Those who know me know I have a bit of an obsessive personality. What tends to especially spur me is the answer, "Nobody knows," to a random question.
Since coming back from Bali last week, my current fascination has been on Korean last names. The same week I moved to Seoul last September, The Economist published an article called, "Why so many Koreans are called Kim." Apparently about 50% of South Koreans have the last names of Kim, Park, and Lee. The answer, it seems, largely stems from Korea's feudal history, where only royals and a few aristocrats had the privilege of last names. Starting with the reign of Wang Geon and the Goryeo dynasty (918-1392), the granting of last names became a sort of reward to faithful subjects and government officials (by the way, the modern (Anglicized) name of "Korea" stems from this "Goreyo" dynasty, with the Hangeul letter "ㄱ" representing both "k" and "g"). Last names then became all the rage, with successful merchants often buying one through the purchase of a genealogical book, which commoners began to forge as well. The names "Lee" and "Kim" were used by royalty in ancient Korea, so these continued to be the "it" names for those taking on new last names. The trend seems to only be increasing in modern day Korea; as foreign nationals from other Asian nations become Korean, they apparently are continuing to choose Kim, Lee, Park, and Choi as their new Korean last names.
All fascinating. But Tyler blew my mind at some point in Bali when he asked: "Did you know that 'Lee' in Korean is spelled 이?" -- (I know, we have the most fascinating vacation conversations). You see, 이 actually just spells "Ee" -- not Lee. So since being back, between drunken conversations over sake, more serious conversations in Korean class, or Kakao chats with Korean-American friends in NYC, you can be sure I found ways to bring this topic into conversation (often not subtly so) over the last week.
Who knew that in piecing together the answer, I would learn so much about Korean history and culture through its language.
The name, Lee, goes back centuries and originates from China with this character (which is Romanized to "Li" for Chinese-Americans):
For centuries, Koreans had been using Chinese characters for their own alphabet. In fact, the small pool of Korean last names stems from Chinese surnames, which were adopted by the Korean court in the 7th century based on noble-sounding Chinese last names.
The fourth king of the Joseon Dynasty, King Sejong (also called Sejong the Great, who reigned from 1418-1450) made it his life goal to democratize literacy in Korea, thus spending the majority of his life creating the Hangeul alphabet (as well as enabling tremendous advancements in the areas of science, culture, art, and politics). I know this because soon after arriving in Seoul, we celebrated "Hangeul Day" on October 9th, where we had the day off and just explored. Rather than using one character for every word (as every learner of Mandarin painstakingly knows), the new Korean alphabet was an achievement of simplicity and intuitiveness. Comprised of 24 consonant and vowel letters, the consonant letters show you where to place your tongue (for instance "ㄴ" tells you to place you tongue on the front top of your mouth, producing the "n" sound), while vowels show you what shape to make your lips.
Given this alphabet, one would expect "Lee" to be spelled "리", which it's not. It's mind-bogglingly spelled "이" ("Ee"). Here's the fascinating thing though. In North Korea, the name Lee is actually spelled 리. So what's that about?!
As I learned, this stems back to 1933, during the time of Japanese occupation. As a way to rebel against Japan, occupied Korea produced a Proclamation on Korean Grammar (incidentally one main reason Christianity is so strong in Korea was also as a way to rebel against Japan and its religions).
One of the rules in this Proclamation was that Korean words should not start with the letter "L". Thus, all the 리's became 이's (for the sake of harmony -- a fundamental value in Korea -- Korean vowels can never stand by themselves; hence the placeholder consonant "0", which isn't actually pronounced when it's before a vowel).
After the North-South division in 1945 and the subsequent war, North Korea reversed this Proclamation, insisting that South Korea "polluted" the "pure" Korean language (and even still, North Koreans consider themselves the "pure" people and South Koreans "unpure" -- or so my South Korean friends tell me).
So that's why you'll see 리's in the North but not in the South. Of course, immigration to the West predated all of this, with the precedent already set. So this practice of romanizing to "Lee" continued outside of South Korea.
To complicate matters further, "ㄹ" is actually both "L" and "R", leading to last names like "Rhee" as well (thanks Rich Lee!) My Korean teacher's name is Yuri, but when she was young, her mother spelled her official romanized name as "You Lee", making her passport read "Lee (last name is always first) You Lee". She's still understandably upset about this.
In learning more about North Korean refugees (more to come on that, as I will apparently now be in a documentary about helping North Korean refugees in Seoul), I've learned that an important piece of integration is actually helping North Koreans learn "South Korean" language! As The New York Times reported back in 2006: "After six decades of living separated across a tightly sealed border, South and North Koreans find themselves divided by what used to be a common language, so much so that a person from one side often gets bewildered, amused, and even mistakenly angered by what a person from the other side says." For instance, while a North Korean thinks he's saying: "I'm fine, thanks" in response to "How are you?", the same expression said in the South means, "Mind your own business!" My US-centric favorite: the same word, "miji" means "Made in the USA" in South Korea, but "American imperialist" in the North.
So there you have it. All you likely wanted to know about Korean last names, or at least the nagging question of why Lee is spelled 이 in South Korea. I hope you'll now be able to sleep better at night... I know I surely will.
Since coming back from Bali last week, my current fascination has been on Korean last names. The same week I moved to Seoul last September, The Economist published an article called, "Why so many Koreans are called Kim." Apparently about 50% of South Koreans have the last names of Kim, Park, and Lee. The answer, it seems, largely stems from Korea's feudal history, where only royals and a few aristocrats had the privilege of last names. Starting with the reign of Wang Geon and the Goryeo dynasty (918-1392), the granting of last names became a sort of reward to faithful subjects and government officials (by the way, the modern (Anglicized) name of "Korea" stems from this "Goreyo" dynasty, with the Hangeul letter "ㄱ" representing both "k" and "g"). Last names then became all the rage, with successful merchants often buying one through the purchase of a genealogical book, which commoners began to forge as well. The names "Lee" and "Kim" were used by royalty in ancient Korea, so these continued to be the "it" names for those taking on new last names. The trend seems to only be increasing in modern day Korea; as foreign nationals from other Asian nations become Korean, they apparently are continuing to choose Kim, Lee, Park, and Choi as their new Korean last names.
All fascinating. But Tyler blew my mind at some point in Bali when he asked: "Did you know that 'Lee' in Korean is spelled 이?" -- (I know, we have the most fascinating vacation conversations). You see, 이 actually just spells "Ee" -- not Lee. So since being back, between drunken conversations over sake, more serious conversations in Korean class, or Kakao chats with Korean-American friends in NYC, you can be sure I found ways to bring this topic into conversation (often not subtly so) over the last week.
Who knew that in piecing together the answer, I would learn so much about Korean history and culture through its language.
The name, Lee, goes back centuries and originates from China with this character (which is Romanized to "Li" for Chinese-Americans):
For centuries, Koreans had been using Chinese characters for their own alphabet. In fact, the small pool of Korean last names stems from Chinese surnames, which were adopted by the Korean court in the 7th century based on noble-sounding Chinese last names.
The fourth king of the Joseon Dynasty, King Sejong (also called Sejong the Great, who reigned from 1418-1450) made it his life goal to democratize literacy in Korea, thus spending the majority of his life creating the Hangeul alphabet (as well as enabling tremendous advancements in the areas of science, culture, art, and politics). I know this because soon after arriving in Seoul, we celebrated "Hangeul Day" on October 9th, where we had the day off and just explored. Rather than using one character for every word (as every learner of Mandarin painstakingly knows), the new Korean alphabet was an achievement of simplicity and intuitiveness. Comprised of 24 consonant and vowel letters, the consonant letters show you where to place your tongue (for instance "ㄴ" tells you to place you tongue on the front top of your mouth, producing the "n" sound), while vowels show you what shape to make your lips.
Given this alphabet, one would expect "Lee" to be spelled "리", which it's not. It's mind-bogglingly spelled "이" ("Ee"). Here's the fascinating thing though. In North Korea, the name Lee is actually spelled 리. So what's that about?!
As I learned, this stems back to 1933, during the time of Japanese occupation. As a way to rebel against Japan, occupied Korea produced a Proclamation on Korean Grammar (incidentally one main reason Christianity is so strong in Korea was also as a way to rebel against Japan and its religions).
One of the rules in this Proclamation was that Korean words should not start with the letter "L". Thus, all the 리's became 이's (for the sake of harmony -- a fundamental value in Korea -- Korean vowels can never stand by themselves; hence the placeholder consonant "0", which isn't actually pronounced when it's before a vowel).
After the North-South division in 1945 and the subsequent war, North Korea reversed this Proclamation, insisting that South Korea "polluted" the "pure" Korean language (and even still, North Koreans consider themselves the "pure" people and South Koreans "unpure" -- or so my South Korean friends tell me).
So that's why you'll see 리's in the North but not in the South. Of course, immigration to the West predated all of this, with the precedent already set. So this practice of romanizing to "Lee" continued outside of South Korea.
To complicate matters further, "ㄹ" is actually both "L" and "R", leading to last names like "Rhee" as well (thanks Rich Lee!) My Korean teacher's name is Yuri, but when she was young, her mother spelled her official romanized name as "You Lee", making her passport read "Lee (last name is always first) You Lee". She's still understandably upset about this.
In learning more about North Korean refugees (more to come on that, as I will apparently now be in a documentary about helping North Korean refugees in Seoul), I've learned that an important piece of integration is actually helping North Koreans learn "South Korean" language! As The New York Times reported back in 2006: "After six decades of living separated across a tightly sealed border, South and North Koreans find themselves divided by what used to be a common language, so much so that a person from one side often gets bewildered, amused, and even mistakenly angered by what a person from the other side says." For instance, while a North Korean thinks he's saying: "I'm fine, thanks" in response to "How are you?", the same expression said in the South means, "Mind your own business!" My US-centric favorite: the same word, "miji" means "Made in the USA" in South Korea, but "American imperialist" in the North.
So there you have it. All you likely wanted to know about Korean last names, or at least the nagging question of why Lee is spelled 이 in South Korea. I hope you'll now be able to sleep better at night... I know I surely will.
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