China, Japan, and the Koreas: Linked by language (2)

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Another fact was mentioned by Lim So-yeon, a Korean girl who has been living in China for over 10 years. Xian sheng (先生) is an ancient expression used when Chinese students addressed their teacher, however, it is not used often. Koreans, on the other hand, still use it and write it in traditional Chinese characters.

Zhu mentioned her discussion with Japanese and South Korean scholars when she visited those two countries. "Why emphasize the differences? Why don't we pay more attention to the similarities," she asked when discussing the translation of the expressions that mean cross-culture in two languages.

The Chinese expression is kua wen hua (跨文化), which emphasizes linking different cultures, whereas the Japanese expression is yi wen hua (异文化) and emphasizes the differences between cultures. The appeal of emphasizing links between cultures was echoed during the discussion.

A history lesson

Tracing back to the 1st century, a few vestiges of the origins of these languages can be found. Although without any recorded history and exact dates, some linguists believe that it was at the end of the Han Dynasty (206BC-AD220) that the ancient Chinese characters were substantially introduced to the Korean Peninsula.

According to an academic thesis called The Spread and Learning of Chinese Characters in South Korea and Japan by Luo Weidong, since AD375, visits by envoys from the two countries and the introduction of Confucian classics helped to spread Chinese characters. "At that time, the culture of Han was admired and treated as the excellent eastern Asian culture. Koreans used Han characters to record their history, to create their literature and to record their own language."

In terms of Japan, most believe that the Korean Peninsula is one of the channels that transported ancient Chinese characters there. But envoys from ancient Japan also came to China to learn Han culture, and they contributed to the spread of the writing system as well, according to the thesis.

At that time, Japanese and Korean languages were not attributed to any language system, and they were called "agglutinative languages." The introducing of Chinese characters helped to settle their own writing systems.

"The different locations and different inheritance led to different evolutions over the long period," Zhu told the Global Times.

Fever of learning Chinese

Many foreign students can be seen in Beijing now, and the numbers coming from South Korea and Japan are on the rise.

Lim started to learn Chinese when she was still a student in South Korea. She came to China around 2001 and went to Tsinghua University to study Chinese as her major after a few years. She said that sharing some Chinese characters is helpful. Because in their own language there are many words that contain multiple meanings, and sometimes it's confusing. But using some Chinese characters helps to distinguish the different meaning in some instances.

Zhu also saw the enthusiasm for learning Chinese among Japanese and Korean students. "Students are showing a high interest in learning Chinese. I think they noticed the frequent connections between these countries, no matter in economics or in culture."

As Ji Baocheng, editor of the chart and former president of Renmin University of China, said at the forum, "The chart of 800 characters is the symbol of the connections between China, Japan and South Korea and is a key link for cultural cooperation for us."

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