한자는 한 글자가 다양한 음으로 읽히는 경우가 많아 한문을 접하는 사람들을 혼란스럽게 하는 예가 한두 가지가 아니다. 한문은 뜻글자이기 때문에 음은 그다지 중요하지 않게 생각될 수도 있다. 어떻게 읽든지 뜻이 통하면 되기 때문이다. 그러나 아무렇게나 읽어도 뜻을 통하는 데는 지장이 없겠지만 그것이 ‘언어’의 차원에서 다루어질 때는 중요시하지 않을 수 없으며 일정한 규범 아래 통일성을 가져야 한다. 특히 우리나라의 경우는 한자어가 국어 단어의 절대다수를 차지하기 때문에 현실 국어 생활에서 한자의 발음은 늘 문제가 된다. 따라서 이에 대한 일정한 규범을 정해 놓아야 언어 생활에 혼선을 빚지 않게 된다. 이는 국어 표준어와 맞춤법에 직결되는 문제이기도 하고, 부수적인 문제로는 각종 서적에서 색인을 작성하는데도 연관된다. 또 한 가지 문제되는 것은, 한자에 이음(異音)이 많다보니 종종 서로 다른 근거를 가지고 개인적인 주장을 펴는 일이 발생하여 혼란을 가중시키는 상황이 일어나고 있는 점이다. 물론 어느 정도 설득력이 있어서 표준음을 정하는데 참고로 해야 하는 주장도 있지만, 상당수는 받아들이기 어려운 것도 많다. 전공자들의 깊은 연구와 충분한 검증을 거쳐 중구난방식 이설(異說)이 난립하는 것을 막아야 할 필요성이 크다. 이음의 현황을 파악하고 고증하는 것은 가능하면 이음을 줄여서 언어 생활에 혼란을 피하고 나아가 한문 학습 과정의 불편함을 줄이기 위한 것이다. 한자 이음은 워낙 불규칙하게 변화하는 예가 많아서 일률적으로 통일성을 기하기 어려운 문제점이 있다. 또 분명히 와전된 이음이라도 이미 확고하게 굳어진 말을 무리해서 바로잡으려고 하면 오히려 부작용이 일어날 수도 있다. 따라서 가능한 범위부터 합리적인 방법을 통하여 이음을 줄여 나가는 것이 바람직하다. 그러기 위해서는 언어 현상에 대한 폭넓은 이해와 문자학적인 깊은 연구가 요구된다.

A Chinese character can variously be pronounced in a lot of cases, whichmakes people contacting with it confused. The pronunciation in Chinese characters is not thought of very important because the meaning makes sense no matter how it is pronounced. However, when is treated at the dimension of 'language', it has to be regarded as important and shall have the regular standard even if the meaning makes sense. Especially, our country usually suffers trouble in the pronunciation of Chinese characters because Chinese characters have an absolute majority in the Korean language. Therefore, we will suffer entanglement in a linguistic life if we will not make a regular standard regarding this. That is related to making the index of all kinds of books incidentally as well asconnected with the standard language and orthography directly. In addition to that, lots of allophones are to increase disorder as personal assertion occasionally occurs under each other different basis. The said assertions, of course, may be acceptable for making the standard pronunciationbut there are many unacceptable numbers. It is necessary to prevent people from asserting their different views, with deep study and enough verification by people majoring in it. To find the present situation of allophones and to study evidence have the purpose of avoiding disorder of the linguistic life and reducing inconvenience of Chinese character education process. It is very difficult to uniformly fix a standard because Chinese characters have a lot of examples of changing irregularly. Although one character has clearly wrong pronunciation already formed as a firm habit, side effects can occur when we try to correct it forcibly. Therefore, it is desirable to reduce it little by little reasonably if possible, which requires wide understanding and deep study regarding linguistic phenomena.

A Chinese character can variously be pronounced in a lot of cases, whichmakes people contacting with it confused. The pronunciation in Chinese characters is not thought of very important because the meaning makes sense no matter how it is pronounced. However, when is treated at the dimension of 'language', it has to be regarded as important and shall have the regular standard even if the meaning makes sense. Especially, our country usually suffers trouble in the pronunciation of Chinese characters because Chinese characters have an absolute majority in the Korean language. Therefore, we will suffer entanglement in a linguistic life if we will not make a regular standard regarding this. That is related to making the index of all kinds of books incidentally as well asconnected with the standard language and orthography directly. In addition to that, lots of allophones are to increase disorder as personal assertion occasionally occurs under each other different basis. The said assertions, of course, may be acceptable for making the standard pronunciationbut there are many unacceptable numbers. It is necessary to prevent people from asserting their different views, with deep study and enough verification by people majoring in it. To find the present situation of allophones and to study evidence have the purpose of avoiding disorder of the linguistic life and reducing inconvenience of Chinese character education process. It is very difficult to uniformly fix a standard because Chinese characters have a lot of examples of changing irregularly. Although one character has clearly wrong pronunciation already formed as a firm habit, side effects can occur when we try to correct it forcibly. Therefore, it is desirable to reduce it little by little reasonably if possible, which requires wide understanding and deep study regarding linguistic phenomena.

Allophone, standard language, spelling system, Index and graphonomy