Peninsular Japonic | |||||
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Para-Japonic | |||||
Geographic distribution | Central and southern Korea | ||||
Extinct | 1st millennium CE | ||||
Linguistic classification | Japonic
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Glottolog | (not evaluated) | ||||
![]() Korea in the late 4th century | |||||
Korean name | |||||
Hangul | 반도 일본어 | ||||
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Japanese name | |||||
Kanji | 半島日本語 | ||||
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The Peninsular Japonic languages are now-extinct Japonic languages reflected in ancient placenames and glosses from central and southern parts of the Korean Peninsula. [lower-alpha 1] Most linguists believe that Japonic arrived in the Japanese archipelago from the Korean peninsula during the first millennium BCE. The placename evidence suggests that Japonic languages were still spoken in parts of the peninsula for several centuries before being replaced by the spread of Korean.
The most-cited evidence comes from chapter 37 of the Samguk sagi (compiled in 1145),which contains a list of pronunciations and meanings of placenames in the former kingdom of Goguryeo. As the pronunciations are given using Chinese characters,they are difficult to interpret,but several of those from central Korea,in the area south of the Han River captured from Baekje in the 5th century,seem to correspond to Japonic words. Scholars differ on whether they represent the language of Goguryeo or the people that it conquered.
Chinese and Korean texts also contain very sparse traces from the states in the south of the peninsula,and from the former Tamna kingdom on Jeju Island.
The Samguk sagi is a history, written in Classical Chinese, of the Korean Three Kingdoms period, which ended in 668. Chapter 37 gives place names and meanings, mostly for places in the Goguryeo lands seized by Silla. [2] These glosses were first studied by Naitō Torajirō in 1907, with substantial analysis beginning with a series of articles by Lee Ki-Moon in the 1960s. [3] [4]
For example, the following entry refers to the city now known as Suwon: [5]
買忽一云水城
'買忽 one [source] calls "water city"'
That is, the characters 買忽 are used to record the sound of the name, while the characters 水城 represent its meaning. [5] From this, we infer that 買 and 忽 represent the pronunciations of local words for 'water' and 'city' respectively. [6] In this way, a vocabulary of 80 to 100 words has been extracted from these place names. [7] [8] Characters like 買 and 忽 presumably represented pronunciations based on some local version of the Chinese reading tradition, but there is no agreement on what this sounded like. One approximation is to use the Middle Chinese reading pronunciations recorded in such dictionaries as the Qieyun (compiled in 601), in which 買 is pronounced mɛ. Another uses the Sino-Korean readings of 15th century dictionaries of Middle Korean, yielding a pronunciation of may for the same character. In some cases, the same word is represented by several characters with similar pronunciations. [8]
Several of the words extracted from these names resemble Korean or Tungusic languages. [9] Others, including all four of the attested numerals, resemble Japonic languages, and are accepted by most authors as evidence that now-extinct relatives of Japonic were once spoken on the Korean peninsula. [10]
Gloss | Native word | Old Japanese | ||
---|---|---|---|---|
Script | Middle Chinese [lower-alpha 2] | Sino-Korean [lower-alpha 3] | ||
three | 密 | mit | mil | mi1 [11] [12] |
five | 于次 | hju-tshijH | wucha | itu [11] [13] |
seven | 難隱 | nan-ʔɨnX | nanun | nana [11] [14] |
ten | 德 | tok | tek | to2wo [11] [15] |
valley | 旦 | tanH | tan | tani [16] [17] |
頓 | twon | twon | ||
吞 | then | thon | ||
rabbit | 烏斯含 | ʔu-sje-hom | wosaham | usagi1 [18] [19] |
lead | 那勿 | na-mjut | namwul | namari [12] [18] |
water | 買 | mɛX | may | mi1(du) < *me [16] [20] [21] |
美 | mijX | mi | ||
彌 | mjieX | mi |
The first authors to study these words assumed that, because these place names came from the territory of Goguryeo, they must have represented the language of that state. [22] Lee and Ramsey offer the additional argument that the dual use of Chinese characters to represent the sound and meaning of the place names must have been done by scribes of Goguryeo, which would have borrowed written Chinese earlier than the southern kingdoms. [23] They argue that the Goguryeo language formed a link between Japanese, Korean and Tungusic. [24]
Christopher I. Beckwith, applying his own Middle Chinese readings, claims that almost all of the words have Japonic cognates. [25] He takes this as the language of Goguryeo, which he considers a relative of Japanese in a family he calls Japanese-Koguryoic. [26] He suggests that the family was located in western Liaoning in the 4th century BC, with one group (identified with the Yayoi culture) travelling by sea to southern Korea and Kyushu, others migrating into eastern Manchuria and northern Korea, and others by sea to the Ryukyu Islands. [27] In a review for Korean Studies , Thomas Pellard criticizes Beckwith's linguistic analysis for the ad hoc nature of his Chinese reconstructions, for his handling of Japonic material and for hasty rejection of possible cognates in other languages. [28] Another review by historian Mark Byington casts doubt on Beckwith's interpretation of the documentary references on which his migration theory is based. [29]
Other authors point out that none of the placenames with proposed Japonic cognates are located in the historical homeland of Goguryeo north of the Taedong River, and no Japonic morphemes have been identified in inscriptions from the area, such as the Gwanggaeto Stele. [18] [30] The glossed place names of the Samguk sagi generally come from central Korea, in an area captured by Goguryeo from Baekje and other states in the 5th century, and suggest that the place names reflect the languages of those states rather than that of Goguryeo. [31] [32] This would explain why they seem to reflect multiple language groups. [33] Kōno Rokurō and Kim Bang-han have argued for bilingualism in Baekje, with the placenames reflecting the language of the common people. [34]
Several authors have suggested that the sole recorded word of the Gaya confederacy is Japonic. [35] Alexander Vovin has suggested Japonic etymologies for several words and placenames from southern Korea appearing in ancient Chinese and Korean texts. [36]
As noted above, several authors believe that the glossed placenames of the Samguk sagi reflect an early language of Baekje. In addition, chapter 54 of the Book of Liang (635) gives four Baekje words, two of which may be compared to Japonic: [37]
Some words from Silla and its predecessor Jinhan are recorded by Chinese historians in chapter 30 of Wei Zhi in Records of the Three Kingdoms (3rd century) and chapter 54 of the Book of Liang (completed in 635). Many of these words appear to be Korean, but a few match Japonic forms, e.g. mura (牟羅) 'settlement' vs Old Japanese mura 'village'. [38]
Chapter 34 of the Samguk sagi gives former place names in Silla and the standardized two-character Sino-Korean names assigned under King Gyeongdeok in the 8th century. Many of the pre-reform names cannot be given Korean derivations, but are explicable as Japonic words. For example, several of them contain an element miti (彌知), which resembles Old Japanese mi1ti 'way, road'. [39]
The Chinese Records of the Three Kingdoms (3rd century) gives phonographic transcriptions in Chinese characters of names of 12 settlements in the Byeonhan confederacy in southern Korea. Two of these include a suffix *-mietoŋ⟨彌凍⟩, which has been compared with Late Middle Korean mith and Proto-Japonic *mətə, both meaning 'base, bottom' and claimed by Samuel Martin to be cognate. [40] The name Mioyama has a suffix *-jama⟨邪馬⟩, which is commonly identified with Proto-Japonic *jama 'mountain'. [40]
The Gaya confederacy, which succeeded Byeonhan, maintained trading relations with Japan, until it was overrun by Silla in the early 6th century. [41] A single word is explicitly attributed to the Gaya language, in chapter 44 of the Samguk sagi:
加羅語謂門為梁云。
'In the Gaya language "gate" is called 梁.'
Because the character 梁 was used to transcribe the Silla word ancestral to Middle Korean twol 'ridge', philologists have inferred that the Gaya word for 'gate' had a similar pronunciation. This word has been compared with the Old Japanese word to1 'gate, door'. [42] [43]
Chapter 81 of the Chinese Book of Sui (656) mentions tammura (躭牟羅), an earlier form of the name of the kingdom of Tamna on Jeju Island. [lower-alpha 4] Vovin suggests that this name may have a Japonic etymology tani mura 'valley settlement' or tami mura 'people's settlement'. [44] [45]
A village in southwestern Jeju called Gamsan (/kamsan/ 'persimmon mountain') has an old name 神山 'deity mountain'. The first character of the place name (神) cannot be read as gam/kam in Korean, but Vovin suggests that the first syllable was originally a word cognate to Old Japanese kami2 'deity'. [46]
The Jeju language is Koreanic, but may have a Japonic substratum. For example, the colloquial word kwulley 'mouth' may be connected to the Japonic word *kutu-i 'mouth'. [47]
Most linguists studying the Japonic family believe that it was brought to the Japanese archipelago from the Korean peninsula around 700–300 BCE by wet-rice farmers of the Yayoi culture. [48] [36] John Whitman and Kazuo Miyamoto associate Japonic on the Korean peninsula with the Mumun culture, which introduced wet-rice agriculture around 1500 BCE. [49] [50] In addition to rice, the onset of the Yayoi culture in northern Kyushu saw the introduction and adaptation of many cultural features from the Mumun culture, including types of housing, pottery and tools. [51] [52] Archaeologists believe this reflects a combination of diffusion, migration from the peninsula, and hybridisation within the archipelago. [53]
Whitman further suggests that Koreanic arrived in the peninsula from the north with the Liaoning bronze dagger culture about 300 BCE. [49] Vovin and James Marshall Unger propose similar models, but associate Koreanic with iron-using mounted warriors from Manchuria. [54] [55] In contrast, Juha Janhunen argues that Koreanic expanded from Silla in the southeast, replacing Japonic languages in Baekje and the rest of the peninsula. [56]
Goguryeo also later known as Goryeo, was a Korean kingdom located in the northern and central parts of the Korean Peninsula and the southern and central parts of modern day Northeast China. At its peak of power, Goguryeo controlled most of the Korean Peninsula, large parts of Manchuria and parts of eastern Mongolia and Inner Mongolia as well as Russia.
Samguk Sagi is a historical record of the Three Kingdoms of Korea: Goguryeo, Baekje and Silla. Completed in 1145, it is well known in Korea as the oldest surviving chronicle of Korean history.
The Three Kingdoms of Korea or Samguk competed for hegemony over the Korean Peninsula during the ancient period of Korean history. During the Three Kingdoms period, many states and statelets consolidated until, after Buyeo was annexed in 494 and Gaya was annexed in 562, only three remained on the Korean Peninsula: Goguryeo, Baekje and Silla. The "Korean Three Kingdoms" contributed to what would become Korea; and the Goguryeo, Baekje and Silla peoples became the Korean people.
Buyeo, also rendered as Fuyu, was an ancient kingdom that was centered in northern Manchuria in modern-day northeast China. It had ties to the Yemaek people, who are considered to be the ancestors of modern Koreans. Buyeo is considered a major predecessor of the Korean kingdoms of Goguryeo and Baekje.
Japonic or Japanese–Ryukyuan, sometimes also Japanic, is a language family comprising Japanese, spoken in the main islands of Japan, and the Ryukyuan languages, spoken in the Ryukyu Islands. The family is universally accepted by linguists, and significant progress has been made in reconstructing the proto-language, Proto-Japonic. The reconstruction implies a split between all dialects of Japanese and all Ryukyuan varieties, probably before the 7th century. The Hachijō language, spoken on the Izu Islands, is also included, but its position within the family is unclear.
The Goguryeo language, or Koguryoan, was the language of the ancient kingdom of Goguryeo, one of the Three Kingdoms of Korea. Early Chinese histories state that the language was similar to those of Buyeo, Okjeo and Ye. Lee Ki-Moon grouped these four as the Puyŏ languages. The histories also stated that these languages were different from those of the Yilou and Mohe. All of these languages are unattested except for Goguryeo, for which evidence is limited and controversial.
Tamna was a kingdom based on Jeju Island from ancient times until it was absorbed by the Korean Joseon dynasty in 1404, following a long period of being a tributary state or autonomous administrative region of various Korean kingdoms. The Go (Jeju) clan is the family name of the Lord, that ruled West Tamna over 400 years. The Moon (Nampyeong) clan is the family name of the Prince, that ruled East Tamna for 400 years.
The state of Jin was a confederacy of statelets which occupied some portion of the southern Korean peninsula from the 4th to 2nd centuries BCE, bordering the Korean Kingdom of Gojoseon to the north. Its capital was somewhere south of the Han River. It preceded the Samhan confederacies, each of which claimed to be the successor of the Jin state.
Samhan, or Three Han, is the collective name of the Byeonhan, Jinhan, and Mahan confederacies that emerged in the first century BC during the Proto–Three Kingdoms of Korea, or Samhan, period. Located in the central and southern regions of the Korean Peninsula, the Samhan confederacies eventually merged and developed into the Baekje, Gaya, and Silla kingdoms. The name "Samhan" also refers to the Three Kingdoms of Korea.
Very little is known of the language of the Buyeo kingdom. Chapter 30 "Description of the Eastern Barbarians" in the Records of the Three Kingdoms records a survey carried out by the Chinese state of Wei after their defeat of Goguryeo in 244. The report states that the languages of Buyeo and those of its southern neighbours Goguryeo and Ye were similar, and that the language of Okjeo was only slightly different from them. Based on this text, Lee Ki-Moon grouped the four languages as the Puyŏ languages, contemporaneous with the Han languages of the Samhan confederacies in southern Korea.
The classification of the Japonic languages and their external relations is unclear. Linguists traditionally consider the Japonic languages to belong to an independent family; indeed, until the classification of Ryukyuan as separate languages within a Japonic family rather than as dialects of Japanese, Japanese was considered a language isolate.
Old Korean is the first historically documented stage of the Korean language, typified by the language of the Unified Silla period (668–935).
The language of the kingdom of Baekje, one of the Three Kingdoms of Korea, is poorly attested, and scholars differ on whether one or two languages were used. However, at least some of the material appears to be variety of Old Korean.
The traditional periodization of Korean distinguishes:
Gaya, also rendered Kaya, Kara or Karak, is the presumed language of the Gaya confederacy in ancient southern Korea. Only one word survives that is directly identified as being from the language of Gaya. Other evidence consists of place names, whose interpretation is uncertain.
Koreanic is a small language family consisting of the Korean and Jeju languages. The latter is often described as a dialect of Korean, but is distinct enough to be considered a separate language. Alexander Vovin suggested that the Yukjin dialect of the far northeast should be similarly distinguished. Korean has been richly documented since the introduction of the Hangul alphabet in the 15th century. Earlier renditions of Korean using Chinese characters are much more difficult to interpret.
The Puyŏ or Puyo-Koguryoic languages are four languages of northern Korea and eastern Manchuria mentioned in ancient Chinese sources. The languages of Buyeo, Goguryeo, Dongye and Okjeo were said to be similar to one another but different from the language of the Yilou to the north . Other sources suggest that the ruling class of Baekje may have spoken a Puyŏ language.
The Han languages or Samhan languages were the languages of the Samhan of ancient southern Korea, the confederacies of Mahan, Byeonhan and Jinhan. They are mentioned in surveys of the peninsula in the 3rd century found in Chinese histories, which also contain lists of placenames, but are otherwise unattested. There is no consensus about the relationships between these languages and the languages of later kingdoms.
Chapter 37 of the Samguk sagi contains a list of place names and their meanings, from part of central Korea captured by Silla from the former state of Goguryeo (Koguryŏ). Some of the vocabulary extracted from these names provides the principal evidence that Japonic languages were formerly spoken in central and southern parts of the Korean peninsula. Other words resemble Korean or Tungusic words.
Mioyama was one of the 12 statelets located in the Byeonhan confederacy during the Proto–Three Kingdoms period of Korea first mentioned in the Records of the Three Kingdoms. Due to its peculiar name, the statelet is used as an example of a possible placename that supports the Peninsular Japonic theory and a possible presence in Korea from ancient Japan.