한국 고문헌에 보이는 오자(誤字) 고찰

Abstract

This paper explains Chinese characters collected from old documents and determined as cacographies, and examines that 擂 and 䋅 in Ojuyeonmunjangjeonsango (『五洲衍文長箋散稿』) and 𩤔 in Muyedobotongji (『武藝圖譜通志』) are cacographies. This study categorizes the causes originating cacographies into five: first, misapplying radical; second, mistaking similar-form character; third, miscopying by script-regularization(楷書化); fourth, misreading two Chinese characters as one; and fifth, mere miscopying. However, the cause originating a cacography could be explained not only with one reason but also with several mixed reasons. Also, when determining a cacography, it is important to consider if it is a variant Chinese character or not. It is because it could be determined as a cacography unless knowing the variant Chinese character. It is revealed that the ‘ 擂’ from 擂木(Noimok) and the ‘䋅’ from 䋅襖(wu-o) in Ojuyeonmunjangjeonsango are not Korea-original Chinese characters with Korea-original meanings but cacographies ーor misprintsー of ‘檑(roi)’ and ‘絆(ban)’. Besides, the ‘𩤔’ in Muyedobotongji is examined as a Chinese character made by miscopying and determined as a misprint of the ‘跨’. As this character has not been examined as the ‘跨’ for a long time, it has been misinterpreted as the ‘𩤔’, which is not even in dictionaries, and has caused misunderstandings. Examining cacographies ーor misprintsー in old documents is a very basic and important task to precisely interpret a text. It cannot be overestimated to correct misinterpretations and incorrect explanations and researches derived from cacographies.