What is Hanja?
Q: What is Hanja?
A: Hanja is the Korean word for Chinese characters. It refers to Chinese characters that have been borrowed from the Chinese language and used in the Korean language with Korean pronunciation.
Q: What is Hanmun?
A: Hanmun (한문) is about the Chinese Classical writing, but hanja can sometimes be used to generally mean hanmun too.
Q: How has Hanja changed over time?
A: Hanja has not changed much over time, so almost all of the Chinese characters in hanja are exactly the same as in traditional Chinese, except maybe the stroke order for a few words. Only a few hanja characters are unique to Korea.
Q: When was hangul created?
A: Hangul was created in 1440s by a group of scholars led by King Sejong the Great.
Q: When did hangul become more widely used than hanja?
A: By early 19th and 20th century, hangul became more widely used than hanja and it is now the official writing system of Korea.
Q: Are older books written in hanja or hangul?
A: Older books in Korean literature are mostly written in hanjal.
Q: Do people still learn hanja today?
A: Scholars who learn Korean history still learn hanja to read historical papers and children in South Korea still learn it since many South Korean words still have roots in hanja. In North Korea however, they only use hangul to write instead of both hangul and hanjal
