Goguryeo language

Goguryeo
Koguryo
Native to Goguryeo
Region Manchuria, Korea
Extinct 7th–10th century?
Koreanic
  • Goguryeo
Dialects
Language codes
ISO 639-3 zkg
zkg
Glottolog kogu1234[1]
Goguryeo at its height in 476 CE.

The Goguryeo language was a Koreanic language spoken in the ancient kingdom of Goguryeo (37 BCE – 668 CE), one of the Three Kingdoms of Korea.[2][3][4][5][6] The language is also known as Old Koguryo, Koguryoic, and Koguryoan.

It is unknown except for a small number of words, which mostly suggest that it was similar but not identical to the language of Silla. Striking similarities between later Baekje and Goguryeo can also be found, which is consistent with the legends that describe Baekje being founded by the sons of Goguryeo's founder. The Goguryeo names for government posts are mostly similar to those of Baekje and Silla.

In Samguk Sagi and Samguk Yusa, the historical books of Korea's Goryeo period, it is described that the Silla of the late Three Kingdoms is related to the language of Goguryeo and Baekje.

Chinese records suggest that the languages of Goguryeo, Buyeo, Eastern Okjeo, Dongye, Baekje and Silla were similar, while the Tungusic languages of Mohe and Yilou differed significantly.[7][8][9]


三國志 魏書 高句麗 : 東夷舊語以爲夫餘別種 言語諸事 多與夫餘同
(Records of the Three Kingdoms : Goguryeo is a branch of Buyeo so the language is largely same to Buyeo.)

梁書 列傳 高驪 : 言語諸事, 多與夫餘同, 其性氣衣服有異
(Book of Liang : Goguryeo language is largely same to Buyeo but there are differences in their clothings.)

梁書 列傳 百濟 : 今言語服章略與高驪同, 行不張拱, 拜不申足則異
(Book of Liang : Baekje language is roughly same to Goguryeo.)

梁書 列傳 新羅 : 語言待百濟而後通焉
(Book of Liang : Silla language has to be translated by Baekje so that they can communicate with China.)
(Note : a Silla delegation in China didn't have an interpreter, so a Baekje delegation assisted Silla.)

三國志 魏書 勿吉國 : 勿吉國在高句麗北, 一曰靺鞨 言語獨異
(Records of the Three Kingdoms : Mohe language alone is different from Goguryeo.)

後漢書 挹婁 : 人形似夫餘, 而言語各異
(Book of the Later Han : Physical appearance of Yilou people resembles Buyeo people, but their languages are different from each other.)


Many experts today, including Ki-moon Lee, S. Robert Ramsey, Alexander Vovin, John Whitman and Marshall Unger, believe that Goguryeo language was a member of the Koreanic language family that either spread from southern Manchuria and the Korean peninsula at earlier times or expanded from Goguryeo during the Three Kingdoms of Korea period to Baekje and Silla by Goguryeo migrants.[10][11][12][13] It is argued that the connections of Goguryeo toponyms to Japonic may be due to earlier languages of southern Korea prior to the expansion of Koreanic languages.[14] Words of Goguryeo origin can be found in Middle Korean (early 10th to late 14th century). Alexander Vovin (2017)[15] notes that the Khitan language has many Koreanic loanwords that are not found in the Mongolian and Tungusic languages, which are presumably derived from the Goguryeo language.

Christopher I. Beckwith links Buyeo, Goguryeo, and Baekje with Japonic languages.[16] This work was criticized for serious methodological flaws, such as rejecting mainstream reconstruction of Chinese and Japanese and using his own instead.[17] Juha Janhunen argues that it is possible Goguryeo language could have been an Amuric language related to today's Nivkh language isolate. [18][19] Comparative linguist Kang Gil-un also has argued that modern Korean is related to the Nivkh language.[20]

See also

References

Citations

  1. ↑ Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2017). "Koguryo". Glottolog 3.0. Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
  2. ↑ Bellwood, Peter (2013). The Global Prehistory of Human Migration. Malden: Blackwell Publishing. ISBN 9781118970591.
  3. ↑ Vovin, Alexander (2013). "From Koguryo to Tamna: Slowly riding to the South with speakers of Proto-Korean". Korean Linguistics. 15 (2): 222–240.
  4. ↑ Lee, Ki-Moon; Ramsey, S. Robert (2011). A History of the Korean language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-66189-8.
  5. ↑ Whitman, John (2011). "Northeast Asian Linguistic Ecology and the Advent of Rice Agriculture in Korea and Japan". Rice. 4 (3–4): 149–158. doi:10.1007/s12284-011-9080-0.
  6. ↑ Unger, J. Marshall (2009). The role of contact in the origins of the Japanese and Korean languages. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. ISBN 978-0-8248-3279-7.
  7. ↑ Fan Ye, Book of the Later Han, volume 85; the Dongyi Liezhuan
  8. ↑ Wei Shou, Book of Wei, volume 100; the Liezhuan 88, the Wuji
  9. ↑ Li Dashi, History of Northern Dynasties, volume 94; the Liezhuan 82, the Wuji
  10. ↑ Vovin, Alexander (2013). "From Koguryo to Tamna: Slowly riding to the South with speakers of Proto-Korean". Korean Linguistics. 15 (2): 222–240.
  11. ↑ Lee, Ki-Moon; Ramsey, S. Robert (2011). A History of the Korean language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-66189-8.
  12. ↑ Whitman, John (2011). "Northeast Asian Linguistic Ecology and the Advent of Rice Agriculture in Korea and Japan". Rice. 4 (3–4): 149–158. doi:10.1007/s12284-011-9080-0.
  13. ↑ Unger, J. Marshall (2009). The role of contact in the origins of the Japanese and Korean languages. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. ISBN 978-0-8248-3279-7.
  14. ↑ Toh Soo Hee, About Early Paekche Language Mistaken as Being Koguryo Language Archived 2009-02-26 at the Wayback Machine., Ch'ungnam University
  15. ↑ Vovin, Alexander (June 2017). "Koreanic loanwords in Khitan and their importance in the decipherment of the latter". Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae. 70 (2): 207–215. doi:10.1556/062.2017.70.2.4. ISSN 0001-6446.
  16. ↑ Beckwith, Christopher (2005). "The Ethnolinguistic History of the Early Korean Peninsula Region: Japanese-Koguryic and other Languages in the Koguryo, Paekche, and Silla kingdoms". Journal of Inner and East Asian Studies. 2–2: 33–64.
  17. ↑ Pellard, Thomas (2005). "Koguryo, the Language of Japan's Continental Relatives: An Introduction to the Historical-Comparative Study of the Japanese-Kgouryoic Languages with a Preliminary Description of Archaic Northeastern Middle Chinese (review)". Korean Studies. 29: 167–170. doi:10.1353/ks.2006.0008.
  18. ↑ Pozzi & Janhunen & Weiers 2006, p. 109
  19. ↑ Janhunen, Juha (2005). "The Lost Languages of Koguryo". Journal of Inner and East Asian Studies. 2–2: 65–86.
  20. ↑ Kang, Gil-un (1990). 고대사의 비교언어학적 연구. 새문사.

Bibliography

  • Pozzi, Alessandra; Janhunen, Juha Antero; Weiers, Michael, eds. (2006). Tumen Jalafun Jecen Aku: Manchu Studies in Honour of Giovanni Stary. Volume 20 of Tunguso Sibirica. Giovanni Stary. Otto Harrassowitz Verlag. ISBN 344705378X. Retrieved 1 April 2013.

Further reading

  • Beckwith, C. I. (2004). Koguryo, the language of Japan's continental relatives: an introduction to the historical-comparative study of the Japanese Koguryoic languages with a preliminary description of Archaic northeastern Middle Chinese. Brill's Japanese studies library, v. 21. Boston: Brill. ISBN 90-04-13949-4
  • Beckwith (2006). "Methodological Observations on Some Recent Studies of the Early Ethnolinguistic History of Korea and Vicinity." Altai Hakpo 2006, 16: 199-234.
  • Beckwith (2006). "The Ethnolinguistic History of the Early Korean Peninsula Region: Japanese-Koguryoic and Other Languages in the Koguryo, Paekche, and Silla Kingdoms." Journal of Inner and East Asian Studies, 2006, Vol. 2-2: 34-64.
  • Beckwith (2007): Koguryo, the Language of Japan's Continental Relatives: An Introduction to the Historical-Comparative Study of the Japanese-Koguryoic Languages, with a Preliminary Description of Archaic Northeastern Middle Chinese. Brill Academic Publishers, 2004. ISBN 90-04-13949-4. Second edition, 2007. ISBN 90-04-16025-6
  • http://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/docs/00/19/41/11/PDF/review-Beckwith-Koguryo.pdf
  • Alexander Vovin (2005). "Koguryǒ and Paekche: Different Languages or Dialects of Old Korean?" Journal of Inner and East Asian Studies, 2005, Vol. 2-2: 108-140.
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