Cu Sikyŏng and His Works

CU SIKYONG AND HIS WORKS* ---------------------by Sukmoon Yoon (Excerpted from the author s M.A. thesis submitted at the University of Washington in 1967) * Please note that the romanization system is that of Professor Fred Lukoff under whose direction the thesis was written. 3.1 In the previous chapter we discussed briefly the types of linguistic study of their own tongue attempted from the 15th century down to late 19th century by Korean scholars. It was only in 1910, when Cu Sikyong's Kukomunbop 'Korean Grammar' was published in Seoul, that we can find evidence that linguistic analysis in the modern sense was applied to Korean by Korean scholars. Cu Sikyông was born in 1876 in the northwestern part ofKorea. The world he was born into was not a peaceful one where scholarship flourished, but a clamorous one of political confusion, a world in which most Koreans were ignorant of anything outside their own country. The small kingdom of the Far East which had been so tightly closed to foreigners was about to open her doors at the demand of her neighbors Japan and China, as well as at the demand ofWestern powers who were vying with each other to dominate this little kingdom. Cu Sikyöng, in his short life of thirty eight years (18761914 ), wrote five books and translated one while teaching at various schools in Seoul. The present paper is devoted mainly to the study of Cu Sikyöng and his works, not only because he was the first native scholar who was 97 98/Yoon interested in his native tongue for its own sake but also because he tried to describe it objectively. He described its peculiarities as he found them and did not try to mold the language into the pattern for the description of language which prevailed at his time. The personal resume that Cu Sikyöng presented to the Päcä High School in Seoul in 1912 states that he began his study of the Korean language in 1893 when he was eighteen years old. While he was studying Chinese, the only language in which to record one's ideas which was considered respectable at the time, he noticed that the meaning of each sentence had to be translated into Korean before he could begin to understand it. This difficulty gave him the idea that if the sentences were written in Korean from the start they would be a lot easier to understand. Also, he felt that learning to write and read in Korean instead of Chinese would save a tremendous amount of time which could be used in learning other things. Thus he decided to devote himself to the study of the Korean language. Scholars in Korea generally believe that Cu Sikyöng studied the Korean language and became such an ardent teacher ofit as a means ofrevolt against the Japanese. There is no doubt some truth to the picture of Cu Sikyöng as an active nationalist. For one thing, he was a member of the "National Language Institute", which was established by the government in 1908. However, when Korea was annexed by Japan in 1910 the Institute was abolished along with the Korean government. For another, he was a very active member of the "Independence Club", which was organized under the direction of a naturalized American citizen of Korean origin, Dr. Philip Jaisohn . Jaisohn, through the club's newspaper, "The Independent", attacked the decaying Korean government for its incompetence and corruption and criticized the foreign powers, especially Japan for her territorial ambitions in Korea. Cu Sikyöng believed that one's language was as important for his country's independence and prosperity as the land and the people. Although it is very likely that he truly believed in the study of the Korean language as a means of restoring Korea's lost sovereignty, nothing in his writing says this in so many words. Perhaps such an explicit statement is lacking because his books were all published after the Japanese annexation of Korea, and he was unable to allude to the question of independence for his country. Cu Sikyöng did not formally define what he understood as "grammar", but...