RE: Q.'s about hanja

From: Jungshik Shin (jshin@pantheon.yale.edu)
Date: Tue Nov 07 2000 - 15:17:53 EST


On Tue, 7 Nov 2000, Marco Cimarosti wrote:

> John Cowan wrote:
>
> > Marco Cimarosti wrote:
> >
> > > Do you mean that some hanja have a polisyllabic
> > pronunciation in Korean?
> >
> > Yes.

What? NOPE. None of Hanjas in Korean has polysyllabic reading period.

> > Of the 9033 Unihan characters with Korean readings
> > given in the Unihan.txt
> > file, there are 689 with two-syllable mappings, 13 with
> > three-syllable mappings,
> > and 2 with four-syllable mappings.

This has NOTHING to do with polysyllabic reading. These Hanjas have
just *multiple* alternative MONOSYLLABIC readings.

> In fact, my understanding of likes like this:
>
> U+4E07 kKorean MAN MWUK
> ...
> U+4E32 kKorean KOC KWAN CHEN
> ...
>
> Is that they are a lists of alternative *mono*-syllabic readings (i.e. I see
> the blank as an "OR"):

YES !!

>
> Marco: U+4E07 may be read "man" or "mwuk".
> ...
> Marco: U+4E32 may be read "koc", "kwan", or "mwuk".
> ...
>
> Do you consider them multi-sillabic readings (i.e. you see the blank as an
> "AND")?

Absolutely NOT.

> John: U+4E07 is read "manmwuk".
> ...
> John: U+4E32 is read "kockwanmwuk".
> ...
>
> I think that the only truly multi-syllabic Korean reading in unihan.txt is
> this:
>
> U+4EBB kKorean SA-LAM-IN-PYEN
>
> But U+4EBB is not properly an ideograph: it is a glyph for radical #9
> (person) when it is at the left of ideographs, and it's Mandarin "reading"
> (dan1ren2pang2) is actually a descriptive *name* that should mean "side
> person component".
>
> So, I suspect that also the Korean "reading" is in fact a descriptive name
> of that sort.

Your suspicision is correct. That is NOT reading but just description
of that radical in Korean (meaning 'radical meaning man/human')
So, you CANNOT take it as an example of Hanja in Korean with
polysyllabic reading.

Jungshik Shin



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