조선시대 언간 자료의 부부간 호칭과 화계

Abstract

The extant Korean old vernacular letters between spouses observe the husband's address terms for his wife such as 'janae(자내), ge(게), gesyeo(게셔), manura(마누라)'. 'Janae(자내)', which appears mainly in letters from the 16th∼17th century, is generally followed by the sentence-final endings of hʌso(하옵소) style. Hʌʌpso(하옵소) and hʌʌp(하옵) styles were also used along with the hʌso style from the mid-17th century. 'Ge' from letters in the 17th century is usually followed by the hʌʌpso style. Meanwhile, 'gesyeo' is used in letters from the 18th∼19th century (e.g. letters written by the Chusa family) together with the hʌʌp style. Thus it can be generally stated that the addressee honorification style of [husband→wife] was transformed from the 'janae∼hʌso' style to the 'gesyeo∼hʌʌp' style. 'Manura' is occasionally found together with the most honorific sentence-final endings from letters in the 19th century. Judging from the fact that 'manura' is observed from letters exchanged among royal family members, it is assumed that the term 'manora' meaning the noble people in the royal court was diverted to the address term 'manura'. As for the wife's address, terms such as 'janae, gesyeo, naeuri(나으리)' were used to refer to the husband. 'Janae', which appears in letters from the 16th century, agrees with hʌso style sentence-final endings as seen in the case of [husband→wife]. It suggests that there was a possibility of equality in terms of the address system and speech levels between spouses at that time. 'Gesyeo' from letters in the 18th century is found followed by the hʌʌp style, displaying the similar pattern of the husband's case to the wife 'gesyeo∼hʌʌp' style in the 18th∼19th century. Nonetheless, the different speech level such as 'hʌso style[husband]⇆hʌʌp style[wife]' might have been practiced as it is seen that hʌʌpso sentence-final endings were commonly used for [husband→wife] in the 17th∼18th century. 'Naeuri' found from letters in the 19th century is thought to have been diverted from 'naʌri(나리)' meaning a lower-level official to address the husband with the government position.