Terminology

       Korean Terminology Project for Gŏm-Bŏp

Korea and its Flag

The Korean name for Korea is "Hangeuk" and its people are called "Hangeuksaram". The ancient name for Korea is "Choson", which means literally "the land of morning calm" and comes from the "Choson" (or "Yi") dynasty of Korea's history (1392-1905). The name "Korea" comes from the "Koryu" dynasty of Korea's history (935-1392) during which westerners had their first contact with Korea.

The national anthem of Korea is "Aeguk Ka" ("Love of Country"). It was written during the Japanese occupation of Korea (circa 1905-1945) and was later set to music by Ahn Eak Tai.

The Korean flag is called "Taeguk-ki" and was adopted in August of 1882, not long after the "Hermit Kingdom" opened its front and back doors to foreign aggressive powers. The central theme of the flag is that although there is constant movement within the sphere of infinity, there is also balance and harmony. The flag consists of three parts: a white field (or background), a red and blue circle in the center of the flag (containing a "yin-yang" like symbol), and four black trigrams sorrounding the circle in each of the four corners of the flag.

The circle in the center is called "Taeguk" and means the origin of all things in the universe. The red and blue paisleys within the circle represent eternal duality (heaven-earth, fire-water, good-evil, male- female, dark-light, life-death). The blue portion of the circle is called "um" and represents the negative aspects of this duality; the red portion of the circle is called "yang" and represents the positive aspects. "Um-yang" is the Korean equivalent of "yin-yang".

The four black trigrams come from the Chinese book of "I Ch'ing". The trigrams also carry the idea of opposites and of balance. Each trigram (or "gye") consists of three parallel lines, some of which are broken (split), and some of which are unbroken (solid). Each gye has a specific name and represents one or more concepts: In the upper lefthand corner is "K'un" which consists of all solid lines and represents heaven, east, and spring; In the lower righthand corner is "K'on" which consists of all broken lines and represents earth, west, and summer; In the upper righthand corner is "Kam" which consists of one solid line sorrounded by two broken lines and represents water, north, and winter; In the lower lefthand corner is "I" which consists of one broken line surrounded by two solid lines and represents fire, south, and autumn.

Five Tenets  (“O-Gae”) of Gŏm-Bŏp

Three Etiquettes of Gŏm-Bŏp  

Three Principles of Gŏm-Bŏp  

Titles

Yaejul: Dojang Etiquette

Commands

Korean Counting

Koreans use two number systems when counting. One derives from native words and the other from Chinese loan words. The native numbering system is analogous to ordinals, i.e. first, second, etc. The actual system used to count any given object seems to depend very much on the objects that are being counted. The numbers that are normally heard in the dojang are the Chinese loan words and are as follows

The stress in "hanah", "dasot", and "yasot" is on the first syllable, in "ilgop", "yadol", and "ahop" on the second. In counting cadence in TaeKwonDo, this is so emphasized that the other syllable frequently almost disappears (e.g., "han", "das", "yos", "lgop", "hop", etc.).

The other numbering system (which is of Chinese origin) is used in most other cases and is often used where Americans would use ordinal numbers (such as "first", "second", etc ...) and is designated as the Sino-Korean system. For example, this second numbering system is used when describing a person's rank: a first degree black belt would be an "il dan". The first ten numbers in this numbering system are as follows:

The Chinese loan numbering is quite simple for numbers above 10. Just add the required units as prefixes (for the multiples of ten) and suffixes (for the units). The only difficulty is for numbers above a thousand. Chinese has breaks at 10,000, a hundred million, and a billion (American trillion). However, unless you enter into business or purchase a car or house in Korea then you are unlikely to come across numbers as large as these.

This numbering system based on Chinese loan numbers are as follows:
1 一 Il
2 二 I
3 三 Sam
4 四 Sa
5 五 O
6 六 Yuk
7 七 Ch’il
8 八 P’al
9 九 Ku
10 十 Sip
34 三十四 Samsipsa
100 百 Paek
1,000 千 Ch’on
10,000 萬 Man
1,000,000 百萬 Paekman

Directions

Basic Body Parts