Hanja

South Korean primary schools abandoned the teaching of Hanja in 1971, although they are still taught as part of the mandatory curriculum in grade 6. They are taught in separate courses in South Korean high schools, separately from the normal Korean-language curriculum. Formal Hanja education begins in grade 7 (junior high school) and continues until graduation from senior high school in grade 12. A total of 1,800 Hanja are taught: 900 for junior high, and 900 for senior high (starting in grade 10).[6] Post-secondary Hanja education continues in some liberal-arts universities.[7] The 1972 promulgation of basic Hanja for educational purposes changed on December 31, 2000, to replace 44 Hanja with 44 others.[8]

Debate flared again in 2013 after a move by South Korean authorities to encourage primary and secondary schools to offer Hanja classes. Officials said that learning Chinese characters could enhance students' Korean-language proficiency; protesters called the program "old-fashioned and unnecessary".[9]

Though North Korea rapidly abandoned the general use of Hanja soon after independence,[10] the number of Hanja taught in primary and secondary schools is actually greater than the 1,800 taught in South Korea.[11] Kim Il-sung had earlier called for a gradual elimination of the use of Hanja,[12] but by the 1960s, he had reversed his stance; he was quoted as saying in 1966, "While we should use as few Sinitic terms as possible, students must be exposed to the necessary Chinese characters and taught how to write them."[13] As a result, a Chinese-character textbook was designed for North Korean schools for use in grades 5–9, teaching 1,500 characters, with another 500 for high school students.[14] College students are exposed to another 1,000, bringing the total to 3,000.[15]

In South Korea, Hanja are used most frequently in ancient literature, legal documents, and scholarly monographs, where they often appear without the equivalent Hangul spelling. Usually, only those words with a specialized or ambiguous meaning are printed in Hanja. In mass-circulation books and magazines, Hanja are generally used rarely, and only to gloss words already spelled in Hangul when the meaning is ambiguous. Hanja are also often used in newspaper headlines as abbreviations or to eliminate ambiguity.[17] In formal publications, personal names are also usually glossed in Hanja in parentheses next to the Hangul. In contrast, North Korea eliminated the use of Hanja even in academic publications by 1949, a situation that has since remained unchanged.[13] Hanja are often used for advertising or decorative purposes, and appear frequently in athletic events and cultural parades, dictionaries and atlases. For example, the Hanja 辛 (sin or shin, meaning sour or hot) appears prominently on packages of Shin Ramyun noodles.

In modern Korean dictionaries, all entry words of Sino-Korean origin are printed in Hangul and listed in Hangul order, with the Hanja given in parentheses immediately following the entry word.

This practice helps to eliminate ambiguity, and it also serves as a sort of shorthand etymology, since the meaning of the Hanja and the fact that the word is composed of Hanja often help to illustrate the word's origin.

As an example of how Hanja can help to clear up ambiguity, many homophones can be distinguished by using hanja. An example is the word 수도 (sudo), which may have meanings such as:[18]

1. 修道: spiritual discipline
2. 囚徒: prisoner
3. 水都: "city of water" (e.g. Venice or Suzhou)
4. 水稻: paddy rice
5. 水道: drain, rivers, path of surface water
6. 隧道: tunnel
7. 首都: capital (city)
8. 手刀: hand knife

Hanja dictionaries (Jajeon (자전, 字典) or Okpyeon (옥편, 玉篇)) are organized by radical (the traditional Chinese method of classifying characters).

Korean personal names are generally based on Hanja, although some exceptions exist. On business cards, the use of Hanja is slowly fading away, with most older people displaying their names in Hanja while most of the younger generation uses Hangul. Korean personal names usually consist of a one-character family name (seong, 성, 姓) followed by a two-character given name (ireum, 이름). There are a few two-character family names (e.g. 남궁, 南宮, Namgung), and the holders of such names—but not only them—tend to have one-syllable given names. Traditionally, the given name in turn consists of one character unique to the individual and one character shared by all people in a family of the same sex and generation (see Generation name). During the Japanese administration of Korea (1910–1945), Koreans were encouraged to adopt Japanese-style names, including polysyllabic readings of the Hanja, but this practice was reversed by post-independence governments in Korea. Since the 1970s, some parents have given their children given names that break the Chinese generation style, and are simply native Korean words. Popular ones include Haneul—meaning "sky"—and Iseul—meaning "morning dew". Nevertheless, on official documents, people's names are still recorded in both Hangul and in Hanja (if the name is composed of Hanja).

Due to standardization efforts during Goryeo and Joseon eras, native Korean placenames were converted to Hanja, and most names used today are Hanja-based. The most notable exception is the name of the capital, Seoul, a native Korean word meaning "capital" with no direct Hanja conversion; the Hanja gyeong (경, 京, "capital") is sometimes used as a back-rendering. For example, disyllabic names of railway lines, freeways, and provinces are often formed by taking one character from each of the two locales' names; thus,

• The Gyeongbu (경부, 京釜) corridor connects Seoul (gyeong, 京) and Busan (bu, 釜);
• The Gyeongin (경인, 京仁) corridor connects Seoul and Incheon (in, 仁);
• The former Jeolla (전라, 全羅) Province took its name from the first characters in the city names Jeonju (전주, 全州) and Naju (나주, 羅州) ("Naju" is originally "Raju," but the initial "r/l" sound in South Korean is simplified to "n").

Most atlases of Korea today are published in two versions: one in Hangul (sometimes with some English as well), and one in Hanja. Subway and railway station signs give the station's name in Hangul, Hanja, and English, both to assist visitors (including Chinese or Japanese who may rely on the Hanja spellings) and to disambiguate the name.

Hanja are still required for certain disciplines in academia, such as Oriental Studies and other disciplines studying Chinese, Japanese or historic Korean literature and culture, since the vast majority of primary source text material are written in Hanzi, Kanji, Hanja, etc.

For the traditional creative arts such as calligraphy and painting, a knowledge of Hanja is needed to write and understand the various scripts and inscriptions, as is the same in China and Japan. Many old songs and poems are written and based on Hanja characters.

This Korean War propaganda leaflet created by the US Army as part of Operation Moolah uses Hangul–Hanja mixed script.

Opinion surveys in South Korea regarding the issue of Hanja use have had mixed responses in the past. Hanja terms are also expressed through Hangul, the standard script in the Korean language. Hanja use within general Korean literature has declined significantly since the 1980s because formal Hanja education in South Korea does not begin until the seventh year of schooling, due to changes in government policy during the time. In 1956, one study found mixed-script Korean text (in which Sino-Korean nouns are written using Hanja, and other words using Hangul) were read faster than texts written purely in Hangul; however, by 1977, the situation had reversed.[19] In 1988, 80% of one sample of people without a college education "evinced no reading comprehension of any but the simplest, most common hanja" when reading mixed-script passages.[20]

Yakja (약자, 略字) simplification of 無

Some Hanja characters have simplified forms (약자, 略字, yakja) that can be seen in casual use. An example is , which is a cursive form of 無 (meaning "nothing").