Oct. 25th, 2002 11:23 am
High weirdness at work
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muckefuckHere's a prize of a volume: A 2500+ page "bible of the earth unfolded in HanGeulMalSsi (pure Korean)". That description is lifted from English version the Message of the Publication of the MangGyemTteulDeul GyemCholBitGuil crammed into the book, along with the author's resume, and which contains such prize passages as:
Rest assured, it doesn't make much more sense in Korean.
Korea's been a fertile ground for NRMs (New Religious Movements) for over a century now. The old order disintegrated in a relatively short time during an age of brutal colonialism, rapid modernisation, tragic unrest, and civil war, so it's not surprising to see people grasping for a new source of truth. And, given the country's ancient tradition of shamanism, it's also not surprising to see so many seek this truth in revealed religion. But I'm far less interested in the belief system developed in the text than in the boast that "There is no borrowed word from the Chinese in the Korean."
This is akin to writing a text in "pure English" without any Greek or Latin borrowings. Sure, Uncleftish beholdings demonstrates that it can be done, but it's no easy task. That's a short article and Anderson was able to model many of his neologisms on terms pioneered by other Germanic languages (e.g. waterstoff for "hydrogen" on the model of German Wasserstoff). Korean has no close relatives and a shallow tradition of puristic neologism. There's no equivalent to Bishop Peacock, who suggested we replace "impenetrable" with "ungothroughable" way back in the 15th century. (Though, by coincidence, that was when the Koreans made the radical step of devising an alphabet for their own language, which was already such a radical break it didn't catch on for another five centuries.)
However, the borrowings from Chinese are one of the quirks of Korean that make it less ungothroughable than it would otherwise be for me, so this will be slow going. Besides, I've got other geeky tasks before me, like working out an odd kind of Old Spanish for my brother's game setting. Esu is ya uns retus buans qui pudria cunsumir muytu tiamps!</
Now is the time to open new era of Hangeulmalssi or Korean jumping over the miserable history in which the plant-microorganism-animal-human, MuChoYuYeon (the formless essence-hyper essence-figured essence-nature), HyeonSilJinBon (the four stages of entity), SinSaMoolIn (the gods-realities-material-human), the past-present-future-eternity should be blocked in a limit with cutting of their YeoSiGongSe (the given condition-time-space-world) one another.
Rest assured, it doesn't make much more sense in Korean.
Korea's been a fertile ground for NRMs (New Religious Movements) for over a century now. The old order disintegrated in a relatively short time during an age of brutal colonialism, rapid modernisation, tragic unrest, and civil war, so it's not surprising to see people grasping for a new source of truth. And, given the country's ancient tradition of shamanism, it's also not surprising to see so many seek this truth in revealed religion. But I'm far less interested in the belief system developed in the text than in the boast that "There is no borrowed word from the Chinese in the Korean."
This is akin to writing a text in "pure English" without any Greek or Latin borrowings. Sure, Uncleftish beholdings demonstrates that it can be done, but it's no easy task. That's a short article and Anderson was able to model many of his neologisms on terms pioneered by other Germanic languages (e.g. waterstoff for "hydrogen" on the model of German Wasserstoff). Korean has no close relatives and a shallow tradition of puristic neologism. There's no equivalent to Bishop Peacock, who suggested we replace "impenetrable" with "ungothroughable" way back in the 15th century. (Though, by coincidence, that was when the Koreans made the radical step of devising an alphabet for their own language, which was already such a radical break it didn't catch on for another five centuries.)
However, the borrowings from Chinese are one of the quirks of Korean that make it less ungothroughable than it would otherwise be for me, so this will be slow going. Besides, I've got other geeky tasks before me, like working out an odd kind of Old Spanish for my brother's game setting. Esu is ya uns retus buans qui pudria cunsumir muytu tiamps!</