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Showing posts with label teochew. Show all posts
Showing posts with label teochew. Show all posts

Tuesday, October 22, 2013

More vocabulary from another ancient language

While walking along the Seogang Bridge today, there was a sign in between the road. It was "wiheom". (Danger). That got my mind thinking of other words that are totally or 95-99% similar sounding to Korean in the Teochew language.

Total usage/speakers:
Korean - 80-100 million speakers (including North Korea, and parts of China provinces that have Korean ancestries, and up to Russian territories, and recent Kpop culture fans worldwide)
Teochew - 15-20 million speakers (including Shantou region within Guangdong, plus scattered around disaspora in Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, Australia, Hong Kong, Indonesia).

Words that are the same - Part 2:
1) 위험 - danger - approximately "ngui-hiem" (NOTE: this word is exactly the same in Vietnamese language as well)
2) 시간 - time - "sii gang"
3) 교 - bridge - "gyo" (with higher rising sound)
4) 쌍 - ssang - "saang"
5) 안심 - peace in the heart/secure feeling - "an sim"

Danger is nguy-hiem in Vietnamese as well!

Under the Mapo-gyo (마포교)


Thursday, October 17, 2013

Words that are very similar sounding in Teochew

One of the reason why I wanted to start to learn Hangugeo is due to the fact that many words that I stumbled upon were about 95-99% the same as in Teochew language, the "ancient" language my grandmother used. This language is just spoken by about 15-20 million people.

Here are some words that are similar:
1) 학생 (hak saeng) - student
2) 책 (chaek) - book
3) 기회 (ki hw-oe) - chance
4) 진심 (jin sim) - wholeheartedly
5) 남섹 (nam saek) - dark blue colour

These words are pronounced exactly the same.

What is the connection that some words are exactly the same?

According to one research, the roots were from the even ancient language of 5000-7000 years ago. And the "tribes" of Korean and Teochew still used these ancient words, hand down from generations. 

While other words were replaced. Modified. But things like "student" is as old as time. So it remains. Will add more as I discover more similar words.

Saturday, October 12, 2013

Today was Lesson 2 Level 0 at Kongbubang

Today was Lesson 2.
It was mainly revision since the actual teacher wasn't here. But we got up to the "final consonant" section, and also a good revision of the "w" sounds.

It was perfect. Cause one word that is 100% teochew appeared. What is "sin"? 죄 (ju-aey) I previously had written some discovery of similar words from Korean and Teochew and compiled them haphazardly based on discovering it, there and then, and whenever I had good internet to update. So I guess I will port them over or tidy it up. It's currently still there are: "KoreanTeochewLanguage.blogspot.com"

Kongbubang's FB Group page: https://www.facebook.com/groups/kongbubang/

Lessons are 1000 Won for cost of material/rental/volunteer, Saturdays 4pm.

After the lesson, I walked to Yongsan Electronics Market but it was quite a disarray and many shops closed.