한국과 일본은 근대화 과정에서 필연적으로 ‘외래어’의 증가가 이루어졌다. 개 화기 단계에서 ‘외래어’는 ‘신어(新語)’ 및 다양한 용어와 동일시되거나 혼동되어 쓰였다. 본고에서는 1876년부터 1946년까지를 크게 4개의 시기로 나누어 한일 양국어에서의 ‘신어’와 ‘외래어’, 기타 용어들과의 구분 양상에 대해 고찰하였다.
일본에서의 ‘신어’는 ‘박래어(舶来語)’ ‘모던어’ ‘사회어(社会語)’ ‘첨단어(尖端語)’와 같은 이름으로 불리며 사회 전반에 쓰이던 새로운 용어 전체를 아우르는 명칭으로서 사용되고 있었다. 또 ‘외래어’의 범위는 현재보다 좁게, ‘외국어’에 가까운 의미로 사용되거나, 외국어 색채가 남아있는 단어들만을 가리키는 용어로서 구분되어 사용하였다. 가타카나(Katakana) 문자로 표기된 단어라 할지라도 학자에 따라서는 ‘외래어’가 아닌 ‘과학용어’ ‘신시대용어’ 등과 같이 다른 범주의 어휘군으로 구분하기도 하였으나 서서히 가타카나로 표기된 것만을 대상으로 외래어 연구가 진행되어 갔음을 확인하였다.
한편 한국의 근대문헌(신문이나 잡지) 등에서는 ‘신어>술어>사회어>신술어・신숙어>외래어>모던어>신문어>첨단어>현대어’ 순으로 용어가 나타난다. 개화기 초에는 ‘신어≒외래어・외국어’라는 인식이 강했으나 서서히 ‘신어’의 하 위개념으로서 ‘외래어’를 두는 쪽으로 인식이 변해갔음을 확인하였다. 한국어 속에서 외래어가 어휘의 일종으로 정착함에 따라 한국인에 의한 한글 표기 ‘외래어사전’이 편찬되는 등, 외래어에 대한 의식이 정립되어 갔던 것으로 보인다.
In Korea and Japan, an inevitable increase of ‘Loanword’ has taken place during the modernization process. At the beginning of enlightenment period, ‘Loanword’ was equated or confused with ‘New word’ or other terms. In this paper, the period from 1876 to 1946 was largely divided into four periods, and the changing aspect of the distinction between ‘New word’, ‘Loanword’ and other terms in both Korean and Japanese languages was discussed.
In Japan, ‘New word’ was called as ‘Hakurai-go(Foreign word)’, ‘Modan-go(Mordern word)’, ‘Shakai-go(Social word)’ or ‘Sentan-go(Leading edge word)’ and was used as terminology that embraces the whole set of new words that was socially prevalent. In addition, the conceptual scope of ‘Loanword’ was narrower than that of the present. Instead the term was used in a sense closer to ‘foreign word’ or was used to refer only to words suggesting itself to be a foreign language based. Even when the words were written in Katakana, some scholars categorized those words not only into ‘Loan word’ but also into different categories of vocabulary groups such as ‘scientific terms or ‘new era word’, but it was confirmed that gradually, ‘Loan word’ studies were conducted only on those marked as Katakana. Meanwhile, in modern Korean literature (newspaper or miscellaneous records), terminologies have appeared in the order of ‘Shin-eo(New word)’> ‘Sul-eo’> ‘Sahoe-eo’> ‘Shinsul-eo’‘Shinsuk-eo’> ‘Loanword’> ‘Modern word’> ‘Shinmun-eo’>‘Cheomdan-eo’>‘Hyeondae-eo’. At the beginning of the enlightenment period, the perception of ‘New word≒Loanword·foreign word’ was strong, but it was confirmed that the perception has gradually changed to treating ‘Loanword’ as sub-concept of ‘New word’. As ‘Loanword’ settled as vocabulary in Korean language and ‘A dictionary of Loanword’ written in Hanguel was being compiled, the concept of ‘Loanword’ seems to have been established.