[East Sea(5)] 동해인가 일본해인가

 

[East Sea(5)] Understanding East Sea through Korean history

 

2010-06-21

 

I. Introduction

Since the Korean Peninsula is surrounded by water on three sides, Korea has had a keen interest in its waters throughout history. The sea area between the Korean Peninsula and the Japanese Archipelago has been called the “East Sea” in Korea based on the Oriental Thoughts of the Five Elements. More specifically, the names of sea areas surrounding the Korean Peninsula were created based on the combination of the four cardinal directions -north, south, east, west- and the space concept of the “Five Elements.” The East Sea was the one located to the east of the Peninsula.

The first record of the name East Sea can be traced back to a description by King Dongmyeong of the Goguryeo Kingdom in “The History of the Three Kingdoms” in 59 B.C. Meanwhile, the country name “Japan“ first appeared in 670 around 700 years after Korea began using the name East Sea and the appellation Sea of Japan first appeared in 1602 in a map dubbed “Mappamondo (Complete Map of the World)” by Matteo Ricci, an Italian Catholic missionary based in Beijing. Therefore, the name Sea of Japan was first used about 1,650 years after the Koreans began calling the sea area, East Sea.

 

 

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[East Sea(4)] 동해인가 일본해인가

[East Sea(4)] Change of meaning in 'East Sea' and 'Sea of Japan'

 

2010-06-14

 

1. Semantic change and geographical names

Every word has a variety of meanings that can be added, removed, or altered over time. Every single one of those three types of changes is a semantic change. Also, geographic names can change its meaning. In this case we can theoretically differ between two types:

1. The geographic unity to which the geographic name refers to is changing.

2. The geographic name itself goes through a semantic change in the course of time.

Both of these kinds of semantic changes with geographic names can proceed, admittedly, also parallel and dependent of each other.

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[East Sea(3)] 동해인가 일본해인가

 

[East Sea(3)]U.N. seeks peaceful resolution for names

 

2010-06-07

 

This is the third in a series of contributions and interview articles exploring standardization issues of the geographic names -- the “East Sea” and “Sea of Japan. Various views on the geographic name of the body of water between the Korean Peninsula and the Japanese archipelago will be presented in aims to raise awareness of the controversy. – Ed.

 

Peter E. Raper is former chairman of the United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names, and is a research associate of the Unit for Language Management at the University of the Free State, Bloemfontein, South Africa. He is also currently researching San (Bushman) place-names and their influence on toponyms in other languages. Raper obtained his Ph. D. degree at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa, in 1971. He served on the South African National Place Names Committee from 1972 to 1999, and was its chairman from 1996 to 1999. He served on the South African Geographical Names Council from 2000 to 2002.

 

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[East Sea(1)] 동해인가 일본해인가

 

East Sea/Sea of Japan, what is the problem?

 

2010-05-24

 

The East Sea/Sea of Japan has a surface of 978,000 square kilometers, a maximum depth of 3,742 meters, and an average depth of 1752 m. This sea is a relatively wide and expansive sea bordered by Korea, Japan and Russia which stretches for about 1,100 km from Wonsanman Bay in the west to Hokkaido in the northeast and for about 1,700 km from the Korea Strait in the south to the Tartar Strait in the north.

The sea is connected with the East China Sea and the Pacific Ocean via the Korea Strait in the southwest, the Pacific Ocean in the east via the Tsugaru Strait which divides Honshu and Hokkaido, and the Sea of Okhotsk by both the La Pérouse (or Soya) Strait which separates Hokkaido from the Russian islands of Sakhalin and the Tartary Strait which separates Sakhalin from the eastern coast of Siberia. Without these four narrow channels, the sea would be an enclosed sea surrounded by land.

 

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