A Study on Chinese Characters’ Meaning of the Same Jaseok-Word in Hunmongjahoi(『訓蒙字會』)

This paper was intended to analyze the difference in meaning and changes of Chinese characters with the same Jaseok-Word, focusing on the Yesanbon (예산본), which is believed to be the oldest manuscript among others. In “Hunmongjahoi,” there are many cases where several Chinese characters correspond to one Jaseok-word. The fact that the same Jaseok-word responded to many Chinese characters reflects that a 1:1 semantic relationship did not occur. In other words, the relationship between the same Jaseok-word and the corresponding Chinese character is formed as 1:multiple. This forms an ambiguous domain of meaning so far. For example, there are 10 Chinese characters that correspond to the Jaseokword ‘블글’, and they are ‘丹, 雘, 彤, 赭, 頳, 赤, 朱, 緋, 紅, 絳’. There is no clear semantic distinction about this. This paper intends to examine the actual meaning difference by using the part corresponding to “地理(水類)” among the native words listed in “Hunmongjahoi.”