Ch'ŏphae sinŏ


Ch'ŏphae sinŏ or 2=捷解新語 is a Korean textbook of colloquial Japanese, written in 1618 and published by the Bureau of Interpreters in 1676.
It is a source for Late Middle Japanese.

Author

Kang Usŏng was a native of Jinju in southeast Korea. At the age of 11, he was one of thousands of Korean civilians abducted to Japan during the Imjin War during the initial invasion in 1592. He was released after 10 years and returned to Korea, where he embarked on a career as an official interpreter, passing the interpreter's exam in 1609. He served as an interpreter at the Korean embassies in Japan and as an instructor in Busan, the departure point for missions to Japan.
By 1618, he had completed a series of instructional materials on the Japanese language in the form of conversations involving Koreans travelling to Japan for business or diplomacy.

Editions

The work was published in 10 fascicles in 1676, when it was adopted as the official textbook for teaching Japanese, replacing 14 out-dated titles.
The Japanese text is written in large hiragana, with a phonetic transcription in Hangul on the right and followed by a translation in Korean mixed script.
A copy of this edition is held by the Seoul National University Library.
The book and its revisions remained the sole official Japanese text for the following two centuries.
A revised edition known as the Chungan or Kaesu ''Ch'ŏphae sinŏ was published in 12 fascicles in 1781.
It contains the same conversations and Korean translation as the original, but the Japanese text was updated to reflect the colloquial language of the time.
Copies of this edition are held in the Seoul National University Library, the Tōyō Bunko and the Eihei Temple.
The preceding editions focussed on spoken Japanese, and so recorded the language using hiragana.
The Ch'ŏphae sinŏ munsŏk'', published in 12 fascicles in 1796, was aimed at those who were also studying written Japanese.
Intended as a companion to the preceding edition, it contained only the Japanese text, rewritten in the Japanese mixed script.
The only known surviving copy of this edition is held in the Seoul National University Library.