How Korean pronunciations of hanja are linked to Chinese pronunciation

Rough draft 1 (2021/2/10)

耳溪 洪良浩 (이계 홍양호) went to Qing during 1783, and learned about different things (cart making, brick making, construction, etc.) and reported back to the king. In the same report, he wrote the following (in summary)

• Chinese and Koreans share a lot of words, however, there were no easy way to connect the sounds of the two since the time of Silla and Goryeo, however, King Sejong created the Hunminjeongeum, by operating on the principles of heaven, and by applying its principles to Chinese language, it was easily unpacked as a knot that is loosed by a sword, and by this, the scholars were able to master Chinese very quickly. However, the study of Chinese language has become formalized in certain way over time and these principles was lost, and even simple words can't be understood without a translator.

The point of this report is that you can learn to speak Chinese easily using Hangeul. This was lost in time.

東國正韻 (1447) was created in Korea after the creation of 洪武正韻 (1446) in China.

As written in Hunminjeongeum, the purpose was to be able to express the sound of all languages and even of animals. The four jamos lost during Japanese occupation need to be restored for this reason. (ㆍㅿㆁㆆ)

For example, "father" in English isn't exactly 파더, or 화더, but it can be accurately replicated with (up/down/right: ㅍㆆㅏ)더. In modern Korean, both Passion and Fashion are transliterated same, but with those old jamos, it's possible to differentiate between the two. In short, P/F, and L/R differentiations become possible. (left,right,right: ㄹㄹㅔ)이디오 instead of 라디오.

There are about 410 phonemes in Chinese, and there are 11,172 phonemes in Korean, and Hangeul can differentiate between P/F & L/R with the restoration of those four jamos.

According to 東國正韻 Korean pronunciation of Hanja tends to be "fast, and small, and soft" (or abbreviated), and Chinese pronunciations are "slow, and large, and rough/thick."

Same sounding words

About 50% of Hanja (aka hanzi) are essentially pronounced the same way.

e.g. 主 住 主 妇 (주 주 주 부), 民主 (민주), 引用 (인용), 信用 (신용), 移動 (이동), 農民 (농민), 差異 (차이), 已往 (이왕), 觀光 (관광), 住民, etc.

Law of consonants

A conversion chart (not a hard & fast rule)

韓	中
ㄱ	ㅋ, ㄲ, ㅉ
ㄷ	ㅌ, ㄸ
ㅂ	ㅍ,ㅃ
ㅅ	ㅆ, ㅊ
ㅈ	ㅊ, ㅉ, ㅌ
ㅊ	ㅌ
ㅎ	ㅆ
ㅁ	ㅇ