Language is more than just words of communication to connect with one another. It is also a refIection of our society and culture which traces back to our history — where we perceive the interconnection between languages we have with one another despite being individually unique.
Written & illustrated by Soh En Xuan
Language is more than just words expressing our needs and emotions. It goes beyond just a medium for communication between human beings. It is a reflection of our society, culture, and history. Despite each language being unique in itself, languages are still linked to each other.
In the East Asian region, the Japanese language has its own unique writing system influenced by Chinese culture called Kanji. Whereas in Korea, the Chinese writing system, Hanja, is now rarely used in the Korean language. Instead, the phonetic alphabet, Hangul, is more commonly used today.
Despite having different writing systems in present times, there are still similarities between the Chinese, Japanese, and Korean language, allowing the speakers of each language to be able to pick up a few words from time to time. Here’s how it works:
The characters 寿司(shòu sī) are exactly the same in both Chinese and Japanese (Kanji). Although pronounced differently, these characters still have the same meaning in both languages, which is sushi.
While there are other examples, what is fascinating about these writing systems is that people who know Japanese or Chinese can read and understand parts of either language.
Unfortunately, having knowledge of Japanese or Chinese may not help one to understand the Korean language when it comes to reading the phonetic alphabets of Hangul.
Nevertheless, with 60% of Korean words and 50% of Japanese words borrowed from the Chinese, the three languages still share many similar sounding vocabularies.
To give you an idea, 图书馆 (tú shū guǎn) means library in Chinese. In Korean, the word is represented by the characters, 도서관 (doseogwan). As for Japanese, it is 図書館 (tosho-kan).
Although the pronunciations are not exactly the same, they bear similarities which allow people who have knowledge of Chinese or Japanese to take a good guess on the meaning of some Korean words, and vice-versa.
Word borrowing also goes beyond continents. The Korean word, 아르바이트 (aleubaiteu) was taken from the Japanese word, アルバイト(arubaito). The origin of these words came from the German word, ‘Arbeit’ which means work. However, in Korean and Japanese, it is slightly different as it means part-time job.
The Japanese word ‘Arbeit’ is just one of the many Japanese words which show the German infIuence during the Meiji Period, from 1868 to 1912.
Language is more than just words used for communication between human beings. It also serves as a documentation to preserve history. We can observe how the world was interconnected centuries ago, with the use of language through the cognates shared.