- (Republic of Korea) state in East Asia, occupying southern part Korean Peninsula and adjacent islands; borders on the north with the DPRK (see Korean People's Democratic Republic), from the west it is washed by the Yellow Sea, from the east... ... Geographical encyclopedia
South K. occupies the south. part of the Korean Peninsula. Pl. 98.5 thousand km2. Hac. OK. 41 million people (1984). Capital Seoul. B adm. respect consists of 9 provinces; in the department adm. units allocated Seoul and Busan. Currency unit won. General... ... Geological encyclopedia
Noun, number of synonyms: 1 country (281) ASIS Dictionary of Synonyms. V.N. Trishin. 2013… Synonym dictionary
SOUTH KOREA- Territory 99.6 thousand sq. km, population 42 million people (1990). It is a developed industrial and agricultural country. Rice is cultivated on irrigated lands, and barley and wheat on rain-fed lands. Livestock farming is dominated by pig farming and cattle breeding... World sheep farming
Coordinates: 36°00′00″ N. w. 128°00′00″ E. d. / 36° N. w. 128° E. d. ... Wikipedia
South Korea- South Korea … Russian spelling dictionary
See the article KOREA... Collier's Encyclopedia
South Korea on Olympic Games IOC code: K ... Wikipedia
South Korea at the Olympic Games IOC code: KOR ... Wikipedia
IOC code: KO ... Wikipedia
Books
- South Korea, Kiryanov Oleg Vladimirovich. Do South Koreans really eat dogs and, if not, what do they eat, what are the features of South Korean cinema, are there many surnames in Korea, why is plastic surgery so popular there and how to look...
- South Korea, Kiryanov O.. Do South Koreans really eat dogs and, if not, what do they eat, what are the features of South Korean cinema, are there many surnames in Korea, why is plastic surgery so popular there and how to look...
Many tourists are terribly afraid of the language barrier. Travelers are more courageous; they should not be afraid of anything. However, when it comes to Asian countries, doubts overcome the faces of travelers.
When you are going to that region, be it China, Japan, Korea, India (Northern Korea in particular, although the memorized phrase that you are from a “Soviet country” is saving) you need to be aware that you are going to another world. The planet is the same, ours, people are the same two-legged, cars are the same four-wheeled, you can’t get food poisoning. But the world is still different.
Asian languages are built on different principles than European ones, structurally belong to a different category of languages, and syntactically (just so, oddly enough) they are more figurative, thereby forming a certain type of thinking, a way of speaking, and, accordingly, influencing the perception of the environment and its transmission to other human beings.
Korean It’s wonderful because you will start learning hieroglyphs only when you speak it fluently and can read it fluently. They will be needed for reading scientific texts, artistic prose and highly artistic poetry.
Otherwise, as I already wrote, this language consists of words that consist of letters that correspond to sounds that are so clear to us.
The Korean alphabet, Hangul, was born in 1443 - its creation began under the supervision of the government, under the patronage of King Sejong. Sejong, a famous character in Korean history and mythology, popular image, the king even ended up on banknotes. The legend tells how Sejong personally walked with a magnifying glass, examined the positions of the speech organs when pronouncing certain sounds, and created letters that follow the contours of these positions.
In fact, everything was probably not like that, but this is the legend that is shown to all first-year foreigners who came to Seoul to learn the language. There are, of course, other legends, there are many of them, as well as versions, they are ancient.
According to the rules of Korean, a consonant sound is always followed by a vowel, which easily and naturally makes the language very harmonious. A significant part of the vocabulary is borrowed from Chinese, the syntax is the same as Japanese - this fact reflects not so much similarity as it speaks of a close cultural connection in the region itself and, of course, is manifested not only in languages; affects all cultural layers. In general, the Korean language is more closely connected with art than many others, be it painting or cinema.
An interesting fact: in the northern version of the Korean language there are borrowings from Russian (the influence of Soviet support for the regime); the South Korean language has absorbed and significantly deformed English words(again, due to American influence). However, do not rush to rejoice: understanding these words interpreted by Korean morphology is not so easy.
It is very important to understand the “hierarchy” of the Korean language, which is embodied in it at the syntactic and lexical levels. There are three degrees of politeness, depending on which you will use one or another construction, as well as many address words, and, most curiously, individual verbs (for example, the verb to sleep or eat, which in relation to the grandmother will be different than for a conversation with younger sister) to address someone with exceptional respect.
Korean uses two counting systems, Chinese, with one name for numbers (adaptation directly Chinese language) and Korean. What’s interesting, even if it’s incredibly scary, is that in response to a question about the time, you will call the hours in Korean numerals and the minutes in Chinese.
There are many more similar nuances that can be remembered, this language is difficult to learn, it is interesting to learn, although, probably, in order to learn it, you need to be in love with it just like with Korea and Asia itself.
However, below I offer a list of words written in Korean that may be useful to a traveler who finds himself in Seoul.
Airport - 공항 (konghan) Subway - 지하철 (jihacheol) Subway station - 지하철역 (jihacheol yok) Shop - 편의점 (pyeonijom) Pharmacy - 약국 (yakguk) Restaurant - 식당 (siktan) Coffee shop - 커피 숍 (Kho Phi Shop) Taxi - 택시 ( taeksi) Bank - 은행 (Eunhyeong) Hospital - 병원 (pyongguang) Bar - 술집 (suljib) Alcohol - 술 (sul) Toilet - 화장실 (huajangsil) Park - 공원 (kongguang) Museum - 박물관 (pagmulguang) Law - 오른쪽 (oreenjog) Left - 왼쪽 (uenjog) Straight - 바로 (paro or deokparo)
And modern historians began to call Joseon “ancient” in order to distinguish the history of this state before and after 1392, when a slightly different state of Korea appeared on the maps of that time, from which one can say that the general history of the DPRK and South Korea. And if, for the sake of brevity, we omit all the vicissitudes of the events associated with the Korean War of 1950, then its results to this day have not led to the unification of two related states into one large and strong economically developed state in the image and likeness of South Korea.
Capital of the DPRK
It just so happens that the Korean language is quite difficult language for its reliable pronunciation in Russian. So, regardless of the fact that the Russian transcription of the Korean name of the main city of the DPRK is written as “Pyongyang”, in the vast majority of literature the letter “E” changes to the more familiar letter “E”, and the “b” sign turns into “b” " And, taking into account all these morphological transformations, today it is written and pronounced only as “Pyongyang”. Which in Korean means either “wide land” or “cozy area”. And although exact value this word story is silent, but since 1946 Pyongyang has been the capital North Korea and has the status of a city of direct administration.
Population of the DPRK
When considering the ethnic characteristics of North Korea, it is worth remembering that significant amount Since then, the country was a colony of the Land of the Rising Sun, and the longest border of this state is in a country such as China. With this in mind, 99% of the country's 24 million total population consists of the Korean ethnic group, with the remaining percentage coming from Japan and China. It is worth noting that the general DPRK culture does not differ from the cultural characteristics of North Korea’s neighboring countries, such as China and Japan.
State of the DPRK
Despite the fact that or North Korea, as independent unit appeared on political map Mira back in 1948. But the full configuration of the state-political structure of the country was determined only in 1972, when the Constitution was adopted DPRK. And today, the structure of government has almost all the signs of democracy, starting from general elections to the Supreme People's Assembly of 687 deputies, and ending with the presence of three political parties in the country. However, behind the external facade of this political liberalism and pseudo-democracy, the true picture of the totalitarian rule of the country by the family clan of Kim Il Sung, the permanent leader of the DPRK since 1948 and ending with the year of his death in 1993, is hidden.
North Korea politics
Based on the democratic and human values declared both in the Constitution of the DPRK and in such a document as the Declaration of Human Rights of the DPRK, North Korea is a socialist state of workers and peasants, whose interests are represented in the main elected bodies of power and through three political parties. Taking into account this and the unlimited power of the Kim Il Sung family clan, throughout almost the entire existence of the state, it has been totalitarian in nature, which led North Korea not only to international isolation, but also to extreme low level the life of its population.
Language of the DPRK
Despite the fact that ethnic Koreans are common not only in Eastern and South-East Asia, isolated, ethnic groups Koreans are also found in the United States of America, Canada, France and Russia, the Korean language is quite closed in terms of the influence of neighboring languages on it and international languages communication. At the same time, as experts note, the language of South Korea has quite a lot of syntactic and morphological differences, similar to the differences that exist in the same Russian language and its related Ukrainian and Belarusian. Although, like the residents of these three regions, the residents of South and North Korea understand each other perfectly.
For many, the Korean language seems mysterious and super complex, because it is so different from ours. In front of you 8 interesting facts about the Korean language, which will help you understand it a little better.
- There are only 24 letters in the Korean alphabet.
Many people imagine the Korean alphabet to be very complex with big amount characters, but it only has 24 letters. Moreover, 10 of them are vowels.
For example, recall that there are 5 vowels in the English language, but most of them have several sounds. So in in different words letters can be read in different ways. But each Korean vowel corresponds to only one sound.
It turns out that there are only 14 consonants in the Korean alphabet, and many sounds that exist in English or Russian are simply not there (for example, “Z” or “F” from English).
2 . The Korean alphabet (HANGEUL) can be learned in just 90 minutes.
The Korean alphabet was invented with the specific purpose of making it easy to learn. All consonants have a shape that will help you learn them using almost just one lip shape. The spelling of vowels is also easy to remember.
3. 80 million people around the world speak Korean
The bulk of them, of course, live in South and North Korea, and in addition, one of the provinces of China uses the Korean language. You will find people speaking Korean in Japan, USA, Russia and other countries.
4. D The dialects of the regions in Korea are very different from standard Korean.
The Korean spoken in Seoul is called "standard Korean". The media uses it and important government statements are made on it. But since Korea is a country of mountains, many regions are very isolated from each other. Because of this, the language in different areas can vary greatly. This is why many Seoulians have a hard time understanding the man from Busan.
5. There are many borrowed words in the Korean language.
Most loanwords come from in English or directly from Japan. So for example, the word "motorbike" — "oto-bai" from the word "auto-bike".
Other languages can also be found in Korean, such as "bbang"(bread) from Portuguese, and "arubaituh"(part-time job, part-time job) from German.
6. Many of the remaining words have Chinese roots.
At one time, Chinese culture made a huge contribution to the formation active dictionary Korean language.
7. There are two counting systems in Korea
One of the counting systems is based on the Korean language, the other has Chinese roots, the numbers here have a similar sound to the Chinese ones. Often, Korean language learners get confused about how to apply each of these systems in practice. But don't give up or despair!
8. North Korean language gradually becomes an independent language.
Although a big difference in pronunciation and dialects existed even before the Korean War, the languages truly became alien after the division. Significant influence foreign languages into South Korean and the isolation of North Korea has led to the fact that now many words that have the same meaning on one side and the other have become completely different. For example words "ice cream", "rainbow", "friend", "lunchbox"— the two Koreas sound completely different.
Which fact did you find most interesting? And what unusual facts Do you know about the Korean language?
Linguists attribute the Korean language to the Ural-Altai group, which also includes Turkish, Mongolian, Hungarian and Finnish languages. Today it is spoken by about 78 million people, the vast majority of whom live on the Korean Peninsula. There are also Korean communities scattered all over the world.
1. The Korean language has five main dialects in South Korea and one in North Korea. Despite geographical and socio-political dialect differences, Korean is relatively homogeneous language. Speakers from various areas can understand each other without effort.
2. Korean is considered one of the most polite languages in the world. And this creates many difficulties for Europeans to study it. The fact is that in order to communicate correctly, it is necessary to take into account the status of the interlocutor and use the appropriate words and endings. And this presupposes not only a good knowledge of the language, but also the culture.
3. At first glance, it may seem that Koreans use hieroglyphs for writing. But this is not so, the main (and in North Korea - the only) alphabet of the Korean language is Hangul (한글, Hangul), specially developed by a group of scientists in 1443 at the request of the ruler (wan) Sejong the Great. However, there is also a legend according to which this alphabet was invented by the Buddhist monk Sol Cheon. Learning Hangul may take some time, but you can speed up the process with .
4. Before the advent of Hangul, Koreans used a writing system called “hancha” (from the Chinese “hanzi” - “writing”), which was based on Chinese characters. Interestingly, it has survived to this day in South Korea, where hanja is sometimes used in literature and science. For example, in dictionaries, words of Chinese origin are usually displayed in both systems. However, this is rather a tribute to tradition, since any modern korean word can be written using Hangul. In North Korea, a real war was declared, the purpose of which was the rejection of everything foreign.
5. It is not known exactly what exactly scientists were guided by when creating Hangul. The most common assumption is that it was based on the Mongolian square script. Another legend says that the idea for such letters came to Sejong the Great when he saw a tangled fishing net. Another assumption is that such movements are made by the human mouth, pronouncing the corresponding sounds. And finally, there is also a frankly obscene theory that was actively propagated by the Japanese during the occupation of Korea from 1910-1945. In this way, the occupiers sought to reduce the value native language population.
6. About 50% of words in the Korean language are of Chinese origin. Of course, after all, China owned the territory of the Korean Peninsula (on which South and North Korea are now located) for about 2000 years. There are also many borrowings from Japanese and Vietnamese.
7. Over the past decades, many borrowings have come into the Korean language from. Moreover, they often acquired additional meanings. Thus, the word “service” has become 서비스 (seobiseu), which, in addition to its basic meaning, is used to denote something additional that is provided for free. For example, a free dessert at a restaurant or an extra free service In a hotel.
8. A Swiss army knife is called 맥가이버칼 (maekgaibeo kal) in Korea. Moreover, the word 칼 (kal), meaning “knife”, is of Korean origin. And the first part came from the name MacGyver. The fact is that Koreans became acquainted with this tool thanks to the American TV series “Secret Agent MacGyver” main character who, thanks to him, managed to get out of the most unimaginable situations.
9. Some borrowings appeared in the Korean language in a rather complex way. So, other words came from the Japanese, who were an ally of Germany in World War II and occupied Korea. For example, the word 아르바이트 (aleubaiteu) means “underemployment.”
10. Many concepts in the Korean language are formed according to the principle of a constructor. And you can guess their meaning by knowing the translation of the components. It all looks quite poetic. For example, the word “vase” (꽃병, kkochbyeong) is formed by combining the words “flower” (꽃, kkoch) and “bottle” (병, byeong). And “nostril” (콧 구멍, kos gumeong) is “nose” (코, ko) and “hole” (구멍, gumeong).
11. Modern Korean names usually consist of three syllables. In this case, the first syllable refers to the surname, and the other two to personal name. For example, Kim Il Sung or Lee Myung Park. However, most names do not have any characteristics that indicate gender. That is, they can belong to both a man and a woman. It is important to note that calling by name is only allowed between close relatives or friends. An outsider may perceive this as an insult. When addressing someone, a word is often used that indicates a person’s position: “mister”, “teacher”
12. The Korean language uses two various types numerals: originally of Korean and Chinese origin. The first ones are usually used for numbers less than a hundred, the second ones for large ones, as well as when counting time. But in general, the rules for using various numerals are quite confusing, which can cause certain difficulties for language learners.
