Diachronic Analysis of Economic-Financial Terminology in Korean

Abstract

This article examines the formation and diachronic evolution of Korean economic-financial terminology through a historical-linguistic lens. The research corpus integrates sources ranging from Samguk Sagi [Kim Busik 1145; 27-bet], Imwon Gyeongjeji [Seo Yu-gu 1841; 88-bet] and the Gyeongguk Daejeon tax code to Japanese-era statistical digests, twentieth-century government white papers and contemporary digital-banking platforms. The notion of a “terminological situation” is evaluated along three axes: semasiological structure (core ↔ periphery), onomasiological motivation (naming drivers) and extralinguistic catalysts (socio-economic forces). Findings confirm the diachronic continuity of the Sino-Korean hanja layer, the large-scale integration of English vocabulary during industrialisation, and the emergence of a hybrid two-to-three-tier system in the digital phase. An evolutionary algorithm—borrowing → phonetic adaptation → specialisation → semantic recombination—was modelled; each stage was quantitatively profiled via affix frequency, phonemic substitution and meaning-expansion coefficients. The newly proposed Lexical Dynamics Index (LDI) gauges term-stock growth by combining internal morphological innovation with external global-discourse pressure. Practical outputs include a four-criterion equivalence matrix for translation (denotation, register, domain acceptance, corpus frequency) and an open electronic corpus of 10 000+ entries, providing a methodological platform for parallel studies in English and Uzbek. The model further enables automatic tracking of terminological migration within market theory, fintech and blockchain discourses, advancing predictive linguistics and evidence-based language policy.