The Evolution of the Chinese Language System
Learning a foreign language is not an easy job, but it can be made less difficult with the use of the appropriate tools – namely the dictionary and the grammar book. Producing the first one has been an easy task for the Chinese. On the other hand, the latter remains a mystery as there are no documents describing the link among words and sentences as obviously no such documents have been needed. Regardless of this, linguists from various schools have attempted to do a systematic formulation of Chinese grammar so it resembles that of some European languages. It is true, though, that there are Chinese Translation groups who have maintained that Chinese has no grammar, which is the opposite. To some extent this statement is correct. Indeed, what matters in being able to decipher Chinese is the syntax, or word order.
The Japanese language is similar to Chinese in the appearance of characters only. The characters retain their essential meanings from Chinese to Japanese, but the pronunciation and grammar is entirely different. Therefore, a Japanese person might be able to understand the general meaning of a Chinese text, but could by no means produce a Japanese Translation of it. The Korean and Chinese impact on the Japanese can be attributed to the proximity of their islands. As a result the three languages exhibit many similar traits. Thus in the era of Christ spoken discourse between Korean and Japanese inhabitants would have been impossible had it not been for professional interpreters According to some linguists the two languages are placed in the Altaic language family, while others consider them to be language isolates. This is how historians view the sequence of events: the Koreans were the first foreign nation to establish a contact with the Japanese. The Japanese reluctantly endeavored to adapt the Korean alphabet so that it could fit the scheme of their own language. In spite of having very similar characters the languages of Japan and China have remained thoroughly different for the last ten scores of years even though the Japanese used the Chinese characters at first and later absorbed their literature.
Where the Koreans come from still remains a mystery. Not much in the same fashion as Japanese that is of Uralic descent, Korean that is of Turanian origin never really was able to find any particular expression – be it ethical or poetic. Thus, its script failed to attract much attention. The nature of the Korean language is polysyllabic, with fourteen consonants and eleven vowels. The writing it uses is called En-mun. Korean is agglutinative in morphology and SOV in syntax like Japanese-Ryukyuan, for example. However it is a unique language which makes Korean Translation to English a demanding job. We can find the roots of Korean literature in the traditional folk tales of the peninsula. It was also influenced by Confucianism and Buddhism, as well as Taoism. It is true that most written Korean documents are thought to have their roots in China. Even though the Korean writing genres are similar to the Chinese ones, with the development of the Korean language a lot of texts are now produced in Korean alphabet. More to the point. it is now only the Korean alphabet that has completely replaced the Chinese characters. Therefore, translating such texts into most major languages of the world can earn the living of many professional translators.
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