What is Hanja Korean?

Hanja (한자), often referred to as the Korean name for Chinese characters, is a system of writing that has been historically used in Korea to represent the Korean language. It is a crucial part of the Korean writing system, and its use has been influenced by various factors over time. The term "Hanja" is a compound of two Chinese characters: "Han" (한), meaning "Chinese," and "Ja" (자), meaning "character" or "letter." This reflects the origin of these characters from the Chinese script.
Step 1: English Answer
The use of Hanja in Korea dates back to the early history of the Korean Peninsula, when the Korean language had no written form of its own. The introduction of Hanja to Korea is attributed to the spread of Chinese culture and influence during the Three Kingdoms period (57 BCE – 668 CE), particularly through the Goguryeo and Baekje kingdoms, which had close ties with China. The Silla kingdom, which later unified the Korean Peninsula, also adopted Hanja as its official script.
Hanja characters are logograms, meaning each character represents a word or a morpheme (the smallest meaningful unit of language). When Hanja was first introduced to Korea, it was used to write Classical Chinese, not the Korean language. However, as the Korean language developed its own grammatical structure and vocabulary, it became necessary to find a way to write the Korean language using Hanja. This led to the creation of the "Idu" system, where Hanja characters were used phonetically to represent Korean syllables.
Despite the practicality of the Idu system, it was limited because Hanja characters could not fully express the nuances of the Korean language. This limitation led to the development of a native Korean script, known as Hangul (한글), which was created during the Joseon Dynasty (1392–1897) by King Sejong the Great and his scholars. Hangul is a featural alphabet, where each letter represents a specific sound or phoneme, and it was designed to be easy to learn and use by all social classes.
The creation of Hangul marked a significant shift in the Korean writing system. However, Hanja continued to be used alongside Hangul, particularly in formal documents, scholarly texts, and legal codes. The use of Hanja was seen as a mark of education and status, and it was often preferred for its precision and the prestige associated with Chinese culture.
In the 20th century, there was a movement to limit the use of Hanja in favor of Hangul, as part of a broader effort to promote national identity and literacy. This culminated in the Hanja Abolition Movement, which led to the South Korean government's decision to restrict the use of Hanja in official documents and education. However, Hanja is still taught in schools, and many Koreans recognize a basic set of Hanja characters for reading historical texts and understanding the etymology of Korean words.
Today, Hanja is used in a limited capacity in South Korea, primarily for annotating the meaning of complex words in dictionaries, academic texts, and legal documents. In North Korea, Hanja is not used at all, as the country has adopted a pure Hangul system since its inception. In both countries, however, Hanja remains an important part of the cultural and historical heritage of the Korean people.
Step 2: Divider

Hanja (??, -h--) is the Korean name for Chinese characters. More specifically, it refers to those Chinese characters borrowed from Chinese and incorporated into the Korean language with Korean pronunciation. ... Han here (-h) means Chinese.Dec 22, 2016