Such as my childhood suburb of West Pymble - did you know Mel Gibson lived there in his youth? I didn’t know this nor meet him, must have been before my time! – was named after Robert Pymble, an influential early settler in the Sydney region. Whereas, the local council of Ku-ring-gai was named after the Kuringgai people who were the original inhabitants of the Central coastal region of New South Wales on which Sydney now sits. In my youth, I went to high school in Turramurra, which was the local Kuringgai peoples’ name for ‘big hill’ – my high school had a great view of downtown Sydney 18 kilometres away, overlooking extensive bushland of the Lane Cover River valley.

One thing I like about Korea is that seemingly every locality name has some cultural and/or historical reference to it with the majority of words being of Sino-Korean origin, ie. being derived from Chinese characters, such as Suncheon (순천 | 順天) which roughly translates as ‘orderly heaven’ – I’m still trying figure out just what exactly that means four years on! Whilst, many are also indigenous Korean words such as Seoul (서울) which means ‘capital’ in ‘Pure’ Korean.

Last year, I searched out some place names  of relevance to me – having either lived, worked or traveled there extensively in the last few years – and came with the results below.

My favourites are Yeonhyang-dong which comes out ‘lotus fragrence’ village, Haeryong-myeon which comes out as ‘sea dragon’ township and Jorye-dong which comes out as ‘reflective courtesy’ whatever the hell that means! Though, sometimes place names may be the amalgamate of the first letters of two localities merged together at point in history, resulting in somewhat odd literal meanings, as Jorye-dong may be an example of. The dong (or suburb) I currently live in is Dongoe-dong which literally means ‘east outside’ village, which no doubt is a reference to its location just outside the old city walls of Suncheon.

Jeollanam-do & Jeollabuk-do place names

全羅南道와 全羅北道의 地名

전라남도와 전라북도 지명

Suncheon-si 순천시 [順天市] orderly.heaven.city ‘Orderly heaven’

Jangcheon-dong 장천동 [長泉洞] long.spring.village ‘Long spring’

Yeonhyang-dong 연향동 [蓮香洞] lotus.fragrance.village ‘Lotus fragrance’

Jeojeon-dong 저전동 [楮田洞] mulberry.field.village ‘Mulberry fields’

Jogok-dong 조곡동 [稠谷洞] dense.ravine.village ‘Dense ravine’

Jungang-dong 중앙동 [中央洞] middle.centre.village ‘Central’

Dongoe-dong 동외동 [東外洞] east.outside.village ‘Eastside’

Haeryong-myeon 해룡면 [海龍面] sea.dragon.township ‘Sea dragon’

Jorye-dong 조례동 [照禮洞] reflective.courtesy.village ‘Reflective courtesy’

Wangjo-dong 왕조동 [旺照洞] prosperous.reflective.village ‘Reflective prosperity’

Wangji-dong 왕지동 [旺之洞] prosperous.this.village ‘Prosperous village’

Geumdang-jigu 금당지구 [金塘地區] golden.pond.area ‘Golden pond’

Sangsa-myeon 상사면 [上沙面] above.sand.township ‘By the sand’

Buddhist temples

Seonamsa 선암사 [仙巖寺] transcendent.cliff.temple ‘Zen precipice’

Songgwangsa 송광사 [松廣寺] pine.wide ‘Expanse of pines’

Gwangju gwangyeok-si 광주광역시 [光州廣域市] bright.province.wide.district.city ‘City of light’ metropolitan city

Hwajeong-dong 화정동 [花亭洞] flower.pavilion.village ‘Flower pavilion’

Yang-dong 양동 [良洞] gentle.village ‘Gentle village’

Jeonju-si 전주시 [全州市] whole.province.city ‘Whole province’

Hyoja-dong 효자동 [孝子洞] obedient.child.village ‘Obedient child’

Seosin-dong 서신동 [西新洞] west.new.village ‘New west’

Deokjin-dong 덕진동 [德津洞] virtue.ford.village ‘Virtuous ford’

Pyeonghwa-dong 평화동 [平和洞] peaceful.harmony.village ‘Harmonious peace’

Gwangyang-si 광양시 [光陽市] bright.sun.city ‘Sunshine’

Jungma-dong 중마동 [中馬洞] centre.horse.village ‘Central horse’

If you’re interested yourself in finding out more about place names in Korea, there’s a few sites that can help. The Naver encyclopedia is helpful in finding out the Chinese characters of local place names if you are unaware of them, you just type the place name in Hangeul and a page should come up with information on the locality, though you do need some Korean knowledge for that site. Another good site is the Galbijim Wiki site which has quite extensive information on all matter of things Korean and has the advantage of being in English. And, a good site to find out the etymology of place names in Chinese characters is the Wiktionary site, where you just enter the character whose meaning you are unaware of and it will come up with its meaning, spelling and pronunciation in Korean, Japanese, Chinese and even Vietnamese. Or, you can’t be arsed finding out yourself but are keen to know the meaning of your locality, send us a message and I’ll look her up for you!

One meaningful thing I’ve been doing of late – apart from the usual work and soccer – is studying languages. I’ve been actively studying Arabic for my second time over the last few months thanks to my friend who’s been teaching me. I’m starting to make a bit of headway and this has propelled me into delving  back into some of the other languages I’ve dabbled with in the past – namely Korean (seeing as I’m in Korea and all), Mandarin (Chinese) and Japanese.

Call it Attention Deficit Disorder or just being a victim of today’s Instant Gratification society – or perhaps, I’m just an Obsessive Complusive freak – but once I start on one thing, I get bored easily and move onto another these days. A result of this is my current trend of studying four languages – three of which, passively – simultaneously.

Whilst studying Arabic, I’ve re-opened a handy book I bought last year on basic, everyday Chinese phrases – the good thing about this book however is that it’s a Korean book (hence it’s written in Korean) yet also contains English translations. So, as a result I end up studying two languages at the same time.

As for Japanese, I’ve started getting back into this nifty Facebook application whereby you can study and quiz yourself on the language’s indigenous Kana characters and imported (and somewhat modified) Kanji characters as well as studying and testing yourself on your reading and vocabulary skills. The best part about this application, Kanji Box, is that it is fun, easy to use and addictive.

Googling on studying multiple languages simultaneously brings up several interesting pages, blogs and documents on the relative merits and pitfalls of during so. But, as I see it, my quest of multiple language acquisition is purely a cerebral exercise to keep my brain active whilst doing something relatively constructive. Plus, if I’m ever to reach my life-long dream of fluency in eight plus languages, I need all the time, effort and enthusiasm I can muster!

Hopefully by 2025, I’ve mastered the four languages I’ve mentioned and can then more onto the comparatively easier European languages I’m after – Spanish, German and Italian. Russian looks like it’ll be my retirement activity!

The article also looks at individuals from other ethnic communities and their experiences growing up speaking two distinctly different languages and the resulting merger of some words from either language.

The article also contains a video of individuals conveying their experiences growing up with two or more languages. Check it out, it’s worth a look.

I first starting learning Arabic about a year ago but as always happens with me and languages I get bored and distracted easy, and gave up on the classes. Though, hanging around my sister’s place recently piqued my interest  in the language again – my sister lives in an area with a large Lebanese population so there’s Arabic lettering and speakers all around!

Arabic’s a challenging language as the characters in the script slightly change form in regards to whether they are at the end, or middle or beginning of a word. Though, the actual Grammar structure is quite similar to English and doesn’t seem as difficult to catch onto as it is to catch on to Korean and Japanese Grammar structure.

Indeed, Japanese, Mandarin, Russian, Arabic and Korean are often cited as being amongst the most difficult languages for English native speakers to learn. The irony is I’m interested in all these languages and would like to have conversational ability in all of these one day!

I had my second class (of my second stint) of Arabic last night and headed out for dinner and drinks with friends afterwards. It was a good night!

السلام عليكم

Peace!

For whatever reason, I’ve been interested in learning Chinese characters again lately and I decided to find out the Hanzi of various Chinese cities, at the same time learning their Korean names and the result is this table below. I couldn’t find the Korean for all the city names and I didn’t want to guess what they were.

Chinese cities ~ 中国城市

in English, Pinyin, traditional & simplified Chinese, and Korean characters

한글날을 축하합니다 (한글)

해피 한글 데이 (Konglish)

Happy Hangeul Day

As today is Hangeul Day, I thought it would remiss if I didn’t mention Korean’s indigenous alphabet and one of the nation’s most famed and celebrated cultural items. ‘Happy Hangeul Day’ wherever you are.

Basic Korean phrases and one-liners

ㅏ a

ㅓ eo

ㅗ o

ㅜ    u

ㅡ eu

ㅣ i

ㅑ ya

ㅕ yeo

ㅛ yo

ㅠ yu

ㅐ ae

ㅔ e

ㅒ yae

ㅖ ye

ㅘ wa

ㅙ wae

ㅝ weo

ㅞ we

ㅟ wi

ㅚ oe

ㅢ ui

ㅇ */ng2

ㄴ n

ㅁ m

ㅋ k

ㅌ t

ㅍ p

ㅊ ch

ㅎ h

ㅅ s

ㄱ k-g-k

ㄷ t-d-t

ㅂ p-b-p

ㅈ ch-j-t

ㄹ r/l-r-l

ㄲ g-kk-k

ㄸ d-tt-*

ㅃ b-pp-*

ㅆ ss-ss-t

ㅉ j-tch-*

Source:Lonely Planet Korean phrasebook

1 – showing initial-middle-final sound;
2 – the consonantㅇ is used as a placeholder and is silent at the start
while is pronounced as ng at the end of syllables;                                                                                         * - indicates no sound

A couple of months back, I got to thinking about the limitations of Hangeul when it comes to words and sounds not naturally occurring in Korean. I started thinking about Katakana, Japan’s alphabet used primarily for company names and non-Japanese words. I then thought about all the Korean characters, which were once part of Hangeul but have since been eliminated. There’s scores of them in all kinds of shapes and combinations on the scrap heap, located on Wikipedia at: Jamo & List of Hangeul Jamo. 

After reading more about all these now obsolete Jamo, I got thinking why doesn’t Korea reinstate some of these obsolete Hangeul characters and use them for foreign sounds and when transcribing foreign words? Believe or not, there exists now obsolete Hangeul characters for sounds such as ‘v’ and ‘w’. These characters were used in the past for non-Korean words and sounds, primarily Chinese back then, but are no longer part of the Korean alphabet. Why doesn’t Korea bring some of these obsolete Hangeul off the bench and use them for words and sounds of foreign origin?

It would have the advantage of introducing Koreans to these sounds at an earlier date and help their pronunciation of non-Korean words, bringing their pronunciation closer to the ‘true’ pronunciation of the non-Korean word. Whereas, nowadays Korean learners of English are often hamstrung by the rules in place in Korean when transliterating foreign words or sounds. A major issue is that in Korean, each syllable must contain a vowel, whereas in English (and other languages) there may be hundreds of consonant blends. For example, the word sandwich in English comes out as 산드위치 (sandeuwichi), which sounds like the speaker’s got a speech impediment to native English speakers’ ears. Another example is, night which comes out as 나이트 (naiteu).

There are other issues arise from sounds which occur in foreign langauages, yet not in Korean. The Korean alaphabet is perfect for speaking Korean as it is efficient, easy to learn and comprehensive for the Korean language. However, it is very limited when using it for foreign langauges as it doesn’t allocate characters for non-Korean sounds, of which there are many, such as: x, f, z, and v. Another issue with Korean is that it contains a character which is a cross between a k and a g and may sound like either depending on where it’s situated in a word, and likewise for p and b, and r and l. But, it doesn’t actually contain the consonants k, g, p, b, r, and l individually as they are pronounced in English. These are factors which impede a Korean student’s English learning particularly if they are learning English off a Korean native speaker who themselves are not able to correctly pronounce consonants which don’t occur in Korean such as v, x, f, and z. (- This situation is declining as time goes on as most young Koreans have studied with a native English speaker at at least one point in their lives so nowadays most under 20 year olds have quite good pronunciation. The average pronunciation ability detierates rapidly, the older the speaker is however).

Below are a few situations I thought of for re-instating existing, yet now obsolete, Jamo characters and re-incorporating them into Hangeul to aid in pronouncing and/or transcribing words and sounds of non-Korean origin.

• The word city comes out as shitty in Korean as the rule with Korean is that a sh sound always proceeds an ‘i (ee)’ vowel when the character ㅅ (s) is used. Instead, you could use the currently unused ᄼ(s) character for situations as above when using non-Korean words such as city.

• These characters which used to be used for sounds of non-Korean origin could be re-instated: ㅱ (w), ㅿ (z) and ㆅ (x) – but I personally prefer using ᄽ for (x).

• Some other characters that could be used for foreign sounds are: ᅅ (soft ‘th’ θ sound as in ‘thin’), ᅆ (hard ‘th’ ð sound as in ‘this’), ᄙ (‘English-sounding’ r as in ‘rooster’), ㅬ (‘English-sounding’ l as in ‘love’), ㅸ (English-sounding’ b as in ‘boy’), ㅹ (v), ᄤ (f).

• ㆍ – could be placed below words of foreign origin which end with consonant sounds, which are currently limited by Hangeul’s need for a vowel to follow the consonant as in ‘mart’ 마트 which comes out as ‘marteu’. Instead, have the dot below the final ㅌ so the word is pronounced ‘mart’, similar to in English.

I believe these, or similar, adjustments could be made into Hangeul to enhance the alphabet and assist its learners on getting an accurate grasp of non-Korean sounds at an early age in their own alphabet. Japan did so with their foreign langauge alphabet, Katakana, and I believe it would be beneficial for Koreans to consider doing so too. However, I imagine this would cause a lot of constentation from Hangeul purists who would see it as bastardizing the language. I believe, howver, that it would enhance the alphabet further rather than compromise the alphabet.

If you’re interested in learning Chinese characters and their various meanings and pronunciations, I highly recommend Wiktionary.

Japanese 일본어 日本語