Learn the history of tones in Korean
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Intro |
|---|
| Michael: Does Korean have tones? |
| Kyejin: And does it have any words that differ only in pitch? |
| Michael: At KoreanClass101.com, we hear these questions often. Imagine the following situation, Seo-hyeon Song is at home with her mother, So-yeong Seo. Seo-hyeon has just begun to talk and says a word incorrectly. She says to her mother, |
| "I want tea.'" |
| Seo-hyeon Song: 차 주세요. (Cha juseyo.) |
| Dialogue |
| Seo-hyeon Song: 차 주세요. (Cha juseyo.) |
| So-yeong Seo: 장난감 차, 아니면 마시는 차? (Jangnangam cha, animyeon masineun cha?) |
| Michael: Once more with the English translation. |
| Seo-hyeon Song: 차 주세요. (Cha juseyo.) |
| Michael: "I want tea." |
| So-yeong Seo: 장난감 차, 아니면 마시는 차? (Jangnangam cha, animyeon masineun cha?) |
| Michael: "Do you mean a toy car, or tea?" |
Lesson focus |
| Michael: When first learning Korean, many people wonder if it is a tonal language, as is the case with some neighboring countries. |
| However, modern Korean is not a tonal language. That is to say, there are no noticeable shifts in pitches, from one word to the next, with differences in meaning based on pitch alone. |
| Centuries ago, the situation was different. At the time, Korean vocabulary, much of which derives from Mandarin Chinese, took on the same intonations of its mother language in order to distinguish words with similar sounds. |
| [Recall 1] |
| Michael: Let's take a closer look at the dialogue we just heard. |
| Do you remember how to say "I want tea." |
| (pause 4 seconds) |
| Kyejin: 차 주세요. (Cha juseyo.) |
| Michael: Automobile in Korean is |
| Kyejin: 자동차 (jadongcha), |
| Michael: or 'automated car', but native Koreans omit |
| Kyejin: 자동(jadong), |
| Michael: which means 'automated', and simply say |
| Kyejin: 차(cha). |
| Michael: This makes it confusing, as 'tea' is also written as |
| Kyejin: 차(cha) |
| Michael: in Korean. |
| Both 'tea' and 'car' are Sino Korean words and, while they use different Chinese characters, they have the exact same pronunciation. So, in order to differentiate the two, you need to focus on the context of the sentence. If the sentence mentions drinking or eating, it will be referring to 'tea'. If the sentence focuses on going somewhere, or riding something, it will be 'car'. |
| Here is one example: |
| Kyejin: 차가 맛있어요. (Chaga massisseoyo.) |
| Michael: The sentence shows that the |
| Kyejin:"차" (cha) |
| Michael: is delicious, so it would mean "tea," not "car." |
| Kyejin: 차가 맛있어요. (Chaga massisseoyo.) |
| Michael: "The tea is delicious." |
| And here is a different example: |
| Kyejin: 차가 빨라요. (Chaga ppallayo.) |
| Michael: This sentence shows that the |
| Kyejin: "차" (cha) |
| Michael: is fast. So it would refer to "car," not "tea." |
| Kyejin: 차가 빨라요. (Chaga ppallayo.) |
| Michael: "The car is fast." |
| Today, these types of tonal shifts are not commonly used. Think of it like homophones in English or any other non-tonal language. For Korean speakers nowadays, meaning is inferred through context, which, in turn, makes the use of tone in Korean obsolete. This is mostly good news for language learners today, that, on one hand, must practice careful listening skills, but, on the other hand, don't have to worry about speaking with complex tonal shifts that were once a crucial part of the culture. |
| [SUMMARY] |
| Michael: In this lesson, we learned that modern Korean is not a tonal language, and words with the same spelling and pronunciation are distinguished by the context of the conversation. |
| Let's have a look at some words that might be easy to confuse. |
| The first example is the word for "apple." In Korean, it is |
| Kyejin: 사과 (sagwa) |
| Michael: and the word for "apology" is |
| Kyejin: 사과 (sagwa) |
| Michael: Both are pronounced the same so you need to pay attention to the context of the sentence. |
| Kyejin: (SLOW) 사과 (sagwa) |
| Michael: Likewise, the word |
| Kyejin: 배 (bae) |
| Michael: meaning "boat" is pronounced the same as |
| Kyejin: 배 (bae) |
| Michael: meaning "stomach." |
| Kyejin: (SLOW) 배 (bae) |
| Cultural Insight |
| Michael: We mentioned before that modern Korean is not a tonal language; however, it was not always like this. As you might know, modern Korean is referred to as |
| Kyejin: 한글 (hangul). |
| But, before King Sejong created Hangul in the mid fifteenth century, Koreans relied on |
| Kyejin: 한자 (hanja), |
| Michael: which originated from the Chinese language. And initially, even with the creation of Hangul, the traditional ruling class called |
| Kyejin: 양반(yangban) |
| Michael: were still mainly using |
| Kyejin: 한자(hanja). |
| Michael: As |
| Kyejin: 한자(hanja) |
| Michael: was heavily influenced by the tonal marks of the Chinese language, such tonal pronunciations were also initially used when speaking in Hangul. |
| However, the tonal marks began to disappear around the late 16th century, and the use of tone in Korean seems to have completely disappeared in the early 17th century, |
| Having said that, native Koreans continued to use tones to distinguish the different meanings inhabiting the same sound unit until the early 20th century. People distinguished different words which had the same pronunciation by pronouncing one word slightly longer than the other. In modern Korean, while the grammatical rules for distinguishing words with the same sounds but different meanings may still exist in textbooks, in reality, native Koreans do not apply this rule in speaking in Korean and tones seem to no longer exist. |
Outro |
| Michael: Do you have any more questions? We're here to answer them! |
| Kyejin: 안녕히 계세요. (Annyeonghi gyeseyo.) |
| Michael: See you soon! |
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