ABSTRACT
This time, the Tcheonzamun (The Thousand Character Essay; written of 1000 letters in Chinese character) poem consists of 16 letters from 657th to 672nd characters. In the present report, we used two methods for translation; the first method is to use Chinese character meaning for the interpretation, and the second is to utilize Korean pronunciation for our interpretation. The researchers investigated the similarity of the meaning between these two methods. The researchers found some traces of Korean history during the translation, even though those writings were hidden in order to avoid the power of ruling authority on its special bilingual mask. Here, the special bilingual mask is utilized; that is a writing method in two language systems with Chinese meaning and Korean pronunciation systems. The meaning of those two writing systems was actually similar. But there is some difference; the Chinese meaning is soft, while the meaning on Korean pronunciation is real, sometimes full of agony, and sometimes it is to encourage Korean Maeg people! It is considered that Maeg country’s people wrote the Tcheonzamun (The Thousand Character Essay; written of 1000 letters in Chinese character) and Tcheonzamun was passed to China before 500 B.C.
Key words: Tcheonzamun, Korean history, translation, Chinese, special bilingual mask.
Dallet (1874) wrote that Tcheonzamun (The Thousand Character Essay; written of 1000 letters in Chinese character) was widely used to teach Chinese characters to children both in old China and Korea, and he wrote that Tcheonzamun (Tchou’en-ly on Canton writing) was used as the text book on Chi’n and Han (Tsin and Ha’n on Canton writing, respectively). Chi’n dynasty existed near Wei River in the sixth century B.C. (Fairbank and Reischauer, 1978). Wei River is a branch of Yellow River in China. This fact tells us that Tcheonzamun was brought into China from another country or written by somebody in China before 500 B.C.
It was said that there was no exact writing for Korean history during the old era (Dallet, 1874; Chung, 2013). But in an old Chinese dictionary (Kangxizidian, 1716), there were several records on Maeg people. And the researchers found that there are some traces of old Korean-Maeg people- in Tcheonzamun (Park and Kim, 2016a, b, c, d). The next is a part of writing on internet by Kim and Park (2016). Here, ‘I’ indicates Augustin Kim.“ My special interest is Tcheonzamun (The Thousand Character Essay; written of 1000 letters in Chinese character) translation.
During these several years, I have been translating Tcheonzamun. On the translation, it is found that Tcheonzamun is composed of 63 poems and that each poem is composed of 16 letters (except the last poem which is composed of only 8 letters). Sometimes I seemed to read 'The book of Proverbs' or 'The Wisdom of Jesus, son of Sirach (Ecclesiasticus)' in the Bible when investigating the meaning of Tcheonzamun poem. My wife, Hyeonhi Regina and me continue to write our essays including Tcheonzamun translation. One of those essays was published in a monthly Catholic journal in Republic of Korea (Kim and Park, 2015).
Some of the essays were submitted in the internet homepage of 'Daejeon Naedong Catholic Church in Republic of Korea' (cafe.naver.com/angolstar), and the others were submitted in the internet homepage of 'National Fraternity of the Secular Franciscan Order in Republic of Korea' (www.ofskorea.org). Though most of the essays were written in Korean, several essays were in English or in French, and two essays in Japanese. Each poem from Tcheonzamun encourages me to develop from present state, to know the preciousness of life, and to be subordinate to my spouse.
Is it strange for me to be subordinate to my wife? In my case it is 'yes', because I have not been a gentle husband to my wife Hyeonhi Regina. When we, 7-member family (our five children, my wife and me) were in France during the years of 1998-1999, my father Ilsoo Joseph Kim was seriously injured in an accident. At that time three of my family members (the fifth child Sohwa Therese, Hyeonhi and me) came back to Korea to see my father's last moment. After his funeral, I was desperate and the joy in me was little! If not for my wife’s support, I could not have fulfilled my work in France as a
Post-doctoral student. During the translation of the poem from Tcheonzamun, I felt that my father Ilsoo Joseph was telling me kind words as follows;
"My favorite son Sangdeog Augustin, please stand firm! You must be the strong father to your children, and you have to be the reliable husband to your wife. As you know, I love my five grand-children and my daughter in-law Hyeonhi Regina very much. There is in the world only one who can do this precious role, it is you! And I do promise it to you, my son, certainly I will support you! Therefore, please be well from your difficulties in your life! My loving son Sangdeog Augustin, first of all, I want to see you yourself live your life joyfully!"
We, Hyeonhi and Augustin, went on 8 October 2016 to the Mass of Father Jean Blanc, a French missionary of Missions Etrangeres de Paris. He works in Daejeon on the convent of Congregation of the Sacred Word. The following is a part of his sermon during the Mass on the dawn.
“Saint Mary appeared many times. She appeared in front of children. At Lourdes in France Saint Mary appeared in front of Saint Bernadette in the year 1858, and the Lady said to Bernadette “Please pray!” Saint Mary appeared again at Fatima in Portugal at 20th century, and the Lady said, “Pray for peace!” Saint Mary appeared at Banneux and Beauraing in Belgium in the 20th century, and the Lady said, “Pray please’'
The researchers used a HanSeogBong Tcheonzamun (The Thousand Character Essay; written of 1000 letters in Chinese character) (Kim, 2002). HanSeogBong is the name of a famous calligrapher in 16th or 17th century A.D. in Korea (Choseon dynasty), and he wrote the Tcheonzamun in his own calligraphy. Tcheonzamun translation into Korean language (Kim, 2002) is similar to the English version on internet in United Kingdom (Sturman. Edited by Cambridge Chinese Classics, www. camcc. Org, 2009). Kangxizidian (1716) published in China was used. And in the present report, we used two methods for translation; the first method is to use Chinese character meaning for the interpretation, and the second is to utilize Korean pronunciation for our interpretation. And the researchers investigated the similarity of the meaning between these two methods.
At first, the researchers are going to translate Tcheonzamun on Korean version (Kim, 2002).
(人+å”) 載 å— ç•: We start (人+å”) to cultivate crops (載) insun-lighted field (å—ç•).
我è—é»ç¨·: I(我) will do my best (è—) to plant millet (é») and wild millet (稷).
稅熟貢新: When the crop is ripe (熟), I will prepare the harvested thing for the tax of the country(稅) and also prepare the newly-harvested crop(新) in order to sacrifice for my ancestors(貢).
勸賞黜陟: I gave the present (賞) to the person who had worked hard (勸), and I expelled the one (黜陟) (who had been lazy).
The meaning in British version (Sturman, Source: www.oocities. org/npsturman/tce.html) is similar to that of Korean version. This time, the Tcheonzamun poem consisted of 16 letters from 657th character to 672nd character, and the title of the poem is “Let’s make from now on the land of our mind broader!” (- / V `) shows the tone of Chinese characters.
657-660 숙재남무 (SugZeNamMu; Korean alphabets) (人+å”)(`)載(`)å—(/)ç•(V) (Chinese characters).
If you want to harvest in good quantity the crop (人+å”) which you have sown (載), you had better plant the seed (ç•) in good soil (å—). “If the soil is good, the harvest will be favorable!”
661-664 아예서ì§(AYeSepZig) 我(V)è—(`)é»(V)稷(`) Not truth! You said that “if I capture good soil, all is well!” You, other country’s people, took from us good soil which originally we, the people of Maeg country, have owned. But we are going to have the more favorable things than you have now.
“Our brethren, I am telling you the thing that we are going to do. Let’s make from now on the land of our mind broader! And let’s be in prosperity better than our enemy is! If we keep in mind this thing, we will be so”
Until now I used to be angry with others (我), from now on I shall do good practice in my mind and become soft in human relations (è—). I will take out weed-like temper from my mind(稷) and I will change my rough characters into soft and good-crop like appearance(é»).
íƒœìˆ™ê³µì‹ (TaeSugKongSin) 稅(`)熟(/)è²¢(`)æ–°(-)When crop is harvested, we give something to our senior people (稅). This is our custom now, but it is not good. If I were such a senior or high person, I will not take such a selfish thinking. How do I prepare sufficient food for my family with good techniques (熟)? Be not rude to others (æ–°). Please think that this thing is a very precious treasure (è²¢) and do it with sincere carefulness.
The next is a talk between Augustin and Hyeonhi on 15 September 2016. It was the day of Tchuseog, one of the greatest feasts in Korea.
Augustin: Darling Hyeonhi, the Maeg people who have written Tcheonzamun have made Chinese characters.
Hyeonhi: They have selected letters from Chinese characters and made the Tcheonzamun. Unless the Chinese characters, they could not do it.
Hyeonhi: Therefore the Chinese characters must have been previously made.
Augustin: You are right! Anyway, Maeg people have made the Chinese characters and then they have written Tcheonzamun.
Augustin: They used Chinese characters exactly in Tcheonzamun.
669-672 권ìƒì¶œì²™ (KwonSangTchulTcheog) 勸(`)賞(V)黜(`)陟(`)If I give some good present with praise to someone (賞), there will be a pleasure in his mind with full energy to do everything (勸)! But if another person (Yeon) is very good in his(or her) activity and he can advance well (陟), you had better do not treat him respectfully in public (黜).
Kangxizidian (1716) wrote that “What a good thing that Maeg lives, even though their living place is situated in the barren
thing !” The Chinese people valued the behavior of Maeg people greatly.
And the researchers tried those four Chinese characters on Korean pronunciations. They think that this poem’s period is around 661 B.C. when Maeg country was defeated by Yeon country (Chung, 2013).
Korean alphabets (Korean pronunciation) Chinese characters (Chinese pronunciation)숙재남무 (SugZeNamMu) (人+å”)載å—ç• (chu zai nan mu) In modern Korean language, it is ‘ìˆ«ì œ 나무’ SusZeNaMu (The meaning is ‘there are only trees!’).
ì•„ì˜ˆì„œì§ (AYeSeoZig) 我è—é»ç¨· (wo yi shu ji). In modern Korean language, it is ‘아예 서지’ AyeSeoZi (The meaning is ‘we had better stop here completely!’) íƒœìˆ™ê³µì‹ (TaeSugKongSin) 稅熟貢新(shui shou gong xin). In modern Korean language, it is ‘ë˜ ì£½ 것으촒 DoeZugKeosSui (The meaning is ‘we are deadly tired!’). 권ìƒì¶œì²™ (KwonSangTchulTcheog) 勸賞黜陟(quan shang chu zhi). In modern Korean language, it is ‘금새 죽지’ KumSaeZukZi (The meaning is ‘we are going to die now!’)At that time, Maeg people were truly desperate. Because they were fleeing from Yeon country’s people. The environment from the translation through Korean pronunciation was much darker than that of the translation through Chinese character. But this one is more actual for expressing their emotion.
The researchers found some traces of Korean history during their Tcheonzamun translation, even though those writings were hidden in order to avoid the power of ruling authority on its special bilingual mask. Here, the special bilingual mask is utilized; that is a writing method in two language systems with Chinese meaning and Korean pronunciation systems. The meaning of those two writing systems was actually similar. But there is some difference; the Chinese meaning is soft, while the meaning on Korean pronunciation is real, sometimes full of agony, and sometimes it is to encourage Korean Maeg people!
It is fine that they could express similar meanings with different writing systems! How clever the Maeg country’s people are! We are very proud of our ancestor, Maeg people of 2500 years ago.
“Oh our ancestor! You are very good!” At this condition we usually say, “Fighting!” But if we speak this foreign language, our ancestor, Maeg people, will not be happy. We know that they want us to use Korean language, the precious treasure which they have kept from more than 2500 years ago. And they desperately wanted to preserve this Korean language even using the bilingual mask.
Kangxizidian (1716) wrote in a pitiful mood that “the language of Maeg people does not exist at present.” But here in Korea we speak the same language freely, even though the Maeg people must have written Tcheonzamun in Korean language pronunciation system secretly.
The researchers found some traces of Korean history during their Tcheonzamun translation. Here, the special bilingual mask was utilized; that is a writing method in two language systems with Chinese meaning and Korean pronunciation systems. The meaning of those two writing systems was actually similar. But there is some difference; the Chinese meaning is soft, while the meaning in Korean pronunciation is real, sometimes full of agony, and sometimes it is to encourage Korean Maeg people!
It is considered that Maeg country’s people wrote the Tcheonzamun (The Thousand Character Essay; written of 1000 letters in Chinese character) and Tcheonzamun and was passed to China before 500 B.C.
The authors have not declared any conflict of interests.
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Kim SA, Park HR (21 September 2016). Uri IlSoo Josheph Abuzi Saenggag 18 (Uri Minzogeui Gussen Iyagi - Tcheonzamun [Remember of my father Ilsoo Joseph 18 (Tcheonzamun is a story of our tolerant ancestors)].
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Park HR, Kim SA (3 October 2016). Wolsageum 1000 won ("Haneunimggeseo Urireul Yeopeseo Barabogo Kyesinda!") [Encouragement of 1 dollar for the foreign language study ("God sees us beside us!")].
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