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Please help im prove this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material m ay be challenged and removed. (February 2011) Hanja Type Logographic Languages Korean Parent systems Oracle Bone Script Seal Script Clerical Script Regular script Hanja Sister systems Kanji, Zhuyin, Simplified Chinese, Nom, Khitan script, Jurchen s cript Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols. Hanja Korean name Hangul Hanja Revised Romanization Hanja McCuneReischauer Hancha This article contains Korean text. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Hangul and hanja. This article contains Chinese text. Without proper rendering support, yo u may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Chinese characters. Chinese characters Chinese characters logo.jpg Scripts Precursors Oracle bone script Bronze script Seal script large small Clerical script Cursive script Regular script Semi-cursive script Type styles Imitation Song Ming Sans-serif Properties Strokes Stroke order Radicals Classification Section headers Variants Standards on character forms Kangxi Dictionary form

Xin Zixing Commonly Used Characters Standard Form of National Characters List of Forms of Frequently Used Characters Standards on grapheme usage Graphemic variants Hanyu Tongyong Zi Hanyu Changyong Zi Ty kanji Jy kanji Reforms Chinese traditional simplified simplified, 2nd round debate Japanese old new Ryakuji Korean Yakja Singaporean jintz bio Sinoxenic usage Hanja Kanji Nom Homographs Literary and colloquial readings Derivatives Kokuji Korean hanja Zetian characters N Shu Idu Kana (Man'ygana) Bopomofo Sawndip Khitan large script Khitan small script Jurchen Tangut v t e Korean writing systems

Hangul Hanja Hyangchal Gugyeol Idu Mixed script Braille Transcription McCuneReischauer Revised Romanization (South) Sahoe Kwahagwn (North) Yale (scholar) Kontsevich (Cyrillic) Transliteration ISO/TR 11941 RR (South) SKATS (coding) Calligraphy.malmesbury.bible.arp.jpg Calligraphy Arabic Chinese Georgian Indian Japanese Korean Kufic Nepalese Persian Sini Tibetan Western Mongolian Hanja is the Korean name for Chinese characters (hanzi).[1] More specifically, i t refers to those Chinese characters borrowed from Chinese and incorporated into the Korean language with Korean pronunciation. Hanja-mal or hanja-eo refers to words which can be written with hanja, and hanmun ( , ) refers to Classical Chinese w riting, although "hanja" is sometimes used loosely to encompass these other conc epts. Because hanja never underwent major reform, they are almost entirely ident ical to traditional Chinese and kyjitai characters. Only a small number of hanja characters are modified or unique to Korean. By contrast, many of the Chinese ch aracters currently in use in Japan (kanji) and Mainland China have been simplifi ed, and contain fewer strokes than the corresponding hanja characters. Although a phonetic Korean alphabet, now known as hangul, had been created by a team of scholars commissioned in the 1440s by King Sejong the Great, it did not come into widespread use until the late 19th and early 20th century.[2] Thus, un til that time it was necessary to be fluent in reading and writing hanja in orde r to be literate in Korean, as the vast majority of Korean literature and most o ther Korean documents were written in hanja. Today, scholars who wish to study K

orean history or the Korean legal code must study hanja in order to read histori cal documents. For the general public, learning a certain number of hanja is ver y helpful to understanding the etymology of Korean words, and to enlarging one's Korean vocabulary. Hanja are not used to write native Korean words, which are a lways rendered in hangul, and even words of Chinese origin hanja-eo ( , ) are wri ith the hangul alphabet most of the time.[citation needed] Contents 1 2 3 4 5 History Character formation Eumhun Education Uses 5.1 Print media 5.2 Dictionaries 5.3 Personal names 5.4 Toponymy 5.5 Usage 6 Gukja ( , ) 6.1 Yakja 7 Pronunciation 8 See also 9 References 9.1 Notes 9.2 Sources 10 External links History A major impetus for the introduction of Chinese characters into Korea was the sp read of Buddhism. The major Chinese text that introduced hanja to Koreans, howev er, was not a religious text but the Chinese text, Cheonjamun (Thousand Characte r Classic). Koreans had to learn Classical Chinese to be properly literate for the most part , but there were some systems developed to use simplified forms of Chinese chara cters that phonetically transcribe Korean, namely, hyangchal ( ; ), gugyeol ( ( ; ).

; ),

One way of adapting hanja to write Korean in such systems (such as Gugyeol) was to represent native Korean grammatical particles and other words solely accordin g to their pronunciation. For example, Gugyeol uses the characters to transcribe the Korean word "hni", in modern Korean, that means "does, and so". However, in C hinese, the same characters are read as the expression "wi n," meaning "becoming a nun." This is a typical example of Gugyeol words where the radical () is read in Korean for its meaning (h "to do") and the suffix , ni (meaning 'nun'), used phon etically. Hanja was the sole means of writing Korean until King Sejong the Great promoted the invention of hangul in the 15th century. However, even after the invention o f hangul, most Korean scholars continued to write in hanmun. It was not until the 20th century that hangul truly replaced hanja. Officially, hanja has not been used in North Korea since June 1949 (additionally, all texts are now written horizontally instead of vertically).[citation needed] Additional ly, many words borrowed from Chinese have been replaced in the North with native Korean words. However, there are a large number of Chinese-borrowed words in wi despread usage in the North (although written in hangul), and hanja characters s till appear in special contexts, such as recent North Korean dictionaries.[3] Character formation

Each hanja is composed of one of 214 radicals plus in most cases one or more add itional elements. The vast majority of hanja use the additional elements to indi cate the sound of the character, but a few hanja are purely pictographic, and so me were formed in other ways. Eumhun To aid in understanding the meaning of a character, or to describe it orally to distinguish it from other characters with the same pronunciation, character dict ionaries and school textbooks refer to each character with a combination of its sound and a word indicating its meaning. This dual meaning-sound reading of a ch aracter is called eumhun ( ; ; from "sound" + "meaning," "teaching"). The word or words used to denote the meaning are oftenthough hardly alwayswords of native Korean (i.e., non-Chinese) origin, and are sometimes archaic words no lo nger commonly used. Education Hanja are still taught in separate courses in South Korean high schools, apart f rom the normal Korean language curriculum. Formal hanja education begins in grad e 7 (junior high school) and continues until graduation from senior high school in grade 12. A total of 1,800 hanja are taught: 900 for junior high, and 900 for senior high (starting in grade 10).[4] Post-secondary hanja education continues in some liberal arts universities.[5] The 1972 promulgation of basic hanja for educational purposes was altered on December 31, 2000, to replace 44 hanja with 44 others.[citation needed] The choice of characters to eliminate and exclude ca used heated debates prior to and after the 2000 promulgation.[citation needed] Though North Korea rapidly abandoned the general use of hanja soon after indepen dence,[6] the number of hanja actually taught in primary and secondary schools i s greater than the 1,800 taught in South Korea.[7] Kim Il-sung had earlier calle d for a gradual elimination of the use of hanja,[8] but by the 1960s, he had rev ersed his stance; he was quoted as saying in 1966, "While we should use as few S initic terms as possible, students must be exposed to the necessary Chinese char acters and taught how to write them."[9] As a result, a Chinese-character textbo ok was designed for North Korean schools for use in grades 5-9, teaching 1,500 c haracters, with another 500 for high school students.[10] College students are e xposed to another 1,000, bringing the total to 3,000.[11] Uses Because many different hanjaand thus, many different words written using hanjaofte n share the same sounds, two distinct hanja words (hanjaeo) may be spelled ident ically in the phonetic hangul alphabet. Thus, hanja are often used to clarify me aning, either on their own without the equivalent hangul spelling, or in parenth eses after the hangul spelling as a kind of gloss. Hanja are often also used as a form of shorthand in newspaper headlines, advertisements, and on signs, for ex ample the banner at the funeral for the sailors lost in the sinking of ROKS Cheo nan (PCC-772).[12] Print media In South Korea, hanja are used most frequently in ancient literature, legal docu ments, and scholarly monographs, where they often appear without the equivalent hangul spelling.[citation needed] Usually, only those words with a specialized o r ambiguous meaning are printed in hanja.[citation needed] In mass-circulation b ooks and magazines, hanja are generally used rarely, and only to gloss words alr eady spelled in hangul when the meaning is ambiguous.[citation needed] Hanja are also often used in newspaper headlines as abbreviations or to eliminate the amb iguity typical of newspaper headlines in any language.[13] In formal publication s, personal names are also usually glossed in hanja in parentheses next to the h angul. In contrast, North Korea eliminated the use of hanja even in academic pub

lications by 1949, a situation which has since remained unchanged.[9] Hanja are often used for advertising or decorative purposes, and appear frequently in athl etic events and cultural parades, dictionaries and atlases. For example, the han ja (sin or shin, meaning sour or hot) appears prominently on packages of Shin Ra myun noodles. Dictionaries In modern Korean dictionaries, all entry words of Sino-Korean origin are printed in hangul and listed in hangul order, with the hanja given in parentheses immed iately following the entry word. This practice helps to eliminate ambiguity, and it also serves as a sort of shor thand etymology, since the meaning of the hanja and the fact that the word is co mposed of hanja often help to illustrate the word's origin. As an example of how hanja can help to clear up ambiguity, many homophones are w ritten in hangul as (sudo), including: spiritual discipline prisoner 'city of water' (e.g. Venice or Hong Kong) paddy rice drain, rivers, path of surface water tunnel capital (city) , ) or Okpyeon (

Hanja dictionaries (Jajeon ( apanese, ). Personal names

, )) are organized by radicals, and k

Korean personal names are generally based on hanja, although some exceptions exi st. On business cards, the use of hanja is slowly fading away, with most older p eople displaying their names in hanja while most of the younger generation utili zes hangul. Korean personal names usually consist of a one-character family name (seong, , ) followed by a two-character given name (ireum, ). There are a few 2-cha racter family names (e.g. , , Namgung), and the holders of such names but not only t hem tend to have one-syllable given names. Traditionally, the given name in turn consists of one character unique to the individual and one character shared by all people in a family of the same sex and generation (see Generation name). Dur ing the Japanese administration of Korea (19101945), Koreans were encouraged to a dopt Japanese-style names, including polysyllabic readings of the hanja, but thi s practice was reversed by post-independence governments on Korea. Since the 197 0s, some parents have given their children given names that break the Chinese ge neration style, and are simply native Korean words. Popular ones include haneul meaning "sky" and iseul meaning "morning dew". Nevertheless, on official documen ts, people's names are still recorded in both hangul and in hanja (if the name i s composed of hanja). Toponymy Due to standardization efforts during Goryeo and Joseon eras, native Korean plac enames were converted to hanja, and most names used today are hanja-based. The m ost notable exception is the name of the capital, Seoul although[clarification n eeded] Seoul is the English pronunciation of (Seo-Ul) which literally means 'Capi tal'. Disyllabic names of railway lines, freeways, and provinces are often forme d by taking one character from each of the two locales' names. For Seoul, the ab breviation is the hanja gyeong ( , , "capital"). Thus, The Gyeongbu ( , ) corridor connects Seoul (gyeong) with Busan (bu); The Gyeongin ( , ) corridor connects Seoul with Incheon (in); The former Jeolla ( , ) Province took its name from the first characters in the c

ity names Jeonju ( , ) and Naju ( , ) ("Naju" is originally "Raju," but the initial sound in South Korean is simplified to "n"). Most atlases of Korea today are published in two versions: one in hangul (someti mes with some English as well), and one in hanja. Subway and railway station sig ns give the station's name in hangul, hanja, and English, both to assist visitor s and to disambiguate the name. Usage See also: Korean mixed script This Korean War propaganda leaflet created by the US Army as part of Operation M oolah uses hangulhanja mixed script. Opinion surveys in South Korea regarding the issue of hanja use have had mixed r esponses in the past. Hanja terms are also expressed through hangul, the standar d script in the Korean language. Hanja use within general Korean literature has declined significantly since the 1980s because formal hanja education in South K orea does not begin until the seventh year of schooling, due changes in governme nt policy during the time. In 1956, one study found mixed-script Korean text (in which Sino-Korean nouns are written using hanja, and other words using hangul) were read faster than texts written purely in hangul; however, by 1977, the situ ation had reversed.[14] In 1988, 80% of one sample of people without a college e ducation "evinced no reading comprehension of any but the simplest, most common hanja" when reading mixed-script passages.[15] Gukja ( , ) See also: Kokuji A small number of characters were invented by Koreans themselves. Most of them a re for proper names (place-names and people's names) but some refer to Korean-sp ecific concepts and materials. They include ( ; non dap; "paddyfield"), (Dol, a ch aracter only used in given names), (So, a rare surname from Seongju), and (Gi, a n old name of the Kumgangsan). Further examples include ( si), ( jo), / ( hwa), ( bu), ( tal), (

py

Compare to the parallel development in Japan of kokuji (?), of which there are hun dreds, many rarely used these were often developed for native Japanese plants an d animals. Yakja Yakja ( , ) simplification of Some hanja characters have simplified forms ( , , yakja) that can be seen in casual u se. An example is Eopseul mu yakja.png, which is a cursive form of (meaning "not hing"). Pronunciation

Each hanja character is pronounced as a single syllable, corresponding to a sing le composite character in hangul. The pronunciation of hanja in Korean is not id entical to the way they are pronounced in modern Chinese, particularly Mandarin, although some Chinese dialects and Korean share similar pronunciations for some characters. For example, "print" is ynshu in Mandarin Chinese and inswae ( ) in Kore n, but it is pronounced insue in Shanghainese (a Wu Chinese dialect). One obviou s difference is the complete loss[dubious discuss] of tone from Korean while all Chinese dialects retain tone. In other aspects, the pronunciation of hanja is m ore conservative than most northern and central Chinese dialects, for example in the retention of labial consonant codas in characters with labial consonant ons ets, such as the characters ( beop) and ( beom); the labial codas existed in Middl e Chinese but do not survive intact in most northern and central Chinese varieti es today. Due to divergence in pronunciation since the time of borrowing, sometimes the pr

onunciation of a hanja and its corresponding hanzi may differ considerably. For example, ("woman") is n in Mandarin Chinese and nyeo ( ) in Korean. However, in mos t modern Korean dialects (especially South Korean ones), is pronounced as yeo ( ) when used in an initial position, due to a systematic elision of initial n's whe n followed by y or i. Additionally, sometimes a hanja-derived word will have altered pronunciation of a character to reflect Korean pronunciation shifts, for example mogwa "quince" fro m mokgwa , and moran "Paeonia suffruticosa" from mokdan .