KOBE A. 594 KOREAN LANGUAGE. Korea was open to foreign trade and Western civilization. Independence was brought about by the Chino- Japanese War in 1804-!)5. the ostensible cause of wliieh lay in the dis|)ateliing of troops by the eliinese Government to assist in suppressing an uprising of peasants, without first notifying .Ja- ])an in aceordance with an agreement between ]^i Hung Cluing and the Jlarqiiis Jto. Just at this time the Government of .Japan was in great straits in dealing with a hostile Parliament and publie, and war with China seemed the best way to save itself. Active hostile operations were at once begun in Korea, though war was not declared until August 1, 1S'.)4. The Chinese army was defeated at Ping-yang with great loss September Kith, and on the' following day was fought the great naval battle oil' the Yalu River, which thoroughly crippled China's fleet. From this date forward the progress of the .Japanese forces was a nearly unbroken series of victories. Port Arthur and Ta-licn-wan having fallen into their hands, they crossed to Shantung and took Wei- hai-wei. Negotiations for peace were at once be- gun by the Chinese. The Korean King declared in favor of independence .laniuiry 8, ISDo, and the 'Chinese gate' at Seoul was destroyed with im- posing ceremonies. The Treaty of Shimonoseki followed, ennfirmiiig this, and Korea entered on a new career with .1a])an, not China, as a model, liliil.UKiK.vpilY, Dallet, IJishjire de I'cglisc dc Corie (Paris, 1874) ; Oppert, A Forbidden Land (London, 1880) ; Grilhs, Comi, Without and Within (London, 188,5) ; Rosny, Les Cornells (Paris, 1888) ; Lowell, Cho.iiin, the Land of the Morninf) Calm (Boston, 18SG) ; Carles, Life in Corca ('London, 1888) ; GriWU, Corra, the Uirmit Nation (3d ed.. New York, 1880); Roekhill, "Korea in Its Relations with China," in Journal, of the American Oriental Hueictii (New Haven, 1889) ; Ross, History of Corea (London, 1801) ; Gilmore, Korea from Its Capital (Philadelphia, 1893) ; Curzon, Problems of the Far Ea»t (Lon- don, 1894): Cavendish and (ioold-Adams, Korea (London, 1S94) ; Landor, Corea or Cho-sen, the Land- of the Morninii Calm (New York, 180.')): Norman, People and I'nlitie.i of the Far East { Lon- don, 1896) ; Hainy. Doenmcnts snr VanthropoUxiie de la Coree (Paris. 1S9G) ; Pogio. A'orca (Vienna, 1896) ; Wilkinson, The Korean Government (Shanghai, 1800) ; Brandt, Ontasiatische Fragen (Leipzig, 1807) ; Laguerie, La. Coree, indepen- dante. rusxe ou japonai.se (Paris, 1808) ; Bislm]). Korea and Her Neighbors CNev.- York. f^9S) : Hul- bert, "Korea's Geographical Significance." in American Geographical Hociety ■lonrnnl, vol. v. (New Y"ork, 1000) ; Allen. '"The History of Korea," in Korea Ilevicir. vol, i, (Seoul, Korea, 1901) ; Walter, Korea, einst nnd jet:t (Hamburg, 190'2) ; Br.aecke, "La CorC'e, sa situation feo- nomique et ses richesses minifres," in Revue XJni- versellc des Mines, de la Metallurgie, set. 3. vol. lix. (Li^ge, 1002) ; and the Korean Repository (Seoul, 18y;i-0S). KOREAN LANGUAGE. Korean belongs to the agglutinative class of languages, and is inter- mediate between the Mongol-Tatar languages and the .Tapanese. It is entirely distinct, in both genius and structure, from Cliinese, which has for many centuries been the literary language of the country, and that used for governmental documents, correspondence, etc. Chinese has never been a spoken language in Korea, but in- numerable words have been borrowed from it and incorporated into the native vocabulary. The sounds, however, differ widely from the sounds of modern Chinese, In the native Korean there is no proper de- clension, case being indicated by certain sejja- lable particles (which taken by themselves have no meaning) afU.ed to the stem or root, the jiarticles used for each particular ease differing aieording 'as the last letter of the root is a con- sonant, a vowel, or the letter I, etc. The root itself is invariable. There is no proper plural, and genuine pronouns are nearly unknown. There is no grammatical gender, and there is no grannnatical form by which living l)eings can bo distinguished from things. The verb, how- ever, cannot be surpassed in the variety and deftness of its expressive power. One-fifth of the words of the vooalmlary are either verbs or words capable of taking a verbal form. There is nO' distinction between verb, adjective, and adverb, and even the preposition, whieh on syntactical grounds becomes a postposition, is a part of a verb. The grannnatical variations are very nu- merous, and are said to average 300. Some forms perform the functions of punctuation, and some are used to express emphasis; some are continua- tives, expressing unfinished action. There are participial, gerundive, ami interrogative forms, and forms expressing condition, hypothesis, ete. The verb has no number, and for the three per- sons there are three forms of civility (which ramify the verb in all its moods) — a common form used in speaking to inferiors, or of abstrac- tions, or the like; a middle form used in speak- ing of or to equals : and a higher form used in, addressing or in speaking of superiors. Sj-ntax depends largely on position, as in the Chinese written langiuige. The word which gov- erns is invariably placed after the word whielf is governed: the 'prepositions' indicating ease become postpositions; the adjective precedes the- noun it qualifies, and the adverb precedes the ad- jective or verb; the dependent clause precedes the independent, and the noun precedes the verb which governs it. The Korean alphabet, known as Onraun, 'the vulgar characters,' consists of eleven vowels h (=• -f ^ J. Ji a ya c ye
yo T -rf f — ^ u yu ) eu a -] 1 t: t L 2 k kh t th n 1 orr d 31 «
- ^
?; A p ph m cli clih s h
lie rinul KOBEAN ALPHABET. and fourteen consonants. The letters are very simple, and are made almost entirely of com- binations of vertical and horizontal strokes.
