Britannica entry on Korean spacing
Koreans began putting spaces between words in 1896. As in English, judgment varies on what constitutes a word rather than a phrase. Earlier, Koreans wrote syllables as distinct blocks but failed to separate words. That was the Chinese tradition, which is still alive in Japan, where the mixture of kanji (Chinese characters) and kana (syllabic symbols based on kanji) helps the eye detect phrase breaks. The Chinese comma and period (a hollow dot) are commonly used, and modern punctuation marks have been taken from English.
Contributed by Samuel E. Martin. He also listed references (beat Encarta!). The magical 1896 reference should be somewhere in these books:
Samuel E. Martin, A Reference Grammar of Korean (1992), provides a comprehensive description. Ho-min Sohn, Korean (1994), is a detailed grammar. Textbooks include Fred Lukoff, Spoken Korean, 2 vol. (1945–47); B. Nam Park, Korean Basic Course, 2 vol. (1968–69); Samuel E. Martin and Young-sook C. Lee, Beginning Korean (1969, reissued 1986); and two series of textbooks published by Korea University (Seoul): Han’gugo, 4 vol. in various editions (1989–91); and Han’gugo Hoehwa, 4 vol. in various editions (1991–93). Informative articles may be found in The Korean Language (1983), edited by the Korean National Commission for UNESCO. The writing system is thoroughly discussed in Young-key Kim-Renaud (ed.), The Korean Alphabet: Its History and Structure (1997). Transcription is discussed in G.M. McCune and E.O. Reischauer, “The Romanization of the Korean Language,” Transactions of the Korea Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, 29:1–55 (1939), with an abbreviated account in the same journal, “Tables of the McCune-Reischauer System for the Romanization of Korean,” 38:121–129 (1961); and in Robert Austerlitz et al., “Report of the Workshop Conference on Korean Romanization,” Korean Studies, 4:111–125 (1980). S. Robert Ramsey, Accent and Morphology in Korean Dialects (1978), is a valuable explanation of accentual patterns. The history of the language is chronicled in Ki-mun Yi, Kugosa kaesol, 2nd ed. (1972), also available in a German edition, Geschichte der koreanischen Sprache, trans. and ed. by Bruno Lewin (1977). The prehistory is reviewed in Ho-min Sohn, "The State of the Art in the Historical-Comparative Studies of Japanese and Korean,” Korean Studies, 4:29–50 (1980); and further explored in three works by Samuel E. Martin: “Morphological Clues to the Relationships of Japanese and Korean,” in Philip Baldi (ed.), Linguistic Change and Reconstruction Methodology (1990), pp. 483–509, “On the Prehistory of Korean Grammar: Verb Forms,” Korean Studies, 19:139–150 (1995), and Consonant Lenition in Korean and the Macro-Altaic Question (1996). The authoritative dictionary is Uri mal kun sajon, 4 vol. (1991–92), compiled by Han’gul Hakhoe (Korean Language Research Society). Also very useful is the dictionary by Yi Sung-nyong (Sung-nyong Lee), Kugo taesajon, 3 vol. (1960); and the North Korean dictionary Choson mal sajon, 6 vol. (1960–62). The recommended Korean-English dictionary is Samuel E. Martin, Yang Ha Lee (Yang-ha Yi), and Sung-un Chang (Song-on Chang), A Korean-English Dictionary (1967). Y.H. Lee and J.W. Kwun (eds.), Minjungsugwan’s Pocket English-Korean Dictionary, new rev. ed., 2 vol. (1960), is useful for translating English words.
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