The study of Chinese monosyllabic vocabulary and its semantic evolution is an important academic field. On the innovation of its research methods, we can introduce the perspective of extraterritorial comparisons on the basis of general investigation. That is to say, in order to compare the evolution of Chinese characters and their semantic systems in countries other than Korea. This new way of thinking not only expands the original register of investigation, but also enriches and improves research in China. And as a result, there will be new and unexpected academic discoveries, breakthroughs and expansions of current academic knowledge. This paper takes the study of the evolution of the Chinese character “oil (油)” as a case, and introduces the perspective of extraterritorial comparison. In other words, reference is made to the evolution of the Korean Chinese character word “oil (油)” in order to verify this new research method.
This paper investigates the ancient and modern backbone pronunciation, form, meaning, part of speech and word entry of “oil (油)”, compares the evolution of the Korean Chinese term “oil (油)”, identifies and explains the similarities and differences between China and Korea and contributes to the expansion of the current body of research. First the pronunciation of “oil (油)” in ancient and modern Chinese is different from that of the Korean Chinese vocabulary, but there are some similarities. Second in terms of morphology, the regular script forms of the Chinese character “oil (油)” is commonly used in the Korean Chinese vocabulary, and there are also variants. Third, in terms of meaning, by comparing the meanings of “oil (油)” in China and Korea, there have been some changes in the meaning of the word. Furthermore, referring to the situation of the Korean Chinese vocabulary and the investigation of modern neologisms, and it transpired that some semantics of “oil (油)” are not found in modern Chinese but are retained by Korean.