한자문화권에 대한 재검토 - 동아시아 3개 국어에 있어서의 한자의 표음성과 관련하여 -

Abstract

It is a common misconception that it is easy for South Korea, China and Japan to understand each other due to the linguistic, social and cultural similarities that they share through Chinese characters. This way of thinking has led some to believe that these three countries should grouped together as one community (a ‘Chinese character cultural sphere’) and to the proposal that Chinese characters should be standardized in these countries. As a result, various international conferences have been held with the purpose of determining the form, kind, and number of Chinese characters that can be jointly used in these three countries. However, these meetings have proceeded without in-depth discussion about the linguistic significance of such a movement and about whether it is effective and meaningful to unify the forms of characters. They have also not considered the changes in meanings and usages of Chinese characters which have occurred in each country over time. This article discusses the use of Chinese characters as phonetic equivalents in modern China, the simplification of Chinese characters in China and Japan, changes in the usage of certain characters in Japanese due to the potentially negative impression they might give, and various kinds of attempts in Korea to improve understanding of Chinese/Japanese loanwords which are no longer written in Chinese characters due to the exclusive use of Hangul. Understanding similarities in the usage of Chinese characters in South Korea, China, and Japan is both important and beneficial for promoting deeper mutual exchanges among these countries. However, to truly understand and make use of these similarities, it is also necessary to comprehend the differences in how Chinese characters have been used in each respective country.