향가 해독 100년의 연구사 및 전망 -향찰 체계의 인식과 古語의 발굴 정도를 중심으로-

Abstract

This paper is the result of the examination of two methods of interpreting the hyannga genre that have been used in the last century. One focuses on understanding the hyangchal system, and the other on the amount of ancient terms that have been discovered. The hyangchal system, whose principles were discovered by Japanese scholars, consists of uija, which have semantic meanings, and chaja, which are only used for signifying sounds. This structure was understood perfectly from the beginning, which greatly influenced subsequent Korean scholarship. However, other aspects of the hyangchal system were misunderstood by some scholars in the 1970s and were applied incorrectly , causing confusions that still remain. The discovery of archaic vocabulary based on the study of ancient documents is also investigated in this paper. Okura Sinpei, a pioneer in the interpretation of hyangga, made substantial contributions in the discovery of antiquated terms and properly interpreted 514 of them. Seven hundred and fifteen words were used in hyangga poems as a whole, and Okura interpreted up to 70 percent. Yang Judong continued this interpretation work, enlarging the literary review. He shed light on 568 ancient words in total, and his success ratio of interpretation was up to 80 percent. I conclude this paper by discussing the trend of relevant studies conducted since the 1990s and their implications. There were 160 words that neither Okura Sinpei nor Yang Judong could interpret. Approximately sixty of them were successfully interpreted by subsequent scholars, but there remain unsolved expressions such as gaerimi in “Mojukjirang-ga,” gochomyeo in “Dochoensudaebi-ga,” and gumuljil in “Hangsunjungsaeng-ga.” These 101 unsolved words represent the semantic territories of hayngga which still await interpretation by contemporary scholars.