为何独立宣言、大韩民国宪法等重要文书要用汉字书写？

2020年3月1日韩国独立101周年纪念仪式中一名韩国女官用汉语宣读宣言。大韩民国肯定没有百年历史，他们纪念的是1919年在中国上海成立的韩国临时政府。由于当时他们的独立宣言由汉语书写，因此用汉语宣读独立宣言也成了一种特定的仪式被保存了下来。在美版知乎Quora上，韩国网友提问道：为何独立宣言、大韩民国宪法等重要文书要用汉字书写？这引起海外广大网友们的注意，我们看看他们的观点。

问题：为什么大韩民国宪法要用汉字书写？

韩国网友Minneola Leem的回答

What needs to be corrected is that the Korean Constitution and laws are not all written in Chinese, but are written in Chinese. The official text is as follows:

需要纠正的是，韩国宪法和法律并非全部用中文书写，而是借助中文书写，官方文本如下：

The reason is simple: for a long time in ancient Korea, Chinese characters were the main writing tools.

原因很简单：在古代朝鲜很长一段时间里，汉字是主要书写工具。

Because there were no characters on the ancient Korean peninsula, and because of the influence of Chinese civilization, Chinese characters were used as official characters in ancient Korea. All kinds of historical texts were written in Chinese characters, not to mention legal texts.

由于古代朝鲜半岛上没有文字，而且由于中国文明的影响，汉字在古代朝鲜被用作官方文字，各种历史文本都用汉字书写，更不必说法律文本。

However, there are many problems when switching from many texts to Korean, because it is similar to an inscription, which is equivalent to Chinese Pinyin. Although it is easy to learn, it will be awkward when we encounter different characters with the same pronunciation.

然而，很多文本切换到韩语有很多问题，因为它类似于一种铭文，相当于中国的汉语拼音，虽然很容易学习，但当我们遇到不同的发音相同的字符时，就会很尴尬。

And Chinese characters, as ideographic characters, can easily eliminate the situation of different characters with the same pronunciation. We can immediately know the meaning of a specific Chinese character by looking at it. This is the biggest problem South Korea has encountered since using Chinese characters, because 70% of Korean vocabulary comes from Chinese, and there are many homophones and different words. If you write them separately, instead of putting them in a specific sentence, you can only guess.

而汉字，作为表意文字，可以很容易地消除发音相同的不同字符的情况，我们只需看一个特定的汉字，就能立即知道其含义。这是韩国自使用汉字以来遇到的最大问题，因为70%的韩语词汇来自汉语，而且有很多同音词和不同的单词，如果你把它们单独写出来，而不把它们放在一个特定的句子中，你就只能靠猜了。

This is why, no matter how much South Korea hates and belittles the characteristics of Chinese characters, there are many cases where Chinese characters must be used to write, otherwise Korean will not be able to express its meaning.

这就是为什么，无论韩国有多么痛恨汉字并贬低汉字的特点，有很多情形下必须用汉字书写，否则韩语将无法表达其含义。

For example, the name on the Korean identity card must be written in Chinese, because most names are three words, not one sentence, and it is impossible to guess which word is in Korean alone. This is why many Koreans have to choose Chinese names and translate them into Korean.

例如，韩国身份证上的名字必须用汉字书写，因为大多数名字都是三个单词，而不是一个句子，而且不可能单独用韩语猜出是哪个单词。这就是为什么许多韩国人必须选择中文名字，然后将其翻译成韩语。

恢复汉语运动

The second area where Chinese characters must be used is legal documents and other official documents. For example, when we talk about legal documents, we need to use words in a very professional way. Every sentence cannot be ambiguous, but this cannot be done only in Korean. So until now, Korean official legal documents must be written in Chinese, or when there are special words, they must be written in Chinese.

第二个必须使用汉字的领域是法律文件和其他官方文件。例如，当我们谈论法律文件时，需要非常专业地使用词语，每一句话都不能模棱两可，但这不能仅用韩语来完成，所以直到现在，韩国的官方法律文件必须用中文书写，或者当有特殊词语时，必须用中文来书写。

There is also the case of place names, which cannot be repeated generally, or they may not be confirmed accurately. Sending and receiving express delivery are both problems.

还有地名的情况，通常不能重复，否则可能无法准确确认，收发快递都是个问题。

Since the late 1990s, the new laws promulgated by the National Assembly and the government’s implementation guidelines have been written in simple proverbs. Nowadays, even the laws made in the period of mixed Chinese characters are also published in simple proverbs by default. However, even so, due to the prevalence of Chinese nouns in Korean laws in the early years (including the colonial period seriously affected by Japan), it is still common to use brackets to add Chinese characters in daily documents. The ability to read certain Chinese characters, as well as basic writing skills, are still necessary for examinations and practical applications, such as the Bar Examination.

从20世纪90年代后期开始，国民议会颁布的新法律和政府的实施指南都是用简单的谚语写成的。如今，即使是在混合汉字时期制定的法律，也默认以简单的谚语发布。然而，即便如此，由于韩国早年（包括受日本严重影响的殖民时期）法律中汉语名词的盛行，在日常文件中使用括号来添加汉字仍然很常见。阅读某些汉字的能力，以及基本的写作技能，仍然是诸如律师考试等考试和实际应用所必需的。

All Korean laws need to be prepared with a valid version of Chinese and Korean as the final legal interpretation.

韩国的所有法律都需要准备一个中文和韩文混合的有效版本，作为最终的法律解释。

英国网友林恩•莱德诺尔的回答

One of the main reasons is that Korean uses syllables, and Korean is one of the few words that use syllables specially.

一个主要原因是韩语使用音节，朝鲜文是少数专门使用音节的文字之一。

The advantage of the syllabus is that it is always 100% accurate because it is entirely based on pronunciation. You can learn the whole Korean language in 10 minutes. Once you master the pronunciation skills, you can pronounce it perfectly.

音节表的好处是它总是100%准确地阅读，因为它完全基于发音。你可以在10分钟内学会整个朝鲜文，一旦掌握了发音技巧，就可以完美地发音。

What are the disadvantages? Pronunciation changes over time. The syllables must be changed to reflect the correct pronunciation. Therefore, if the Constitution is written in Korean, you will face the risk of making the original text completely incomprehensible in about 80-100 years. This is the same reason that the Japanese Constitution is not entirely written in pseudonyms, or the English Constitution does not use the International Phonetic Alphabet.

缺点是什么？发音随时间推移而变化。音节必须改变以反映准确的发音。因此，如果宪法是用韩文写成的，那么在大约80-100年后，你将面临使原文完全无法理解的风险。这与日本宪法不完全用假名书写，或英语宪法不使用国际音标等原因相同。

At the same time, Chinese is just the opposite. It conveys accurate meaning, but has little change in pronunciation. You can use completely different pronunciation (just like different Chinese dialects), but when you write it down, you can still fully understand it.

与此同时，汉语恰恰相反。它传达了准确的意思，但在发音方面却很少变化。你可以用完全不同的发音（就像不同的汉语方言一样），但是当你写下来的时候，你仍然可以完全理解。

Although Chinese is no longer available for daily use, you need Chinese for legal matters (documents may be relevant decades later). Until today, even the ultra formal government newspapers are written in Chinese.

虽然汉文早已不供满足日常使用，但对于法律方面的事情（几十年后文件可能会相关），你需要汉文。直到今天，即使是超正规的政府报纸也是用中文撰写的。

Therefore, the Constitution should be written in Chinese as formally as possible.

因此，宪法尽可能正式地用中文书写。

中国网友商乐维的回答

In theory, Korean lawyers do not need to know Chinese characters.

在理论上，韩国律师不需要了解汉字。

• There are no professional institutions or regulations in Korea that require lawyers to understand Chinese characters.

•韩国没有要求律师了解汉字的专业机构或法规。

• Today, Korean laws are written only in Korean, and the technical terms in brackets are equivalent to Korean. The old laws were written in Korean, a mixture of Chinese characters. Now they have been completely rewritten into Korean.

•如今，韩国法律仅以韩文书写，括号中的技术术语与韩文等同。旧的法律是用混合着汉字的韩语书写的，现在已经完全改写成韩语。

But in practice, Korean lawyers must be proficient in Chinese characters.

可在实践中，韩国律师必须精通汉字。

• Chinese characters enable readers to infer the meaning behind words. Korean law contains many homophones and complex words, so knowing the meaning behind each component helps to distinguish them. For example, I used to read a legal judgment using the word: 사 법. In the form of Korean, in the mind of the default word is “사 법”, “justice” corresponding Chinese form. But the ruling in the text, 사 법 attached explanation is: after the law, which means that under the jurisdiction of two people of the relationship between “civil law”, rather than the jurisdiction of the relation between individual and nation “public law”. Therefore, the insertion of Chinese characters helped me to find the appropriate terms between these two homophones.

•汉字使读者能够推断单词背后的含义。韩国法律包含许多同音词和复杂的词汇，因此了解每个成分背后的含义有助于区分它们。例如，我以前读过一篇法律判决书使用这个词：사법. 在韩语形式中，脑海中出现的默认词是“사법”，对应于汉语形式“司法”. 但在裁决文本中，사법 之后附着的解释是：私法, 这意味着管辖两个人之间关系的“私法”，而不是管辖个人与国家之间关系的《公法》。因此，汉字的插入帮助我在这两个同音字中找到了合适的术语。

• Many legal materials in the past were written in a mixture of Korean and Chinese scripts. All lawyers must deal with such material in their legal studies . Even if they are not enrolled in a special course devoted to learning Chinese, lawyers have no choice but to learn the most commonly used Chinese for practical purposes.

•过去的许多法律材料都是用混合的韩文和汉语的脚本编写的。所有律师都必须处理他们法律研究中的此类材料。即使他们没有参加专门学习汉文的专门课程，律师也别无选择，只能为了实际目的学习最常用的汉文。

韩国网友宋金运的回答

Practically speaking, this is not necessary, but it would be very helpful because knowing Chinese characters can give Korean lawyers a deeper understanding of legal concepts.

从实际上讲，这是没有必要的，但这将是非常有帮助的，因为了解汉字可以让韩国律师对法律概念有更深入的理解。

Historically, almost all Korean legal words were derived from pre-1945 Japanese law (which in turn was derived from 19th century European civil law), and the Japanese used only kanji (Chinese characters) as legal terms. Therefore, it would be helpful if the Korean lawyer had a grasp of the basic Japanese/Chinese characteristics to understand the “original meaning” or meaning of the legal words he/she is reading. As you understand, Korean is just speech.

从历史上看，几乎所有的韩国法律词汇都源自1945年之前的日本法律（而日本法律又源自19世纪的欧洲民法），日本人只使用汉字（汉字）作为法律术语。因此，如果韩国律师掌握了日本/中国的基本特征，以理解他/她正在阅读的法律单词的“原意”或含义，这将很有帮助。正如你所理解的，朝鲜文只是语音。

For example, if I only wrote “원 고” (won go), meaning is not clear, because it is not a common word, has several meanings of the plaintiff, the original, so most of the south Korean lawyer would understand this refers to the court the plaintiff in the case.

例如，如果我只写了“원고“（won go），意思不清楚，因为它不是一个常用词，有几个意思原告、原稿，那么大多数韩国律师会理解这是指法院案件中的原告。

Perhaps the easiest way to compare is to say that it is helpful for American lawyers to know Latin because many common law concepts and terms have their roots in Latin.

也许比较起来最简单的方法是说，了解拉丁语对美国律师来说是有帮助的，因为许多普通法概念和术语都起源于拉丁语。

韩国网友黄明贤的回答

After the invention of Hunminjeongeum by King Sejong of the Joseon Dynasty, the official documents of the Joseon Dynasty of the Lee Dynasty were still written in Chinese. Hangul was popular among ordinary people and women, and ordinary people used hangul to write personal documents and record poems. Under this influence, the two classes in the middle and late Joseon Dynasty began to use hangul in literary and artistic creation, and there were novels with Hangul mixed with Chinese characters and even pure Hangul works. After the founding of the Li Dynasty at the end of the period, official documents began to use mixed Chinese and Korean.

朝鲜世宗发明训民正音后，李氏朝鲜政府公文仍使用汉文，韩文字母（谚文）主要在普通民众与女子之中流行，庶民使用谚文写作私人文书、记录诗歌等。受其影响，朝鲜王朝中后期两班阶层也开始将谚文用于文艺创作，出现了汉字谚文混合体书写的小说、甚至纯韩文书写的作品。李朝末期开国后，公文也开始使用韩汉混用文。

During the Japanese rule of Korea, Japanese was the language used in Korean education. In the early and middle years of Japanese rule, Korean was also taught in schools. In the late period of Japanese rule, Korean was eliminated from school education in response to Japanese colonial education.

朝鲜日治时代，日语为朝鲜教育使用的语言；日治前期与中期，学校教育中亦教授韩语；日治后期，因应日本殖民化教育，韩语被从学校教育中抹除。

After World War II, hangul was elevated to the national script. North Korea abolished Chinese characters in 1949. The article on the abolition of Chinese characters in the Chosun Dictionary states that North Koreans should “only write our own unique characters and not use Chinese characters in ordinary written life.” In Korea, the use of Chinese characters has not been abolished, but due to the policy of restricting Chinese characters, the frequency of Chinese characters is decreasing, and the content of Chinese characters in Chinese-Korean mixed texts is decreasing.

第二次世界大战后，谚文被提升至国家文字。1949年朝鲜废除了汉字。《朝鲜语大辞典》中关于废除汉字的条目指出北韩人民要“只写我们自己独特的文字，不要在普通的文字生活中使用汉字”。在韩国，虽未废除汉字的使用，但由于限制汉字的政策，汉字的使用频率逐渐降低，韩汉混用文中的汉字成分逐渐减少。

In the 1990s, South Korea basically realized the complete use of proverbs to write articles. Except for law and medical books and some traditional festivals, Korean and Chinese mixed languages were almost completely marginalized. Only occasionally in order to avoid confusion between words in an alternative proverbs in parentheses after the note Chinese characters, called “Chinese characters and” (Korean: 한 자 병 기 / 倂 written Chinese characters).

1990年代，韩国基本实现了完全以谚文书写文章，韩汉混用文除了法学和医学书籍及一些传统节日外几乎完全被边缘化；只有偶尔为了避免语词之间混淆才会在有歧义的谚文后括号内附注汉字，称为“汉字并记”（韩语：한자병기／漢字倂記）。

But things get more complicated. The reason is the law. Open up South Korea’s constitution and you’ll see that about half of it is written in Chinese! Of course you still can’t read the South Korean constitution. Can a person who only knows Korean understand the constitution of Korea? Of course not. A native Korean who can’t read his own constitution. The reason for this is not that Korean law writers are bad, but that the Hangeul cannot bear the burden of writing laws.

但是事情变得更加复杂起来。原因就在于法律。打开韩国的宪法，你可以明明白白的看到约有一半的内容是用中文书写的！当然你还是看不懂韩国的宪法。那么一个只会韩文的人就能看的懂韩国的宪法吗？当然也看不懂。一个土生土长的韩国人，竟然看不懂自己的宪法。之所以会发生这种情况，当然不是韩国的法律编写者做坏，而是因为韩文无法承担书写法律的重任。

Chinese is the only semiotic word in use in the world today, which is a trinity of sound, shape and meaning, while Korean, as a product of imitation, has a huge defect. This problem is not obvious in the use of spoken language, but becomes serious when it comes to the use of written words.

汉语是今天世界上尚在使用的唯一的表义字，音形意三位一体，而韩文作为一种模仿制造的产物，有着巨大的缺陷。在口语的使用中这个问题尚且不太明显，但是一旦涉及到书面文字的使用问题就立刻变得很严重。

For example, Li, Li, Li, Fang, Fang, Fang, the pronunciation can be exactly the same, but the meaning is not the same. In Chinese, there is no problem in using different words to express, but in Korean, it is very likely to be unable to distinguish the writing and the law is extremely strict on the accuracy of the sentence. The result of writing laws in Korean is a lot of ambiguity, so the Korean government has to use a lot of Chinese characters in the process of writing laws. Prosecutors, judges, lawyers, professors, and politicians all have to know Chinese to do a lot of the jobs associated with it.

比如说李、理、里，房、防、肪，读音可以完全一模一样，但是意思却又毫不相同，在中文中用不同的文字进行表达没有任何的问题，但在韩文中就极有可能无法在文字书写上进行区分而法律对于语句的精准程度要求极其的严苛，用韩文书写法律的结果就是产生了大量的歧义，因而韩国政府在法律的书写过程中不得不使用了大量的汉字。与之相关的大量的工作，检察官、法官、律师、教授、以及政客都必须懂汉语才有可能胜任。

In South Korea, Chinese is not part of the basic curriculum. So if you’re a Korean and you go to the bar exam one day, you have to read a textbook where you don’t know half the words, and you get an exam in a foreign language. It will make it difficult to learn both law and Chinese, and as a result, they will have to study together. It is really sad for the majority of Korean examinees.

而韩国的基础课程中并不包括汉语学习。也就是说如果你是一个韩国人，有一天你去参加司法考试，你需要看一本有一半的字都不认识的教材，拿到的是一份外语书写的试卷。会导致法律，和汉语都很难学，结果还要来混合学习，真为广大的韩国考生感到悲哀。

But for the former Sangban descendants, or today’s South Korean upper class, the system was a huge boon. Since the ancient Joseon Dynasty, Chinese has been the common language of the upper class of Joseon Dynasty. Although the official status of Chinese was abolished in modern times, it was widely used in the law. Of course, the elite class of Korea would not pay for martial arts at their own expense, and their children would naturally use Chinese when growing up in such an environment.

但是对于曾经的两班后代，或者说今天的韩国上流社会而言这个制度却是大大的有利。从古代朝鲜开始，汉语就是朝鲜上层通用语言，近代虽然虽然废除了汉语的官方地位，却又在法律中大量引用，韩国的精英阶层当然不会自费武功，他们的孩子在这样的环境下成长也理所当然的就会使用汉语。

They naturally have a huge advantage in the competition for all jobs related to government functions. As a result, a large number of people in South Korea have been campaigning for the resumption of Chinese learning. They believe that the elite has monopolized the learning of Chinese, leading to unfair competition and class solidification. Of the nine presidents South Korea has had since its founding, only two were born outside the original Yangban family.

在所有与政府职能相关的岗位竞争上，他们天然的拥有巨大的优势。因而韩国有着大量的民众一直致力于请愿重新恢复汉语学习。他们认为精英阶层垄断了对汉语的学习，因而导致了不公平的竞争以及阶层的固化。 韩国建国至今一共有9位总统，而仅有两位不是出生于原来的两班家庭。