The KOREAN Civilization: Things Every Civ Player Should Know

[S. Kroeze]

And about the space covered by the Latin alphabet: Europe is comparable in size to China and India. I guess that someone able to read Hindi or Mandarin can read signs in all parts of China or India today. And only one century ago, someone who could write or speak Mandarin wouldn't be completely lost when in Japan (probably), Korea (definitely) or Vietnam. Sooner or later he would meet someone he could communicate with.

Simultaneously I am wondering whether the isolated linguistic position of the Korean language is important. Latin and Italian are two very close related languages, the one having evolved out of the other. Yet the idea that the Roman civilisation ended somewhere between 400 and 800 AD is generally accepted.

'There was really no Europe in ancient times. In the Roman Empire we may see a Mediterranean world, or even a West and an East in the Latin- or Greek-speaking portions. But the West included parts of Africa as well as of Europe, and Europe as we know it was divided by the Rhine-Danube frontier, south and west of which lay the civilized provinces of the empire, and north and east the "barbarians" of whom the civilized world knew almost nothing. To the Romans "Africa" meant Tunisia-Algeria, "Asia" meant the Asia Minor peninsula; and the word "Europe", since it meant little, was scarcely used by them at all. It was in the half-millennium for the fifth to the tenth centuries that Europe as such for the first time emerged with its peoples brought together in a life of their own, clearly set off from that of Asia or Africa.
The "circle of lands" divided into three segments. Three types of civilization now confronted each other across the inland sea.

One was the Eastern Roman, Later Roman, Greek or Byzantine Empire with its capital at Constantinople, and now including only the Asia Minor peninsula, the Balkan peninsula, and parts of Italy. It represented the most direct continuation of the immemorial civilization of the Near East. It was Christian in religion and Greek in culture and language.
The second segment, and the most extensive, was the Arabic and Islamic. It reached from the neighborhood of the Pyrenees through Spain and all North Africa into Arabia, Syria, and the East. Arabic was its language; it became, and still remains, the common speech from Morocco to the Persian Gulf. Islam was its religion. It was organized in the caliphate in which all Muslims were included, and the caliph was regarded as the true religious and military successor to Muhammad himself.
The third segment was Latin Christendom, which about AD 700 did not look very promising. It was what was left over from the other two -what the Byzantines were unable to hold, and the Arabs unable to conquer. Barbarian kings were doing their best to rule small kingdoms, but in truth all government had fallen to pieces. Usually the invading barbarians remained a minority, eventually to be absorbed. Only in England, and in the region immediately west of the Rhine, did the Germanic element supersede the older Celtic and Latin. But the presence of the invaders, armed and fierce amid peasants and city dwellers reduced to passivity by Roman rule, together with the disintegration of Roman institutions that had gone on even before the invasions, left this region into chaos.'
(source: R.R.Palmer, J.Colton; 'A History of the Modern World',1978)

And what about Basque? Should one consider the Basque provinces and Hungary part of some non-European civilisation?

Regardless, this debate is inane because we are all related to each other much more closely than we think. In fact, the concept of nationhood is a relatively new INVENTION (only a few hundred years old) and generally used as a means of mobilizing the masses for silly wars (see "Nationalism").

This is the only part of this post I fully agree with!
Since nationalism is a most novel invention, the unifying force of religion is indispensable to keep a civilisation together.

Finally a remark about religion: of course I cannot deny the common roots of Judaism and Christianity. Yet it is undeniable these religions are clearly distinct entities.
Judaism is first and foremost a tribal religion with Jahweh as Israels' own god without being monotheistic, originally denying life beyond the grave and strongly emphasizing ritual purity.
Christianity is essentially dualistic and is -according to its believers- meant to embrace the entire world: the afterlife (reward and punishment) is the goal of Creation and the boundaries between divine and human are blurred; instead of rituals, morals and 'faith' are stressed. Ironically later European Judaism took over many typically Christian ideas, though it remained essentially exclusive and fixed on ritual rules.

Perhaps it is useful to add a list of political dominant powers throughout history. I think it shows the rather limited range of influence of most nations/states/empires. On the other hand, Civilisations can cover entire continents!

I Early Civilisations, 3000-1400BC
Sumer (Kish)
Egypt (Memphis)
Crete (Knossos)
Indus/Dravidian (Harappa)
Babylonia (Babylon)
Shang dynasty (Anyang)
Hittites (Chattushash)
Aryans

II Antiquity, 1400-450BC
Assyria (Ninive)
Zhou dynasty (Hao)
Phoenicia (Byblos)
Vedic republics and kingdoms, a.o.Kosala (Shravasti)
Greek cities (Athenai)
Sarmatians
Carthago (Carthago)
Persian empire (Persepolis)

III Classical Antiquity, 450BC-300AD
Celts
Macedonia (Pella)
Magadha (Pataliputra)
Han dynasty (Chang'an)
Xiongnu
Roman empire (Roma)
Maya (Tikal)
Sassanian empire (Ctesiphon)

IV Early Middle Ages, 300-750AD
Guptas (Pataliputra)
Goths
Huns
Byzantine empire (Constantinople)
Anglo-Saxons
T'ang dynasty (Chang'an)
Islamic caliphate (Mekka)
Khmer (Angkor)

V High Middle Ages, 750-1300AD
Frankish empire (Reims)
Vikings
Fujiwara dynasty (Heian)
Holy Roman empire (Aachen)
Cholas (Tanjore)
Song dynasty (Kaifeng)
Seljuks
Mongols

VI Renaissance, 1300-1550AD
Ming dynasty (Beijing)
Timurids (Samarkand)
Inca empire (Cuzco)
Aztec empire (Tenochtitlán)
Otoman empire (Istanbul)
Portugal (Lisboa)
Spanish empire (Madrid)
Safawid empire (Isfahan)
Mughal empire (Delhi)

VII Modern, 1550-
Manchus (Beijing)
Russian empire (Moskwa)
United Provinces (Amsterdam)
France (Paris)
British empire (London)
United States (Washington)
Japan (Tokyo)
German empire (Berlin)

[ranskaldan]

S. Kroeze:

Firstly, I believe that large chunks of your essay was lifed directly from the book 'Clash of Civilizations'. It was a great read, but I don't think that book is relevant at all to this debate.

If we follow that book, then the world can be divided into less than 10 civilizations. Western, Orthodox, Muslim, Confucian, Latin American, African, Indian. In such a broad division, of course there would be no place for the Koreans! There would be no place for the Spanish, Germans, French, Americans, British, Chinese, or Mongol civilizations. These are all too specific. The book calls for the highest, vaguest divisions.

However, is that the civ3 that we are looking at? No. The civ3 we play does not include the Western, Orthodox, Muslim, Confucian civs. The civ3 we play is essential a game about powerful nation-states that have made their mark on history. And these states include: England, Spain, France, Russia, China, Arabia, Greece, America, India, Japan, and Korea.

Thus, if you want to stick with the present civ3, Korea is in. Without a trace of doubt. If there's a place for the Vikings and Poles and Spanish and Dutch, not including the Koreans would be ridiculous.

However, if you want to revert to your definition (and the definition in that book, 'Clash of Civs'), then the Koreans aren't in. The English, Russians, Spanish, Mongols and Arabs aren't in either. Replacing them would be the Western, Muslim, Confucian, and Orthodox civilizations. Then we will need to revamp the entire game, since the current one is essentially a game about nation-states, not vague cultures.

[molly bloom]

Re: Ms. Bloom, we're both wrong.

Originally posted by siredgar
Directly from your lifting:

"The alphabet of modern Western Europe is the Roman alphabet, the base of most alphabets used for the newly written languages of Africa and America, as well as for scientific alphabets."

The PRE-CURSORS for the modern alphabet used in Western Europe and elsewhere do come from Egypt. However, the Roman alphabet is said to be the basis.

I still think the true originator is the Greek alphabet, however.

Uhh...:

' the Greeks had imitated the Phoenician alphabet. The exact steps are unknown, but the Phoenician, Hebrew, Arabic, and Devanagari systems are based ultimately on signs of the Egyptian hieroglyphic writing. '

A is an ox head/cattle, from Phoenicia...etc, etc..

https://www.phoenicia.org/tblalpha.html

https://www.encyclopedia.com/printable/05604.html

https://www.ualberta.ca/~csmackay/CLASS_110/Hittites.html

Of course, we have unfortunately lost so much else in the way of early languages and scripts, in much the same way as we have lost so much early science, such as the Antikythera Device, and those intriguing proto-electric cells in the museum in Baghdad:

https://www.smith.edu/hsc/museum/ancient_inventions/battery2.html

unmuseum.mus.pa.us/bbattery.htm

[siredgar]

LOL

I'm familiar with your theory of the major civilizations (a complete joke, by the way), but I have to say that considering Japan one of them is entirely laughable. What the Japanese have done is borrowed heavily from its neighbors, re-naming cultural aspects, and successfully claiming them as their own. Just because you make modifications to Buddhism and call it "Shintoism" doesn't mean it's a new religion, my friend. Most Westerners have been fooled by this, but Chinese and Koreans know better. Even the term "Japanese civilization" brings a smirk here and there. I'm sure you are one of those people who believe the Japanese are a completely separate and distinct race. Do you also believe that they are all descendants of one "Sun-god" rising from the ocean?

For you to even SUGGEST placing Korea vis-a-vis China as equivalent to Bavaria vis-a-vis Germany on a cultural autonomy level demonstrates your absolute disqualification from this discussion. I cannot understand how you can imply that France, England, and Germany are far more deserving to called separate and distinct civilizations and Korea does not. That should be insulting to 70 million people, I would think!

This is Euro-centrism at its best...

Have you ever even been to Korea?

Do you even read what you lift from your books?

While much of Korean literature may have used Chinese writing, it was in the Korean language. Are you saying that since Shakespearean plays are written in the Roman alphabet, it really belongs to the Romans? Anyhow, you are obviously biased because you seem to value the works of European writers more than Korean writers. Just because YOU are more familiar with something, does not mean it is more culturally valuable. Please do not invalidate the cultural value of something you are obviously not familiar with.

My impression is that you are suggesting that Korea is a break-away PROVINCE of China. Incredulous!

I also question your logic when you go on and talk about literature for your argument and yet want to "separate the discussion about languages and writing systems" from all of this. Pardon me?!! Please do not venture to debate on something you do not understand, sir.

Therefore, to your question, "Is Korean culture sufficiently different from Chinese and Japanese culture to be considered an autonomous Civilisation?" all I can say is that I pity your complete and utter ignorance.

To me, your thinking is based on falsifications and outdated information. Why don't you go measure skulls for intelligence levels?

Take off your horseblinds, please sir, before you run over someone with your hooves.

Sir Edgar

[yin26]

Well, this was the point of my thread. In modern times, Korea let itself make some huge mistakes leading to being over-run by Japan, etc. This means that most modern views of history are SORELY biased. And just as Korea has positioned itself strongly after a rebuilding phase, it was and has been a very strong and unique and even seminal country in the Far East for centuries.

So I encourage people who are really interested in this issue TO STUDY IT and not rely on deep-seated Euro-centric 'feelings.'

[thinkingamer]

Yep i compleately agree with u siredgar; The Japanese's Shintoism almost the same religion that Koreans had before Korea got influenced by Buddihism.

But, while Japanese's Shintoism is not exactly a Buddihism modification (sorry siredgar u r wrong in this one) its clear that Shintoism is nothing unique except that is has some more twist and rituals than that of the Korean Shamanism.

The Japanese borrowed Chinese and Koreans culture as much as Korea borrowed Chinese culture. And a European country gets influence of other European countries as much as Korea got influenced of China.

Then someone might ask "why Korea only got influence by China?" Well, for most of the time China was much more advanced than Japan. And since Japan got influenced by Korea and not Korea influenced by Japan, this proves that Korea was more culturally advanced than Japan (im speaking 17 cent.and before)

[ranskaldan]

Perhaps S. Kroeze meant that China and Korea are not different enough to be 2 different civs. If that's he's opinion, fine. But in order to be fair, the French, British, Spanish and Germans also are not different enough to be separate civs, by the same logic.

[yin26]

So clearly the solution is to just block several countries together and put a big tag over it: "Asia" "Europe" Like that. Just big blobs on the map. That would be both politically correct and highly educational!

[Q Classic]

you'd need three blobs in asia, yin.

"A-rabs" "Native Americans" "Chinks/Gooks/Japs"

[Q Classic]

note that the post above is a joke.

[Q Classic]

I am rather disturbed by the use of this argument of 'racial purity'. To me this is tantamount to denying that German Jews, who were killed during the 'Holocaust', were ordinary German citizens living in the country for many centuries, or to saying that Colin Powell, a so-called Afro-American, can neither be a westerner nor an American, because his ancestors were brought as slaves out of Africa to the US, though English is his native language, he is a Christian, reads the New York Times, supports western ideas like rule of law, human individual rights and democracy and eats with knife and fork!

Koreans may pride themselves on racial purity. The Japanese do too. This is why the Koreans stayed home and tried to be at least friendly with everyone albeit somewhat aloofly. This is why the Japanese went out and tried to subjugate everyone, destroy them, enslave them, kill them all.

------

'With the possible exceptions of the Egyptian, Chinese, and Easter Island writing to be considered later, all other writing systems devised anywhere in the world, at any time, appear to have been descendants of systems modified from or at least inspired by Sumerian or early Mesoamerican writing. One reason why there were so few independent origins of writing is the great difficulty of inventing it, as we have already discussed. The other reason is that other opportunities for the independent invention of writing were preempyed by Sumerian of Mesoamerican writing and their derivatives.'

This is why both the written forms of Korean and Japanese do not in any way have a correlation with any of the Mesoamerican or Sumerian writing systems...

It would be hard for Mesoamerican and Sumerian writing systems to migrate that far into east asia. The vast ocean to the east and the vast china to the west kinda hindered that.

If you've seen japanese written language, you'd see that it's nothing like Sumerian or Mesoamerican. Why? well, it's a syllabary, for one. why else? three sets of characters, used for different purposes. one for phonetic transliteration of foreign phrases, one for normal usage, one for ideographical information borrowed from written chinese. why else? the characters were not based in pictographs.

If you've seen the Korean written language, you'd see that it's nothing like Sumerian or Mesoamerican. why? well, it's a completely different alphabet, for one. why else? the letters are shapes; they were never intended to resemble a picture or derived from pictographs. why else? the way the letters are written together to form one-syllable characters is unique among the written languages in the world. why else? it's nothing like chinese written language. why else? the two sets of characters used, one is the hangul, the standard, and the other is the chinese ideographical one that is less and less frequently used.

------

ranskaldan:

My main point was that the three languages use related writing systems,

i did misunderstand you slightly. but i also will maintain that the writing systems are not related. at least not between korean and chinese.

------

And only one century ago, someone who could write or speak Mandarin wouldn't be completely lost when in Japan (probably), Korea (definitely) or Vietnam. Sooner or later he would meet someone he could communicate with.

and only one year ago, someone could who could write or speak English wouldn't be completely lost when in Rwanda (probably), Germany (definitely) or Tuvalu. Sooner or later he would meet someone he could communicate with.

------

what you say about rome is interesting. what does it have to do with Korea?

IV Early Middle Ages, 300-750AD
Guptas (Pataliputra)
Goths
Huns
Byzantine empire (Constantinople)
Anglo-Saxons
T'ang dynasty (Chang'an)
Islamic caliphate (Mekka)
Khmer (Angkor)

Goths? Huns? what did they do? other than sack rome. They are worthy of being considered a civilization why? What culture did they have? What culural accomplishments did they have? if i'm not mistaken, they're pretty much considered barbarians...

VII Modern, 1550-
Manchus (Beijing)
Russian empire (Moskwa)
United Provinces (Amsterdam)
France (Paris)
British empire (London)
United States (Washington)
Japan (Tokyo)
German empire (Berlin)

Why the dutch?

------

as siredgar states... zen too is not altogether a japanese thing. it had its origins in china.

http://encarta.msn.com/find/Concise.asp?z=1&pg=2&ti=761574389

------

it's kinda hard for your country's history to be well known when it's still trying to be recovered. the japanese occupation pretty much drove it all underground, if not overseas.

the japanese occupation lasted for over 30 years. it was brutal. they tried to do everything they could to stamp out the culture of the koreans.

if korea really had no individual culture why would they have fought so hard to rid themselves of the japanese occupation? nationalism here doesn't make sense, as nationalism in the sense of the western world hadn't really come to korea yet.

and yet they fought. they didn't win for a long time, mainly because nobody outside of korea cared. such is life.

they took many of the treasures and hid them. what wasn't razed and pillaged by the japanese disappeared.

this is why nobody really knows of the history.

sucks, but that's how it is.

and this is why you think korean culture and chinese are not distinct.

[thinkingamer]

S. Kroeze: Im surprized that you know so much about, Korean Literature, but its interesting how unknowledgeable u are about Korean history:

Do u know any surviving books, Literature of Beakche and Korguryo? There are very few, almost none, because they were conquered and destroyed.
And also remember that Beakche is the country that taught Chinese characters to Japan and because of that, its impossible to not have any Literature. Even written records from unified Silla is very few. While Koryo dynasty's written records managed to survive (including the Samguk Yusa) its obvious that more books is missing than the records that managed to survive.

Its very likely that Korea had written records as far from 4th century BC (heck, the Old Choson's closest Chou dynasty neighbor warlord could not expand eastward even though he had more than 200,000 men [that proves that korea had a nation at least since 4th century BC.]) , and they did not survive. In fact none of the Three Kingdoms' Palace, and not even Koryo's Palace has survived.

Ok i know that Japan's Kojiki has survived, but insn't Japanese's first Palace also survived? In fact, the oldest Chinese architecture style building is in Japan. All Korean sholars are sure that each of the Three Kingdoms (Koguryo, Beakche, and Silla) had written History, but they didn't survive. But anyone can imagine how much Literature of Three Kingdoms has been lost specially if you see that even its historical records has been lost. Its not surprising since Koreans got attacked more than 1000 times in 2000 years.

Korea did have many Literature, only the problem is that none of us know nothing about the lost written records/ literatures.

[S. Kroeze]

Originally posted by thinkingamer
S. Kroeze: Im surprized that you know so much about, Korean Literature, but its interesting how unknowledgeable u are about Korean history

Dear thinkingamer,

Thank you for your very kind words!

I know next to nothing about Korean literature and indeed only slightly more about its history. I was quoting verbatim from the 'Encyclopaedia Britannica'. When you can present here some other reliable source that gives a different story, please post it on this Forum!

Speculating about literature that might have been is in my opinion a complete waste of time! About 95% -or perhaps even more- of all Ancient Greek literature has not survived the ages. Yet what remains is enough to be sure that the Ancient Greek literature was among the most inspired, diverse and highest quality of all literatury inheritance, comparably only to the English, Chinese and Sanskrit literatures.

Neither do I buy the argument that because the books were destroyed a text cannot survive. The writings of Homer were composed around 800BC. The most ancient copy of the text we possess today is not even half that age!

[Marquis de Sodaq]

Is this argument STILL going on!? I think I last read this about seven pages ago, and it appears that absolutely no progress has been made. In both parts, some Dutch posters refuse to acknowledge Korea as a separate civ "worthy" of inclusion in the game. What gives? Can the euros not accept that their idea that Korea is "China, continued" is due only to ignorance of Korean history and misinformation learned in school?

To say that Korea isn't worthy because they borrowed too much from the Chinese is akin to saying the Dutch are just Germans with a bit more engineering experience! (ja, trouwens, ik weet heel goed dat NLers op de tenen getrapt voelen als ze Duitsers worden genoemd) What civ hasn't borrowed significant elements from neighboring civs?

Are european civs not worthy because they owe their entire treasure of knowledge to the Romans, Greeks, and Arabs? It would be the same argument.

Let it rest, people!

[Q Classic]

I know next to nothing about Korean literature and indeed only slightly more about its history. I was quoting verbatim from the 'Encyclopaedia Britannica'. When you can present here some other reliable source that gives a different story, please post it on this Forum!

yes, and i posted a few links answered it here:

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=33965

others posted it here:

http://www.koreanhistoryproject.org/Ket/KETIndex.htm

http://www.korealore.com/

------

Speculating about literature that might have been is in my opinion a complete waste of time! About 95% -or perhaps even more- of all Ancient Greek literature has not survived the ages. Yet what remains is enough to be sure that the Ancient Greek literature was among the most inspired, diverse and highest quality of all literatury inheritance, comparably only to the English, Chinese and Sanskrit literatures.

but the literature exists.

------

Neither do I buy the argument that because the books were destroyed a text cannot survive. The writings of Homer were composed around 800BC. The most ancient copy of the text we possess today is not even half that age!

some are probably not destroyed, just unrecovered. see my post above:

it's kinda hard for your country's history to be well known when it's still trying to be recovered. the japanese occupation pretty much drove it all underground, if not overseas.

the japanese occupation lasted for over 30 years. it was brutal. they tried to do everything they could to stamp out the culture of the koreans.

if korea really had no individual culture why would they have fought so hard to rid themselves of the japanese occupation? nationalism here doesn't make sense, as nationalism in the sense of the western world hadn't really come to korea yet.

and yet they fought. they didn't win for a long time, mainly because nobody outside of korea cared. such is life.

they took many of the treasures and hid them. what wasn't razed and pillaged by the japanese disappeared.

this is why nobody really knows of the history.

sucks, but that's how it is.