Written Language of China, Japane and Korea and the Laborous Task of Being A Good Translator
When a student decides to take up learning a foreign language the most important aids to make use of are considered to be the dictionary and the grammar book. The Chinese have found no difficulty in producing the first. As regards the latter, the Chinese have never devised any specific rules that establish the syntax of a language, obviously because such rules have never 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. According to some Chinese Translation groups who have gone on to argue quite the contrary, Chinese virtually has no grammar. This is indeed partly true and partly wrong. Undeniably, the most important thing in deciphering Chinese is the understanding of its syntax.
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. Consequently, a Chinese piece of writing might be comprehended, though not fully, by a Japanese Translation professional, but he/she will be incapable of rendering it into his mother tongue. 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 Although the two languages might have had common origin, Japanese and Korean most probably separated far back in history. 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.
We still have no evidence about the origin of the Koreans. In contrast to Japanese that is an Uralic language, Korean that belongs to the family of the Turanian languages, virtually found neither a poetic nor a moral expression. Logically, its writing did not draw any attention. The Korean alphabet that is used nowadays is called Hangul. It consists of a nearly equal number of consonants and vowels. In inventing their alphabet the Koreans borrowed Chinese words and gave meanings to the Chinese characters, which makes Korean a genuine language and Korean Translation to English a laborious task. Though produced in entirely Chinese characters old Korean prose and verse by no means has reached the achievements of nations like China or Japan. It would be right to claim that China is the place of birth of a number of historical Korean written artifacts. Despite this fact, over the years the Korean language have evolved, and since the end of the 19th century most texts have been composed in Korean alphabet. More to the point. it is now only the Korean alphabet that has completely replaced the Chinese characters. Logically, not only in Korea but also elsewhere in the world the translation of such texts has turned into a most profitable business.