keannu
VIP Member
- Joined
- Dec 27, 2010
- Member Type
- Student or Learner
- Native Language
- Korean
- Home Country
- South Korea
- Current Location
- South Korea
If you ever come to Korea and hear people call their spouse, you will be shocked at the terms' nuance as they call them "our wife or our husband". This makes us think of polygamy or something, but they are never double-married. This comes from groupism which puts a group before an individual. I'm not hundred percent sure of its origin, but according to a book I read in my adolescence, this consciouness stems from Korean's farming culture where they always had to collaborate in seeding, rice-planting, harvesting, etc. Without collaboration and cooperation, they couldn't do farming and that's how the group terms came into being.
On the other hand, in western culture where nomadic style life was more prevalent than farming, individualism was more dominant as shephards used to spend time alone watching the sheep he took care of. Do you think that is where individual expressions involving "my" came from?
FYI) I don't think there's no superiority or inferiority between the two different expressions, there's only difference.
English <=> Korean
My father/mother <=> Our father/mother
My country <=>Our country
My wife <=>Our wife
My husband <=>Our husband
On the other hand, in western culture where nomadic style life was more prevalent than farming, individualism was more dominant as shephards used to spend time alone watching the sheep he took care of. Do you think that is where individual expressions involving "my" came from?
FYI) I don't think there's no superiority or inferiority between the two different expressions, there's only difference.
English <=> Korean
My father/mother <=> Our father/mother
My country <=>Our country
My wife <=>Our wife
My husband <=>Our husband
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