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South Korea Korean Identity
That the Korean kingdoms were strongly affected by Chinese
civilization and its institutions was not surprising. Not only
were the Chinese far more numerous and often more powerful
militarily than the Koreans, but they also had a more advanced
technology and culture. Chinese supremacy in these realms was
acknowledged not only by the Koreans, who were militarily
inferior, but by those who were powerful enough to conquer China,
such as the Kitan Liao, who ruled parts of northern China,
Manchuria, and Mongolia between 907 and 1127; the Mongols who
ruled China from 1279 to 1368; the Jurchen tribes, who later
seized northern Manchuria; and the Manchus, who ruled China
between 1644 and 1911. The adoption of Chinese culture was more
than simply an expression of submission to China, it also was the
indispensable condition of being civilized in the East Asian
context. This situation continued until the inroads of Western
civilization substantially altered the political and cultural map
of Asia in the latter part of the nineteenth century.
The adoption of Chinese culture and institutions by the
Korean kingdoms, however, did not obliterate the identity of the
Korean people. Koguryo had risen against the Chinese conquerors,
and Silla had stubbornly resisted Chinese attempts to turn it
into a colony. While Silla and subsequent dynasties were obliged
to pay tribute to the various Chinese, Mongol, and Jurchen
dynasties, and although Korea was subjected to direct
overlordship by the Mongols for a century, the Korean kingdoms
were able to survive as independent entities, enabling their
citizens to maintain an identity as a separate people.
Further contributing to the maintenance of this identity was
the Korean language, which linguists generally agree belongs to
the Altaic language family of Inner Asia. There is no doubt that
the indigenous language was deeply affected by the country's long
contact with China. Not only did its written form rely on Chinese
characters until the fifteenth century, but about half of its
vocabulary was of Chinese origin. Nevertheless, the language is
very different from Chinese in its lexicon, phonology, and
grammar. Although at one time the ruling classes were set apart
from the rest of the population by their knowledge of Chinese
characters and their ability to use Chinese in its written form,
since the unification of the peninsula by the Silla Dynasty all
Koreans have shared the same spoken language.
Data as of June 1990
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