Page:History of Corea, ancient and modern; with description of manners and customs, language and geography (1879).djvu/411

 TURANIAN NEIGHBOXTBa S81 Chinese — Inyite one good teacher (to) cause me well leam Corean. Corean — Qood teacher invite me Corean well cause learn. Though there are expletives in Corean corresponding to our marks of time and emphasis, these, as well as many of our prepositions and adverbs of place, are supplied by particular affixes to the noun or verb, ag., the first verse of John's Gospel reads thus : — Chv^v/me dogha isv/ni donv/n Harvwriiw/wro duboorw Beginning (in) word was ; word God company hanggS iav/ni donun got Hanuni/mr^u/ro. together was ; word just God The words singly being chu, do, i8u, Hanmmim, ice,, — ^the affix representing emphasis and time. Indeed, the beautiful flexibility of the Corean verb, can find no equal in the west among modem languages ; old Greek being the only language it appears to me, which can compare with it Leaving out of sight its polysyllabic character, it is evident at a ghmce that the Corean is a language entirely different from Chinese. Judging from grammatical construction, the true test, English can claim a much closer relationship with Chinese, if it has any ambition that way, than Corean can. And it is scarcely necessaiy to draw attention to its numerous terminative additions, in order to at once classify it with the Turanian or agglutinative fiEunily of languages. Indeed any man seeing the Corean physiognomy would almost unhesitatingly so classify Corean even if he knew nothing of the languaga COMPABISON WITH ITS TUKANIAN NEIQHBOUB& More interesting than the grammatical relationship of Corean with Chinese, is a comparison of this language with Manchu, Mongol, and Japanese; from some one of which one could readily suppose Corean to Eave sprung. And we would look for the closest possible kinship between it and Manchu ; for all the