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A study on Korean linguistics for the process of completion, the first complete translation of New Testament(1900-1904-1906) in Korea

  • Korean Language & Literature
  • 2014, (90), pp.67-99
  • Publisher : Korean Language & Literature
  • Research Area : Humanities > Korean Language and Literature

Yu Kyung-Min 1

1전주대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

Generally, the materials of Korean version Bible have not been dealt in Korean linguistics in comparison with other parts of literature. In fact, the Protestant missionaries' works of literature seem to be nonacademic and prejudiced because of the outcomes strategically based on their religious purpose, therefore they're unacceptable among the academic investigators. They say that the early Korean version Bibles were translated personally, written vernacularly, mostly religious terminologies in New Testament and the sentences of contemporary ones are informal and so forth. Actually, however, the Korean version Bibles have been translated and modified by reflecting linguistic reality for the purpose of missionary works as well as acquiring public readers. Also, the retranslated and the Revised Version have been published continuously for the sake of the readers and spelling orthography. The Korean version Bibles are Korean linguistic materials more than 100 years. Furthermore, it's possible to study on the correspondence between two words that's because the translation of the Bible has a characteristics from the same original and has a principle of literal translation. This paper explains that it's necessary and important to study Korean version Bibles equivalently, in comparison with the materials of Buddhism, Confucianism, medicine that were studied positively. This paper also not only illuminates why and how far it is away from, if contemporary Korean version Bible diverges from the formal representation but demonstrates how much this literatures effected on the formations of contemporary Korean language in the history of Korean linguistics. The first complete translation(Korean version) of New Testament was published in 1900. This is called 'Tentative Edition of the Board'. Since then 'The Permanent Executive Bible Committee - Board of Official Translators' brought out the Revised Bible in 1904. As there were lots of problems in the Revised Bible, they published the New Testament authorized version in 1906. The representations and vocabularies of Korean on those day could be found by researching how they amended and what they modified from the 'Tentative Edition of the Board' of 1900 to the New Testament of 1906, by way of the Revised Bible of 1904. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the modifying process how this Korean version Bible became established in Korea.

Citation status

* References for papers published after 2023 are currently being built.

This paper was written with support from the National Research Foundation of Korea.