Introduction

The languages of East Asia form a complex mosaic. Most languages spoken in the cultural areas of China, Korea, and Japan fall into two large, and structurally very different, language families. These two families are the Sino-Tibetan family and the Ural-Altaic family. The Chinese topolects (sometimes called “dialects”) are in the Sino-Tibetan family. Linguists, however, often place Japanese and Korean in the Altaic branch of the Ural-Altaic family of North Asia, the same family as Mongolian.

What complicates the picture is that centuries ago, both Korea and Japan borrowed their early writing systems from China. They later created writing systems inspired by the component parts or general shape of Chinese characters. These systems were syllabaries (something like alphabets), which were able to efficiently represent the sounds of Korean or Japanese. Moreover, in the course of long cultural interactions between the regions, many words have been borrowed back and forth, with many Chinese words absorbed into both Korean and Japanese.

China, as a cultural whole, is very diverse, and this diversity is reflected in the languages spoken there. Aside from the Chinese topolects, many ethnic minority languages are also spoken, most falling within the two major families mentioned above.

The following sections outline some basic facts about the spoken languages of East Asia, then each language will be described individually. Each section will also include a short language lesson that will teach you several useful phrases and how to use them in real-life situations. In Part II, the writing systems are introduced. Items outlined in red are the most basic.

The Spoken Languages in East Asia

Chinese Spoken Language

“Chinese” (Zhongguohua) is the name for a group of related topolects spoken by the Han nationality in the People’s Republic of China, Taiwan, and Chinese (Han) communities in other parts of the world. All of the Chinese topolects are in the Sino-Tibetan family, which also includes ethnic minority languages such as Yi and Tibetan. The major topolect regions in China are: Mandarin (east, west and southwest versions), Cantonese or Yue (Guangdong and Guangxi areas), Xiang (Hunan area), Wu (lower Yangzi delata), Min (northern and southern styles in Fujian and Taiwan), Gan (Jiangxi), and Hakka or Kejia(Eastern Guangdong, and regions of Fujian and Jiangxi provinces). Since it is difficult or impossible for speakers of many of these topolects to understand each other, governments in the 20th century decided to adopt a national standard that everyone would learn. This standard was based on the Beijing dialect (topolect), sometimes called Mandarin. In the People’s Republic of China the standard language called Putonghua, or “Standard Chinese.” In Taiwan, it is called Guoyu or “National Language.” Thus, most people in China speak both their own home language or topolect and Standard Chinese. Most television programs, films, radio, newspapers, textbooks, popular literature, and other media are in Standard Chinese. However, in Hong Kong and to some extent in Taiwan, some media use local topolects.

CLICK here to hear the sounds of different Chinese topolects. You will hear two sentences from each topolect: 1) "The weather today is really great. Let's go to a park to have fun!" 2) "Are you free tomorrow afternoon? I'd like to invite you to go drink tea." Notice how the topolects not only sound different in terms of proninciation, but differ also in vocabulary for some of the idiomatic expressions. Also remember that there are variations in pronunciation in different subregions under one topolect region. In the flash, we present only one or two examples of the variations for each major topolect region.

Chinese differs from Japanese and Korean in three important ways. The first is tones. All of the Chinese topolects (and languages such as Vietnamese, Thai, Laotian, Cambodian, etc.) employ tones to differentiate the meaning of sounds in the language. Since the number of sounds in Chinese is fairly limited, tones are used to differentiate similar sounds. Tones are conventional ways of raising or lowering the pitch of a sound. In Standard Chinese, four tones are used. In some cases, there is no tone on certain words, and that is defined as “neutral tone.” In some topolects as many as seven, or even nine tones are used, e.g., Cantonese. The four tones and neutral tone in Standard Chinese are illustrated using the sound “ma” and “zhe” as an example, CLICK on the bar to hear the sounds:

To the untrained ear, they all sound alike, or very similar, but they actually represent different words to the trained ear. In a spoken sentence, tones actually do not sound as strong as when they are articulated individually, due to the influence by the intonation of the sentence. Below are more examples of the tones and a few short sentences spoken by a native speaker, CLICK to hear the sound.

A second interesting feature of Chinese is the way verbals (that is, units of speech that act like verbs) are handled. While in Japanese or Korean endings are added to verb stems to determine aspect (when something has, is, or will happen), this is not the case in Chinese. Instead, Chinese relies on the context (situation) of the conversation and marking sounds called “particles” that are placed within or at the end of an utterance to give the listener clues on aspect. One common particle in Chinese is “le,” which indicates a “change of condition or state” (Ramsey 1987:55). For instance, the common greeting and response among acquaintances around meal time are illustrated here with Chinese Pinyin, word for word English, and colloquial English (CLICK to hear the sound):

In this case, the particle “le” only represents a change of condition and is independent of the verbal “chi,” meaning “to eat.” Notice that in the Chinese it was not necessary to actually speak the pronoun “you” and “I,” because that part of speech is understood by context and therefore needs not be spoken.

The “ma” at the end of A's line is the most common question particle in Standard Chinese, used for yes/no questions. Like Korean and Japanese, Chinese uses verbal (spoken) question marks. That is, questions are marked not by the change in pitch of the last word or word order in an utterance, as in English, but by voicing a question particle. Thus, in the common greeting, “Nĭ hăo ma” (“you good question-particle” or “How are you?”), the “ma” serves as a spoken question mark. Without that “ma” the greeting “Nĭ hăo” becomes “Hello” (“you good” literarily). Other topolects have similar features, though not always coming at the end. In Suzhou topolect, which belongs to Wu topolect, the question particle is “a” and can be placed before the verbal: "Ne a hae" ("you question particle good" or “How are you?”)

Finally, Chinese differs from Korean and Japanese in sentence order. Chinese sentences tend to be organized in the SVO (subject-verb-object) pattern, like English. Korean and Japanese are SOV languages. Note the pattern in this sentence (CLICK to hear the sound):

 

A difference between Chinese and familiar European languages is that there are no gender-specific pronouns. That is, there is no “he” or “she” in Chinese (as indicated in the sample sentence above). In Standard Chinese, pronoun “ta” can mean “he” or “she” or “it” depending on the situation. In writing, however, the “ta” can be written with a graph representing a male (他) or one representing a female (她) or one representing an animal or a thing (它), though they are still pronounced exactly the same.

Instead of adding an “s” to the ends of nominals (noun-like parts of speech), to make a plural (such as “three horses”), Chinese uses measure words. There are many measure words, all used in conjunction with things that share somewhat similar characteristics. For instance, flat things like paper or photos both use the measure word “zhāng;” birds employ “zhī,” books and magazines use “běn,” long and curvy things like fish, snakes and rivers use “tiáo,” and cars, buses and bicycles employ “liàng.” Therefore the Chinese for “one car” is “yí liàng chē” (one measure-word car), and “three books ” is “sān běn shū” (three measure-word book). In English we also use measure words, such as “a loaf of bread,” “a piece of paper,” or “a bottle of cola.” However, while both “I had three bottles of cola” and “I had three colas” are acceptable in English, it has to be “Wŏ hē le sān píng kělè” ("I drink le-particle three bottle-as-measure word cola") in Chinese, and no equivalent of an “s” is added to the noun to make it plural. The most common measured word in Mandarin, used for people and many other things is “ge,” as used in the sentence about eating apples given above. In Wu topolect, “zhi” is the most common measure word. So in the eating apple example, people in Shanghai and Suzhou area will say “yi zhi pingguo” instead.

Korean Spoken Language

Korean (한국어, Hankuk’ŏ) is spoken in both North and South Korea and in Korean communities in the United States and other parts of the world. Although there are regional dialects (variations) of Korean, they are all more or less mutually intelligible and present a much less complicated picture than the Chinese topolects. The main dialect areas (which correspond to the old Three Kingdoms) are the north, southeast, and southwest. The Seoul dialect is the basis of standard pronunciation in South Korea. In North Korea, accent, vocabulary, and idiomatic expressions sometimes differ from the south. Korean is often placed in the Altaic language family (along with Mongolian), though its exact placement is still subject to debate. Unlike Chinese, Korean is not a tonal language.

The sentence structure of Korean is similar to that of Japanese: Subject-object-verb, or SOV. Verbs are not conjugated (sentence particles are used to determine tense), but endings are added to verbs in order to reflect the status of the speakers and listeners. Thus, as Korean children grow up, they must learn to use the right verb endings so that they confer proper respect to those whom they are addressing. If a person uses the wrong verb ending when addressing someone higher or lower than they are on the social scale, it is considered a social blunder. Generally, the higher a person’s status (in relation to the speaker), the longer the verb ending. The honorific system of verb endings is illustrated with the verb “ka,” which means “to go” (CLICK on the flash below to hear the sound) :

 

This short exchange between a teacher and a student illustrate some of the features of Korean and the system of honorific verb endings (using the “ka” meaning “to go”):

 

One of the interesting things about Korean is how words are borrowed from other languages and made into Korean words. Many technological words have appeared in Korean form in recent years, just as many new words have been added to English and other languages. Here are some examples of how the sounds of English words have been transformed into Korean, CLICK on each row to hear the sound:

 

In a similar vein, new words are not always adopted in the same way in North Korea, as they are in the south. In many cases, the North Koreans adopt meanings (which is what the Chinese tend to do, as well), rather then sounds. Here is an example:

Japanese Spoken Language

Japanese (日本語, Nihongo) is the official language of Japan. It is often placed in the Altaic language family, though some linguists dispute this affiliation. Japanese shares grammatical similarities with the Korean language. Many words have their origins in borrowings from Chinese and more recently English and other western languages. Like Korean, Japanese is an SOV (subject-object-verb) language. While Japanese is not a tonal language like Chinese, it does contain pitch accents. In all there are 5 vowels and 13 consonants, far fewer sounds than in English or Chinese. Both the Korean and Japanese languages reflect the deep hierarchical structure of their cultures. Both contain endings on verbs that change according to the relationship between the speaker and the listener. The language used reflects the level of politeness in a specific context. For example,

As the manager is in a higher position within the company, the simpler form often spoken between close friends is used. However, the employee uses the polite honorific verbal gozaimasu. This shows the proper social distance and respect that is to be shown someone in a higher position of respect (by age or seniority) in a group, such as a company, school, etc.

Speaking and acting properly is of extreme importance in Japanese society, so as to maintain proper harmony, called wa. Directness is not encouraged, and there is even a class of sounds known as “hesitation noises.” These are commonly used to indicate the speakers discomfort or hesitation to answer a question posed by the listener, and are also used in order not to seem to indirect and softer in one’s speech style. They can even be spoken to allow the speaker time to collect his or her thoughts of how to phrase the correct response. These noises are something like saying “well…..” in English, although they are much more varied and nuanced. The following is an example of the most common hesitation noise, “ano” when used between two employees working in the same section of an office. The language is polite, yet not overly formal.

As with all East Asian languages, another marker of politeness is the use of titles and family names endings, rather then personal names. Personal names are only used among close friends and family. No student or young person would dare address a teacher, senior in rank or someone they are unfamiliar with by his or her first name. The ending “san” is added to the family names of persons who are addressed in public situations or between people with some social distance between them. Here is a list of common titles and family name titles are:

As in Chinese and Korean, the family name comes first in Japanese, for example, Suzuki Yoko. Suzuki is the family name and Yoko is the personal name. However, it is common in English language and other Western languages to convert Japanese and other East Asian names to the Western style of presentation. Therefore the name Suzuki Yoko would be changed to Yoko Suzuki.

Another important cultural aspect of the Japanese is that the words and style of language used between men and women can often vary significantly. Consider the example bellow:

 

To his close friend the man uses the rough, direct word for “I”-“ore,” and uses the direct ending “na,” which adds emphasis to what he has just said. Also, he uses the rough, direct form of “eat”- “ku.” He uses the shortened form of “let's go”- “ikoo.” This is standard language between two male friends who have known each other for a long time and enjoy a close degree of friendly intimacy.

The example of a woman speaking to a casual acquaintance is far different. She uses an alternate phrase for “hungry” - “onaka suite imasu,” which is much more polite than “hara hetta.” By posing the question of “Are you hungry?” to the listener she is showing that she is worried about how they feel, an important aspect of Japanese social interaction. Most likely she is hungry herself, but her listener would understand this upon hearing the question.

Japanese has many words with their origins in other languages. Often these are words for things that originally came from other countries that were imported into or redeveloped in Japan. Many words for Chinese, Portuguese, German, English, and other languages have been borrowed over the centuries, depending on international contacts. Here are some examples:

Recently an interesting phenomena is the development of words that are of English derivation that have been “Japanized” and re-borrowed by English. These words include:

The Written Languages in East Asia

Chinese Writing System

Spoken Chinese is a fascinating language to study and fairly easy to learn once the tones are mastered. The writing, however, is another story. The Chinese writing system dates to at least the Shang dynasty (1600-1100 BC) and possibly into Neolithic times. The Koreans and Japanese later adopted the Chinese writing system, though later invented other systems to represent the sounds of their languages. However, Chinese characters are still mixed in with these systems in South Korea and Japan.

The Chinese writing system is based on characters (sometimes called graphs) that are composed of one or more of approximately 214 parts called “radicals” (bùshǒu in Chinese, literally “section headers”). Since there is no alphabet, it is necessary to remember all of the characters (called hanzi in Chinese) one by one. There is no reliable way to sound them out or spell the characters. Only memorization works—both for the sound and the meaning. Considering that there are over 40,000 characters and that a literate person needs to know about 3,000 words to conveniently read a newspaper, the learning task can be very daunting. Elementary school students spend great amounts of time memorizing how to read and write (and writing is even harder than reading!). To complicate things even more, soon after 1949, texts published in Mainland China began using simplified versions of about 1,800 characters, while texts in Taiwan (and Hong Kong) still use the older style. Persons who read materials from both areas need to be able to recognize both styles.

In some instances, an unfamiliar character may offer clues about its meaning or pronunciation – though these are never more than clues. One part of a compound character, that is, one with more than one part - a “meaning” part and a “sound” part, can give clues about meaning. For instance, if the radical 木 (mù, “wood”) is used in a character, then the character may have something to do with a tree, as in the character 枝 (zhī, “tree branch”), 松 (sōng,“pine tree”), or 桥 (qiáo, “bridge” - which is traditional built with wood). Radicals for herb (艹), metal (釒), water (氵), soil (土), mountain (山), hand (扌), eye (目), and sickness (疒) can also give clues on meaning. Other components of a character may hint at the character's sound. For instance, the character 支 (“support”), pronounced zhī, is part of the character 枝, also pronounced zhī. The character 登 (“climb”), pronounced dēng, serves as the phonetic component in the character 瞪 (“stare at”), pronounced dèng, and the 目 radical in the character 瞪 gives a clue that the character has something to do with seeing. In fact, not all the phonetic radicals perfectly indicate the pronunication of the characters. Sometimes the sound radical only shares the same vowel or the same consonant with the character's pronunciation. Often there is no way to tell how a character is pronounced unless someone who knows the pronunciation reads it aloud, or another written system (like the Pinyin system discussed below) that can represent the sounds is used.

Though in general you cannot figure out a character's meaning by looking at it, there are a few hundred of the characters that are representational – that is, they look something like what they mean. For instance, the character for “sun” at one time looked very much like a sun, but over the centuries became more stylized.

It is a myth that Chinese is a language of “ideograms” that always pictures the idea being expressed. In the majority of the cases, one has little or no idea what the character means unless one is told. It is also interesting that in many cases characters have more than one pronunciation and carry different meanings, which are determined by context and the structure of the sentences they are in. For example, when the character 好 is pronounced in the third tone as hăo, it means “good” or “OK” in English. But when it is in the fourth tone as hào, it means “hobby.” In Japanese, many characters have both a Japanese and a Chinese pronunciation (though based on earlier pronunciations). And it is also important to remember that many characters share the same pronunciation. For instance, 好 (“hobby”), 号 (“horn” or “number”), and 耗 (“to consume”) are all pronounced as hào.

Another complicating feature in the study of written Chinese is that there are two main styles. One is called Classical Chinese (which can be sub-divided into earlier and late styles) and is based on the earliest Chinese writings. Literally called “ancient Chinese” (gŭwén), writings in this style are very terse and formal--almost telegraphic. It has its own vocabulary, grammar and sentence particles that differ from known styles of vernacular (common) speech. Punctuations are not used and pauses between sentences and phrases are marked with particles. For centuries, Chinese officials used the style when writing documents, histories, imperial edicts, and so forth. It was a universal written language that could be read by speakers of any topolect, functioning in some ways like Latin once did in Europe. After about the twelfth century, writings in a vernacular style much closer to actual speech began to appear in print. It was not until the early 20th century, however, that Vernacular Chinese (called báihuà) began to replace Classical Chinese in official documents. Today in China, only people who receive formal training in reading Classical Chinese are able to understand the early Chinese documents or write in Classical Chinese style. Sample passages of many famous Classical Chinese essays are incorporated into textbooks for middle school and high school students and some aspects of the older style are still used in formal writings and newspaper headlines today.

Here is an example of a sentence written in Classical and vernacular Chinese:

Classical Chinese:	孔子曰受业身通者七十有七人皆异能之士也
Vernacular Chinese:	孔子说:“跟着我学习而精通六艺的弟子有七十七人”，他们都是具有奇异才能的人。
English:	Confucias says: “I have seventy-seven apprentices who are following me to study and learn the Six Arts.” They all have unique talents and capabilities.

By the late 19th century, Westerners living in China began developing ways to write the sounds of Chinese in Western alphabetic languages. The most famous of these early efforts was the Wade-Giles system, named after two missionaries. This system is still used by some scholars, although in recent years the system called Pinyin, invented in the People’s Republic of China after 1949, has been increasingly adopted by the media and scholars alike. Besides Wade-Giles and Pinyin, several other systems (both alphabets and syllabaries) are also in use in Taiwan and in teaching materials in the West. In some situations spellings may be made up (the names of some Chinese restaurants, for instance). Thus, readers may encounter several different ways to romanize or otherwise represent the same sound that is represented by a single character. This is especially a problem when reading maps made on the mainland and Taiwan. Here are a few words in both Wade-Giles and Pinyin:

W-G:	Hsieh-hsieh	Thank you!
Pinyin:	Xie-xie
W-G:	Ni hau ma?	How are you?
Pinyin:	Ni hao ma?
W-G:	Ch’ing tsuo.	Please have seat.
Pinyin:	Qing zuo.
W-G:	Teng Hsiao-p’ing	Chinese leader's name
Pinyin:	Deng Xiaoping

Although some Chinese thinkers have suggested that someday an alphabet or syllabary will replace the Chinese characters, advances in computer technology and an interest in and love for the characters seem to ensure their use for the foreseeable future.

Korean Writing Systems

Like Japanese, the Korean writing system has a complicated history. The earliest writing system was Chinese, introduced to Korean peninsula by about 100 AD. As Confucianism and Buddhism gained a foothold in the kingdoms of the peninsula, a class of scholars developed who took Classical Chinese (called “Hanmun” in Korean) as the standard written language. A few scholars and monks interested in Buddhism also studied Sanskrit. As time went on, some Korean scholars wished to have a writing system that would reflect the sounds of Korean. Early efforts involved taking a number of Chinese characters and using them for their sound value. One such system was called Idu. In the Idu system, one, two, three or more Chinese characters, called Hanja in Korean, would be used to represent the sound of a Korean word, completely disregarding the individual meanings of the Chinese characters. This system was very awkward and found only limited usage. A few poems in these Chinese-character based systems from Shilla and Koryo still exist.

Finally, in the 15th century King Sejong asked his scholars to develop a system that was easy to use and learn and that accurately reflected the sounds of Korean. The result was the Hangul writing system. In some ways it is similar to the Japanese kana syllabaries (see below), though the shape of the Hangul symbols are not derived from parts of Chinese characters. Rather, they are abstract representations of the shape of the mouth and position of the tongue when pronouncing a given sound.

Hangul is a very practical system that uses 24 basic symbols to represent the sounds of Korean. There are 14 consonants and 10 vowels. Since Korean language has some special features, such as double consonant letters, the system can be modified to reflect such features. For instance, the words oyster and honey sound very similar except the lengthened “k” consonant in honey. Here are how they are represented in Hangul (see the image on the right).

Even though this efficient system was developed in the 15th century, it was not widely used by officials and scholars until the early twentieth century. Instead, merchants and women adopted it for business purposes and literary expression. As time went on whole genres of literature written in Hangul developed (see Korean Literature). As Korea began to modernize in the early 20th century, the Hanmun (Chinese characters) used by the Confucian upper-classes was soon found inadequate for modern times. By 1950, Hangul was adopted as the official written language of both South Korea and North Korea. Although Korean can be written completely using Hangul, in South Korea, Hanmun characters are still used in some situations, and are often mixed into with sentences written primarily in Hangul. In North Korea, however, only Hangul is used for most writings.

Japanese Writing Systems

Japanese is one of the most complex writing systems in the world. This is due to the integration of three distinct writing systems into one uniform system used to write modern Japanese. Chinese characters (hanzi in Chinese; kanji in Japanese) were introduced into Japan by the 6th century and became the first medium for writing and literacy. However this system did not fit well with the early language, therefore Chinese characters were often given an additional Japanese pronunciation, most likely due to the fact that there was no inherent sound value represented by the characters. The original Chinese reading of a character is reflected in what is called the onyomi, while the Japanese version is the kunyomi. An example of this system the word for “water” (pronounced as “shui” in Standard Chinese today), is written in onyomi (reflecting an earlier Chinese pronunciation) as “sui,” while the kunyomi, the indigenous Japanese pronunciation is that of “mizu.”

By the 9th century the Japanese had developed a phonetic system called kana, with which to write their language. There are actually two kana systems: hiragana and katakana. Hiragana is used as detailed above, while katakana is commonly employed to represent loanwords from western languages, such as English Both systems are based on abstracted radicals used in writing Chinese characters.

Today, about 2,000 kanji (Chinese characters) are used with the kana (the two phonetic systems) as a mixed writing system (though all kanji can also be written in kana).

Aside from the kanji and kana, systems of romanization (romaji) are used to write Japanese using the Western alphabet. Today the most commonly used system of romanization is the Hepburn system, which is used in most language text books and publications. To write the sounds of Japanese words based on the English alphabet are also sometimes incorporated into Japanese sentences.

English	Japanese	Kana spelling	Hepburn
Mount Fuji	富士山	ふじさん	Fujisan
tea	お茶	おちゃ	ocha
pizza	ピザ	ピザ	piza
Roman characters	ローマ字	ローマじ	rōmaji

 

Other Languages in East Asia

Besides Chinese, a number of other languages are spoken in China among the 55 ethnic minorities. Most of these languages are in these language families: Sino-Tibetan (such as Tibetan, Yi, Naxi, etc.), Ural-Altaic (Mongolian, Manchu, Uighur, etc.), or Tai (Zhuang, Dai, Dong [Gaem]. etc.). Several of these languages also have traditional writing systems, and in some cases scripts were developed for languages now extinct in China. Since 1949, a number of romanization systems have been devised for languages like Hani, Dong, Zhuang, Buyi, Daur, Miao (several versions for various subgroups), and Yao that traditionally had no written scripts (or had ones with only limited usage).

Among the traditional syllabic scripts are those related to ancient Middle-Eastern scripts, including Sogdian. These include early Uighur script, Mongolian, and Manchu (Manju). Written Tibetan and Dai, also syllabic, are related to Sanskrit and other scripts from ancient India. The written scripts used by today’s Uighur, Hui, and other Islamic minorities in China is Arabic. For a brief period of time, Khubilai Khan attempted to institute a syllabic script based on Tibetan script known as hP’ags-pa writing. He wished that all of the peoples in his realm would use the system, but his plans eventually failed.

Besides Chinese, other scripts native to southwest China include Yi and the “dongba” writing system of the Naxi nationality. Both the Yi script (which is actually several related scripts) and the Naxi script were primarily used by ritual specialists to record songs, chants, and local history. The Naxi dongba script is cartoon-like and the graphs have become popular design elements among young people in some parts of East Asia.

A script that looks very similar to Chinese characters was developed by the Tangut people in the small Xixia kingdom (in today’s Ningxia Hui Nationality Autonomous Region) by the Mongols destroyed in the 12th century. Another script that looks like Chinese was developed around the 13th century by the forerunners of the Manchu, the Nujen. Both the Xixia and the Jurchen (Nuzhen) script are superficially similar to Chinese graphs, but unless one knows the scripts they are indecipherable.

 

 

In a small area of Hunan province, a script known only to women, called Nüshu, was developed (probably in the 19th century) and used to write letters and record stories. Also, in a few cases in southern China, Chinese characters were once used for their sound value to write Zhuang and Dong, similar to the way the characters were used to write ancient Korean and Japanese.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sources:

Ramsey, Robert S. (1987). The Languages of China. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

 

Languages in East Asia