(no subject)

[dreamer_easy]

Watching Moon Lovers: Scarlet Heart: Ryeo, a Web drama set in ancient Korea - around the start of the Goryeo kingdom, in 942 CE. ("Goryeo" is where the word "Korea" comes from.) The good boy prince slew an assassin, saving our twenty-first century heroine, who then worried he might get post-traumatic stress. "What is this 'seutresseu'?" he asked. At which point I realised with a little shock that, while modern Korean is full of English loanwords, in 918 English hasn't even been invented yet. People are still speaking Old English / Anglo-Saxon: "nu scylun hergan hefaenricaes uard", etc.

Mind you, IIUC in the Goryeo period, they spoke Middle Korean, which was tonal. The modern Korean our heroine would know, and which I'm struggling to learn, doesn't rock up until some time in the 1600s. (ETA: Apparently she can speak Middle Korean - but she can't read Chinese characters, lol.)

All of which is tbh loads more interesting than the idiot heroine's exploits. She's such a wet blanket it's difficult to understand why princes keep falling in love with her. In fact, the bad boy prince keeps threatening to kill her. Any time you're ready, mate!

ETA: OK, I'll pay this: the kid prince has fallen for her because she stood up to him (actually, she beat him up).

She thinks: "Has he possibly fallen for me? 'You were the first girl to ever treat me in that way.'"
He says: "You were the first girl to ever treat me in that way."
She says: "I didn't know they've been using that line for over a thousand years."

Comments

[dreamer-easy.livejournal.com]

Let me just work through this huge pile of books and get back to you. :) I have loads of histories and culture stuffs, but I'm only just now getting onto them!

[murasaki-1966.livejournal.com]

It's okay I have a huge pile of books to work through at present. Mostly history. Tell me when you're through.