Talk:열쇠

This is too similar to Chinese 钥匙 (traditional 鑰匙). Hard to believe that this comes from 열다 + 쇠. Wjcd 02:09, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Here is the definition from korean.go.kr :

옛 한글 입력기 및 글꼴

내 컴퓨터 속 표준국어대사전

표준국어대사전 검색창 달기

‘열쇠’에 대한 검색 결과입니다.(1건)

열-쇠[열ː쐬/열ː쒜]

「명사」

「1」자물쇠를 잠그거나 여는 데 사용하는 물건. ≒개금04(開金)ㆍ쇠01「3」ㆍ약건(鑰鍵)「2」ㆍ약시03(鑰匙)ㆍ키04(key)「1」.

「2」어떤 일을 해결하는 데 필요한 가장 중요한 방법이나 요소를 비유적으로 이르는 말.

「3」『북한어』『통신』암호문을 만들거나 암호를 푸는 수단.

71.66.97.228 19:54, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

Exactly the same as Chinese. Wjcd 23:23, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

Are all three pair of hanja also Chinese words? Two of the three are redlinks and were not in the dictionaries I consulted. I can't read what the Korean says and don't know if these hanja terms are actual root words or just similar words in Chinese. There is always the small possibility, as in Vietnamese, that a term is native Korean, but coincidentally a homonym of a Chinese term, *and* a hanja spelling came to be used that is the same as Chinese. 71.66.97.228 07:36, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

I don't think this is cognate with the Chinese term. I believe it's only a coincidence, because the Korean etymology is quite credible, and MC-K sound correspondences don't match either. I know what the Korean says, but I'm not going to attempt to translate it, in case I mistranslate. I'll link to the dictionary forms anyway. The hanjas are for some of the synonyms given. Wjcd 11:46, 21 January 2011 (UTC)