experience several phases, and each scholar has his/her unique understanding on this. We cannot estimate the law of development of a character only on the basis of its outlook on development, or judge Chinese character as a backward character and one that is very difficult to learn. This kind of view is partial, and lack of theoretical ground. As Yuan Xiaoyuan pointed out,"Practice is the only standard to test truths. The development law of configuration-ideogram-phonogram does not exist, and the arguments based on this law, such as "Chinese character is backward" and "Latin alphabet is universal" are lack of scientific proof. Also, language purism stems from the belief to maintain national purity, which is a phenomenon we need to understand. But to reject all the external factors outside the nation will lead to extreme exclusiveness, which will hinder the healthy language life. So a balanced need to be reached between the two.The localization of Chinese character in the Korean peninsula, Japan and Vietnam mirrors the three peaks of human civilization, namely, agriculturalization, industrialization and informatization. To study and to promote the modern Chinese character used in the information age, is to unveil the practical value and significance of Chinese character ceaselessly, and to study the utilization of Chinese character in different areas comparatively, so that the shortcomings will be improved, and Chinese Character will be standardized.Each culture has its historical phases and periods of development, and the same goes to the East Asia cultural circle. The East Asia cultural circle risen and developed, and now is in a state of falling apart because of multiple economic, political and cultural factors. Along with the development and changes of East Asia cultural circle, Chinese character also experienced different changes and development in different areas. They are two inseparable parts. As time goes, Chinese character loses its place in some areas. If we abolish Chinese character or extremely restrict its use without any further consideration, the exchanges among those areas will be severely abrupt. In order to maintain the sustainable development of this common cultural circle, the East Asian areas need to evaluate practicability and functions of Chinese character, and do their best for a better future of Chinese character.It is of course important to study the localization of Chinese in those areas and to look for the similarities and individualities from a historical perspective. However, in consideration of the East Asia Community in the near future, and of its stable development, we need to focus more on the thorough study of the functions and responsibilities of Chinese character in the fields of politics, economy and culture in East Asia areas and to establish new subjec s of study and approaches to solutions. Chinese character is the huge cultural legacy created in the formation and development of the Chinese nation, it can record human history and culture objectively, and it shoulders the responsibility to carry on and to promote our splendid culture. Thus, the survival and development of Chinese character has to accord with the development law of new culture, new language. Only in this way, can the value and position of Chinese character be strengthened.