koguryo tamna vovin

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Korean Linguistics 15:2 (2013), 222240. doi 10.1075/kl.15.2.03vovissn 02573784 / e-issn 22129731 John Benjamins Publishing Company

From Kogury to Tamna*Slowly riding to the South with speakers of Proto-Korean

Alexander VovinUniversity of Hawaii at Mnoa

This article recapitulates some old evidence for the Japonic linguistic substratum in Silla and Paekche in and for the lack of thereof in Kogury. It also introduces some new evidence for the same linguistic distribution. The new evidence for Kogury comes mainly from words recorded in Chinese dynastic histories and from additional Korean loanwords identified in Manchu, the new evidence for Paekche from Liang shu, while the new evidence for Silla is based on the analysis of Silla placenames recorded in the Samguk sagi, which are traditionally consid-ered to be opaque. The present article identifies a number of them as Japonic. Finally, I present the Japonic etymology for the former name of Chejudo island, Tamna.

Keywords: Silla, Paekche, Kogury, Manchu, Japonic, linguistic prehistory, etymology, placenames, Chinese dynastic histories, Samguk sagi

1. Introduction

In this article I will try to summarize old and to provide some additional new evi-dence for my theory about the spread of Proto-Korean as well as about the limits of a Japonic substratum in the Korean peninsula previously outlined in Vovin (2005, 2006, 2007b, 2007c). In a nutshell, this theory maintains that in all probability, speakers of Proto-Korean were the invaders from the north (more exactly from South or Central Manchuria), well acquainted with equestrian warfare learned through contact with Inner Asian tribes during the period of Great Migrations. This seems to agree quite well with Korean mythology, and especially with the

* In this paper modern readings of place names are given in McCune-Reischauer romanization. Language data, titles of texts, and personal names are given in Yale romanization.

2013. John Benjamins Publishing CompanyAll rights reserved

From Kogury to Tamna 223

Cwumong myth. Japonic-speaking foot soldiers were no match for Korean-speaking iron-clad mounted warriors, so they were faced with two choices: either to submit to new masters, or to immigrate to the islands that lay beyond the ho-rizon the Japanese archipelago. We can only guess that most of them made it across the Tsushima straights. Those who remained, though, were probably also quite numerous, but eventually they were absorbed linguistically into the main-stream of the Korean population. This was a long process taking several centuries, and in all likelihood it was completed much earlier in the North and Southwest than in the Southeast. In any case, the spread of the Korean language on the Korean peninsula went from the north to south.

Any theory must be based on detailed analysis of data, because any analysis of data from the viewpoint of a preconceived theory will inevitably lead to the falsification and/or tailoring of data needed to confirm ones theory. Two recent attempts to squeeze the Korean and Japonic data into the Procrustean bed of the Altaic theory: Starostin et al. (2003) and Robbeets (2005) could well illustrate the point.

It appears that place names recorded in the Samkwuk saki vol. 3437 have played the dominant role in research on the language(s) of Kogury and Paekche, with other sources almost completely ignored. Meanwhile, the language of Silla is almost exclusively studied on the basis of Silla hyangka texts, with other sources being neglected. As a matter of fact, the sources for all language(s) or dialects of the Three Kingdoms can be divided into four groups:

1. actual texts2. glosses in foreign language texts3. loanwords in neighboring languages4. place names and other proper nouns

The actual texts are the most important among the four. A text in a language that is the target of ones research is the most reliable source. Place names certainly represent a less reliable source than loanwords (and especially documented loan-words), because they are ahistoric; in other words we cannot pin any language preserved exclusively in place names down to a particular polity without a second independent piece of evidence. Moreover, exclusive reliance on place names can lead to erroneous results.

The so-called Kogury placenames in the Samkwuk saki (SKSK) that look Japonic do not reflect the actual language of Kogury, but indicate the pre-Kogury language. (cf. Beckwith (2004) for an opposite point of view.) Once we get to the evidence on the Kogury language outside the vicious circle of placenames, we cannot discover anything even remotely resembling Japonic. The evidence from the Kogury inscriptions and loanwords in the neighboring languages, such as


224 Alexander Vovin

Jurchen and Manchu, speaks very strongly in favor of the Kogury language being some variety of Old Korean (Vovin 2006a, 2006b, 2007b).

Although previously I have disagreed with Knos theory of Korean-Japonic bilingualism in Paekche (1987), as I did not see too much evidence for bilingual-ism in Paekche (Vovin 2006a), in the present article I will rescind my position to a certain extent; although some evidence for a Japonic substratum in Paekche ex-ists, it still has to be maintained that most of the supporting examples are not very persuasive. On the contrary, I see a gradual change of language from Japonic to Korean in the Silla area (Vovin 2007b).

2. Old evidence

Let me start with a summary of the old evidence that is scattered across several publications (Vovin 2005, 2006, 2007b, 2007c). I will only provide data here in tabular form; the relevant discussion can be found in the aforementioned articles.

2.1 Kogury

Korean loans in Manchu and Jurchen that are not attested in other Tungusic lan-guages provide evidence that Manchu and Jurchen borrowed from some variety of Old Korean. This should not come as a surprise, because the ancestors of Manchu and Jurchen were ruled by Kogury and Parhae. Meanwhile, there are no Japonic loanwords in Manchu and Jurchen, or even Japonic-looking words that are not found at the same time in Korean. See the table below.

Table 1. Korean loans in Manchu and Jurchengloss OK, EMK,

MK, MdKManchu/Jurchen source of dis-

cussioncomments

root MK pwlhwy Ma. fulehe Vovin 2005: 112cold, chilly EMK sikun,

MK sk-Jur. ingun, Ma. singkeyen

Vovin 2005: 112

precipitous bank,cliff

MK pylh, ply, plyy; MdK pyelang

Ma. biyoran [boran]

Vovin 2005: 11213

to press tightly MK ccl-, MdK cicilu-

Ma. cecere- Vovin 2005: 113

he, she, it, this MK Jur. in-i his, Ma. i this

Vovin 2005: 113



Table 1. (continued)gloss OK, EMK,

MK, MdKManchu/Jurchen source of dis-

cussioncomments

to say, to do MK ho- ~ hoy- < PK *hyo-

Jur. Ma. se- to say

Vovin 2005: 113

younger sister, sister of a male

MK nwGi sister of a male

Jur, neuu, niyohun younger sister,

Vovin 2005: 113

pale (of color) MK nyth- Ma. nitan, nitara- faded (of color),

Vovin 2005: 114

Buddha MK pwthy Ma. fucihi Vovin 2005: 114Buddhist temple MK tyl Jur. taira Vovin 2007b: 75 OJ teramiso, fermented soybean paste

MK mycw Ma. misu-n Vovin 2007b: 7778

MJ miso. Judging on the basis of the phonological history of all three languages, Korean must have been the donor to both Japanese and Manchu.

comb of a loom MK pty Ma. fatan comb-like tool used for working silk on the loom

Vovin 2005: 114 OJ pata loom

fan EMK pwuchay, MK pwchy ~ pwchy

Jur. fus[h]eku Vovin 2007b: 7879

seed MK psi Ma. pisen Vovin 2005: 114radish MK mwzw Jur. niam-muju Vovin

2007b: 7778Since MK mwzw < PK *mwuswu, it must be a relatively late loan.

genitive case marker

OK -hi Jur. Ma. -i Vovin 2005: 115

verbal finite form

OK -Wi < *-bi Jur. Ma. -bi Vovin 2005: 116

There are a few non-Chinese morphological markers appearing in Kogury in-scriptions. None of these resembles Japonic, but two have clear Korean parallels.


226 Alexander Vovin

Table 2. Korean morphology in Kogury inscriptions:gloss OK, MK Kogury source of discussiontentative verbal marker

MK -ti [ti] Vovin 2005: 118

ergative case marker OK, MK -i [i] Vovin 2005: 117

2.2 Paekche

Most of the Paekche lexical items from the Zhou shu and the Nihonshoki that have been discussed previously (Kno 1987, Bentley 2000, Vovin 2005) do not demon-strate evidence for bilingualism in Paekche as proposed by Kno (1987), because, as the following table demonstrates, even those lexical items that have Japonic parallels and no Korean counterparts have a very limited distribution in Japonic, where they are essentially confined to Western Old Japanese or Central Japonic, which is known to have extensive contacts with Korean. The only cases that do not conform to this rule include words that are common to both Korean and Japonic, such as island and bear. Nevertheless, as I will demonstrate below, Knos hy-pothesis of Koreo-Japonic bilingualism in Paekche may eventually have a rational foundation, although the existing evidence might be slim; the crucial evidence is in fact not cited by Kno (1987).

Table 3. Paekche glosses in the Zhou shu and the Nihonshokigloss Paekche Korean Japonic source of

discussionbig (?) *kjn , EMK huku-n, MK

kh-n Vovin

2005: 12122, 13132

king *eraa , orikoke

WOJ ira- < *era noble, no attestations in other Japonic languages

Vovin 2005: 12223

queen *oluk , oriku

PK *wol(G)ok- the exalted one

Vovin 2005: 12324

fortress1 *casi MK cs Vovin 2005: 12425

fortress2 *k WOJ k, no attesta-tions in other Japonic languages

Vovin 2005: 12425



Table 3. (continued)gloss Paekche Korean Japonic source of

discussionbottom, below

*arosi, *arusi

MK l, ly (< *l-y)

Vovin 2005: 12526

south *aripisi

MK lph front, south

Vovin 2005: 127

bear *kumu, *komu, *kuma

MK :kwom < PK *komV

WOJ kuma Vovin 2005: 12728

falcon *kuti WOJ kuti identified as a loan from Paekche

Vovin 2005: 128

stream *nare, *nari

OK /NAri/, MK :nayh river

Vovin 2005: 12829

moun-tain

*mure, *mura, *mora

MK mwlw, :mwoy Vovin 2005: 12930

island *syema MK :syem WOJ sima island, ter-ritory

Vovin 2005: 13031

father *kaso WOJ kas, no attesta-tions in other Japonic languages

Vovin 2005: 132

lord, master, king

*nyerim

MK :nim < *nilim Vovin 2005: 132

district *kopori

MK kWl, kGwlh, kwG-wlh, kwGlh < *kopor

WOJ kopori < Paekche kopori

Vovin 2005: 132

belt *sitoro MK sty Vovin 2005: 132

2.3 Silla

A comparison between Cin-Han words recorded in the Wei zhi from the third century and Silla words recorded in the Liang shu from the seventh century dem-onstrates a gradual increase of Korean vocabulary in the area as compared with Japonic vocabulary. This is shown in Table 4 below. Given the fact that Hyangka poems dated to the sixth-seventh centuries AD are unmistakably written in Korean and not in Japonic, we can safely arrive at the conclusion that a Japonic substratum


228 Alexander Vovin

language in the Southeastern area of the Korean peninsula was pretty much mar-ginalized by this time, probably surviving only in some rural communities.

Table 4. Silla glosses in the Wei zhi and the Liang shugloss Silla Korean Japonic Chinese

sourceSource of discussion

I *a OJ a WZ XXX: 852

Vovin 2007: 61011

relatives (?)

*adzan

MK c-m WZ XXX: 852

Vovin 2007: 61113

country, settlement

*pw ,

WOJ p vicinity, local-ity, area

WZ XXX: 852

Vovin 2007: 613, 621

bow *gwa MK hwl WZ XXX: 852

Vovin 2007: 61314

bandit *kus MJ kuse crooked, EMdJ kuse-mono criminal

WZ XXX: 852

Vovin 2007: 61415

you *da Hateruma & Shitoi daa, Yonaguni Ndaa

WZ XXX: 852

Vovin 2007: 61617

big (?) *gjn EMK huku-n, MK kh-n

LS LIV: 805

Vovin 2007: 62021

settlement *mura

OJ mura village LS LIV: 805

Vovin 2007: 62021

high (?) *twk OJ taka LS LIV: 805

Vovin 2007: 621

village *iprk

EOJ ipa-r house LS LIV: 805

Vovin 2007: 62122

pants *kapan

EMK kapy LS LIV: 806

Vovin 2007: 622

footwear *sen MK sn LS LIV: 806

Vovin 2007: 622

3. New evidence

3.1 Kogury

Let me first address some Kogury words recorded in Chinese transcription. There is the following passage recorded in the Wei shu, a Chinese chronicle compiled in the middle of the sixth century, where some Kogury titles are recorded together with their translations into Chinese:



Their official names are called yt big elder brother and thajH little elder brother (WS 100: 2215)

From this passage we can deduce three Kogury words recoded in the Chinese transcription:

(a) /yt/ big. There is no comparable word in Japonic, either Japanese or Ryukyuan. Since big here is used in the sense of seniority rather than size, MK :nyey-s old immediately comes to mind. Since Chinese at that time did not have final -s, it is natural to expect that Korean genitive -s would be transcribed as -t. Explaining the absence of MK initial n- is more difficult, but a possible explana-tion is that in the Korean dialect of Kogury, like in Modern Korean, we have n- > 0- /_y,i. This proposal is supported by the fact that old castle in the Puy language was called /ys/1 castle (WZ 30: 842). An alternative ety-mology involves Ma. aya-n big (Cincius 1975: 21), which is not attested in other Tungusic languages or in Mongolic. An isolated Manchu or Jurchen word with no etymologies in Tungusic or Mongolian is likely to have provenance in either Khitan or Old Korean as demonstrated in Vovin (2006b). The Khitan word for big, great is (Kane 2009: 85). This indicates that the Manchu word is un-related to Khitan and strongly suggests that the Manchu word has an Old Korean provenance. Given the fact that the final cluster *-tn is not possible in Manchu, we can arrive at the hypothetical Kogury form *aya(t)n big, which was borrowed in Manchu as aya-n.

(b) /thajH/ small. Again, nothing comparable can be found in Japonic, either in Japanese or Ryukyuan. However, there is EMK /a-thjH/ small, young (of age) (Kyeylim # 343). Aphaeresis is a frequent phenomenon in Korean language history, cf. EMK huku-n () big (Kyeylim # 348) > MK kh-n id. so the development of *atay > tay in a certain dialect should not come as a surprise.

(c) // elder brother. At first glance the parallelism with Western Old Japanese se elder brother seems perfect. Cf. the following textual example:

Kara KUNI-ni watar-u wa-Nka seKorea land-LOC cross.over-ATTR we-POSS elder.brotherOur elder brother who was going to cross over to the land of Korea (MYS XV: 3688)

There is, however, a big problem with this apparent parallelism. Se elder brother is confined to Central Japanese, and predominantly to WOJ, with some attesta-tions in Early Middle Japanese, mostly limited to poetry. Ryukyuan exhibits an

1. Late Han readings are used for WZ transcriptions.


230 Alexander Vovin

array of forms for elder brother, such as Izena i:dja and Tonoshiro i:dja (Uchima and Arakaki 2000: 359), but these fail to agree in vowel quality with WOJ se (, not i would be expected as a reflex of OJ e) in addition to having an unaccounted segment -dja not attested in WOJ, so this Ryukyuan word cannot be a cognate of WOJ se. It is usually believed that MdK hyeng elder brother is a loan from EMC *xjw, but there are several problems with this etymology. First, the Sino-Korean reading of the Chinese character elder brother appears as hywyeng in Tongkwuk cengwun. Second, in MK texts elder brother appears as hywung, e.g.:

hywung-k ptut-ielder.brother-GEN intention-NOMelder brothers intention (Yongpi 8)

The puzzle is why the modern Sino-Korean reading is hyeng rather than hyung. This, in all likelihood, suggests a contamination between a Sino-Korean word and a native Korean word. It is even possible that due to this contamination hyeng was perceived as a Sino-Korean reading, although it might be, as a matter of fact, a native Korean word. Given that the /hy/ sequence easily results in /s/ or //, both the Kogury and Western Japanese words for elder brother likely have Korean provenance.

In the Chinese chronicle Zhou shu, compiled at the beginning of the seventh century, we have the following passage in the description of Kogury:

Their ceremonial headgear is called kut-suo (ZS 41: 885)

There is no comparable word in Japonic, either Japanese or Ryukyuan. On the other hand, the first part kws- of MK kwskl ceremonial headgear is highly reminiscent of Kogury kut-suo ceremonial headgear. Kogury kut-suo prob-ably reflects *koso, which corresponds to MK kws-, and which can be derived from *koso by apocopation of the second syllable vowel, a process very common in the Korean language history. MK kwskl ceremonial headgear clearly looks like a compound, but the problem remains how to explain the remaining part -kl.

In the Chinese chronicle Wei zhi, compiled at the end of third century AD, we have the following passage:

Kolo is the [Ko]gury [word] for castle (WZ 30: 843)

The Chinese transcription of course can indicate either kolo or koro. Beckwith tried to compare this word with OJ kura storehouse and kuruma cart, which he additionally misglossed as wheel (2004: 127), but both are unacceptable for pho-netic, morphemic, and semantic reasons. First, there is no evidence that -ma in OJ kuruma is a suffix. Second, there is no evidence that kuruma < *koroma by raising



of PJ *o > OJ u. Third, while such evidence might exist for OJ kura < *kora, cf. LMJ fo-kora (USM) small shrine (lit. ear.of.grain-storehouse), the correspondence of OJ -a to Kogury -o in the last syllable is odd and needs to be explained. Finally, the semantic side of comparison is simply impossible with kuruma cart and is quite overstretched with kura storehouse. I believe that this word is nothing other than a famous Inner Asian Wanderwort: Middle Mongolian qoto-n, Manchu hoton, etc. fortress, fortified settlement, town. Thus, it is a loanword, but the important part here is that Kogury koro fortress can be derived from *koto by a Korean-specific (in this region) process of lenition of intervocalic -t- to -r-. This process of lenition is alien to Japonic at any stage of its development, so in spite of the fact that we are dealing with an originally non-Korean word, the indication that it was subject to a phonological process uniquely typical for Korean in this region presents another piece of strong evidence in favor of the Korean nature of the Kogury language.

It is admittedly dangerous to play with proper nouns, such as place names and personal names. However, when we actually know what these proper nouns mean, it is admissible to use the evidence that they provide. This has been the standard practice in all previous work with the place names from the Samkwuk saki. I will not deal again with placenames here; instead I would like to focus on the name of the founder of Kogury: Cwumong. In Chinese sources this name appears for the first time spelled as in Wei Shu (100: 2213) and is glossed as good shooter, good archer (), thus we know what it actually means. There is a problem in the interpretation of the phonetic nature of the first character in the Chinese transcription of the name, since it has two readings: LHC tio > EMC tju and LHC to > EMC tju. Fortunately, a genuine Kogury Kwangetho wang inscription that predates the compilation of the Wei shu by more than a century includes the same name transcribed as . The character (LHC dzo > EMC dzju) confirms the usage of the first reading tio containing the retroflex initial t-. The choice of the retroflex is of course not coincidental, since neither LHC, nor EMC had a syllable *ti with dental /t/ preceding /i/ in its syllabic inventory, but only /ti/, /tsi/, or /i/. The preference for writing the native Korean syllable /ti/ was exceptionally given to syllables with initial retroflexes, as amply evidenced by both hyangchal and manygana type A. The latter of the two ultimately goes back to some peninsular writing system, probably Paekche. Consequently, the first character /tio/ tio in can be identified with MK tywoh- (:-) be good. One of the peculiarities of Korean structure is that a bare stem of a Korean verb or a quality verb can par-ticipate in compounding, e.g. nulk-tari an old animal, an old person < nulk- old + tali leg, mip-sang a disgusting face < miw- hateful; + sang appearance, MK plk-cwy (Kup-kan 6.68a) bat < plk- bright, red + cwy rat, EMdK pipuy-hwal (Yek.e po 45b) the bow of a bowstring drill < pipuy- rub + hwal bow, pwus-twos winnowing mats < pwuch- to fan + twosk mat (Martin 1996: 1213). Thus, the


232 Alexander Vovin

good part of the good archer seems to be taken care of. Unfortunately, the sec-ond part, mo or mu so far resists any interpretation as archer not only in Korean, but also in any other neighboring language.2

Thus, the Kogury words preserved in Chinese sources seem to have only Korean etymologies, and none of them has any Japonic etymology.

I can now also add four more apparent loans from some variety of Old Korean (most likely Kogury or Parhae) into Jurchen and Manchu that have no cognates in other Tungusic languages.

MK plk- bright, clear > Ma. bolgo bright, clearMK :cyep swallow > Ma. cibin id. There are other words: Jur. ibihin (Kiyose

1977: 107) and Ma. sibirgan swallow, the latter probably a neologism from cibin swallow + guldargan id. Ma. guldargan is isolated in Manchu.

MK kc type > Ma. hacin id. It is also attested in other Tungusic languages: Solon xash type, Neghidal xain various, Oroch xai ~ xain type, Udehe xasi id., Ulcha xai(n-) id., Orok xati(n-) various, Nanai xa id. (Cincius 1975: 465); but inner-Tungusic correspondences indicate that in all these languages it is a loan from Manchu: Ma. x- corresponds to k- in other Tungusic languages in the case of genuine cognates (Cincius 1949: 215). It is also worth noting that the word is found in Tungusic languages that all have contacts with Jurchen and/or Manchu, while it is not attested in those that did not have such contacts at all (Ewen, Arman), or had rather limited contacts (Ewenki).

MK pch color, light > Jur. buco, Ma. boco color. For vowel development cf. Jur. tiko, Ma. coko chicken. Although Jur. *bico is not attested, we can imagine the development *bico > buco > boco occurring in a heavy labial environment that oc-curred earlier than tiko > coko.

3.2 Paekche

There are the following two passages in Liang shu recording Paekche words:

[They] call a ruling fortress kuo-ma and a settlement yam-luo [They] call a short jacket pjuk-sam and pants kwjn (LS 54.80405). kuo-ma ruling fortress. No apparent Korean etymology. Possibly from a hypothetical Japonic *km-a enclosure. Cf. OJ km- to put inside, ka-kom- to enclose.

yam-luo settlement. No apparent Korean etymology. Possibly from a hypo-thetical Japonic *ya-maru circle of houses. Cf. OJ ya house + mar circle.

2. Middle Mongolian has mergen archer, but it seems impossible to connect it with Kogury mo or mu.



pjuk-sam short jacket. No apparent Korean or Japonic etymologies. kwjn pants. No apparent Korean or Japonic etymologies.

Although the evidence is confined to just two of the words above and is thus far from conclusive, it is possible that Paekche, like Silla, had a Japonic substratum. The lack of clear-cut evidence may be attributed to the fact that Paekche was con-quered by invading Korean speakers at a much earlier date than Silla.

3.3 Silla

While an extraordinary amount of research has been done on the Kogury and Paekche place names, and especially on those that look similar to Japonic words (Yi Kimun 1963, Murayama 1963, To Swu-huy 19872000, Beckwith 2004, Choy Nam-huy 2005, to name just very few), little if anything has been done on the Silla place names. This neglect is perhaps understandable, given the existence of actual texts in Old Korean of Silla, so the main efforts have been channelled into the study of Hyangka. The goal of this paper is to examine the Silla placenames recorded in the 34th volume of the Samkwuk Saki, which covers the original Silla territory. (I am excluding those in the original Karak territory.)

Similar to Kogury and Paekche place names, Silla place names also rep-resent a powerful mix reflecting various linguistic strata. Some of them are undoubtedly Korean, but others are not, or at least not transparently so. Like Kogury and Paekche place names, Silla place names were Sinified during the reign of King Kyengtek. There is, however, one peculiarity. Contrary to Kogury place names that have doublet readings (semantographic and phonetic), not many of the Silla and Paekche place names have semantographic equivalents. In addition, King Kyengteks Sinification reform did not provide translational equivalents of old names in the overwhelming number of cases, but completely changed names. This certainly makes the analysis of meanings more problem-atic, frequently bordering on guesswork. However, as I will demonstrate in this paper, it is sometimes possible to read a given phonetic place name quite un-controversially in a given language. In this particular case, some of these place names are unmistakably Japonic.

Japonic place names with semantographic equivalents:Cloud summit district. Originally Mother mountain district, otherwise called amo fortress. King Kyengtek changed the name (SKSK 34: 11a).MK has m (Sek 6: 1b) or m-nm (Yong 90) mother. This is more or less close (although vowels do not match), but both WOJ amo (NK 82) and EOJ amo (MYS 20.437678, 20.4383) mother are identical.


234 Alexander Vovin

Clear river district. Originally sat m district. King Kyengtek changed the name (SKSK 34: 5a).Sat m certainly does not look like a Korean word, but it can be analyzed as Japonic: m river is cognate to PJ *me water > WOJ m-Ntu, PR *me, and sat clear can be compared to WOJ sat-si enlightened, bright. A comparison of Silla m river with MK mul water cannot be supported due to the difference in vocal-ism, and the absence of the last consonant in the Silla word.

Japonic place names without semantographic equivalents:Changed brightness district. Originally tinmiti district. King Kyengtek changed the name (SKSK 34: 3b).Tinmiti certainly does not look like a Korean word, but it can be easily analyzed as Japonic ti-n mti, where -n [n] is a genitive case marker, and mti way, road. WOJ ti may be either blood, milk, father, or strength (the latter is attested only in compounds). Most likely ti-n mti can be analyzed as strong/sturdy road.

Safety of the way district. Originally tora district. King Kyengtek changed the name (SKSK 34: 5b).Tora certainly does not look like a Korean word, but it can be interpreted as Japonic: WOJ tra tiger.

Western district station. Originally turamiti station. King Kyengtek changed the name (SKSK 34: 9b).Turamiti certainly does not look like a Korean word, but it can be interpreted as Japonic: WOJ tura face, front and mti road, thus tura miti station is the station on the front road.

Simple privacy district. Originally mutu miti, also called katu miti. King Kyengtek changed the name (SKSK 34: 4a).Neither mutu miti nor katu miti looks like a Korean word. We have already seen above that miti is likely to be cognate with WOJ mti way, road. Keeping in mind that WOJ does not have final consonants, mutu can be compared to WOJ mutu intimate, close. Thus, we can get mutu miti private road, which does not seems to be impossible, especially since it might be quite probable that the intimate, private part of this placename was partially preserved in the new name Simple



privacy given by King Kyengtek. Alternatively, katu miti can be interpreted as WOJ kate-3 to join + mti road, which is joining road.

Japonic morphology in Silla placenamesMiddle district station. Originally station. King Kyengtek changed the name (SKSK 34: 9b).I believe that root and station are semantograms in . However, the middle character /n/ is apparently phonographic since it has no lexical mean-ing here. No Korean-based explanation seems to be possible. It does not take a lot of imagination to connect it with WOJ n-, the attributive form of the copula n-. Thus, it was probably Root station or Main station.

Divine light district. Originally East sound district. King Kyengtek changed the name (SKSK 34: 8b).The characters and are apparent semantograms, but the middle character

is apparently phonographic since it has no lexical meaning here. Its LHC read-ing is nB, therefore one can compare it with WOJ -n [n], genitive case marker. Thus, we obtain The sound of the East.

Flat mountain district. Originally flat mountain district. King Kyengtek changed the name (SKSK 34: 10a).It is possible to interpret as Flat Western mountain, but it is also quite possible that the character /se/ (LHC sei) is a cognate with WOJ -si, the finite adjectival form that can also function as an attributive (Martin 1987: 80709), (Vovin 2010: 429, 46166). Thus, probably represents a partially semanto-graphic and partially phonographic spelling PRA-se4 flat-ATTR.

The Japonic elements found in the above Silla placenames can be presented in the following tabular form:

3. WOJ kate- to join is a vowel verb, so its attributive form is kat-uru. Japonic Silla katu can be interpreted either as assimilation of kat-uru > kat-u before the following nasal; or, more realis-tically, the verbal conjugation of a Japonic substratum language in Silla might have an attributive form quite different from the WOJ attributive.

4. The reading PRA- for the semantographic part is substituted tentatively on the basis of Japonic.


236 Alexander Vovin

Table 5. Japonic elements in Silla placenames.gloss Silla Japonic word or

morphemeJaponic cognate Source

mother amo OJ amo SKSK 34: 11a

river m PJ *me water SKSK 34: 5a

clear sat WOJ sat-si enlightened SKSK 34: 5a

road, way miti OJ mti SKSK 34: 3b, 4a, 9b

strength (?) ti OJ ti- (in compounds) SKSK 34: 3b

genitive case marker -n , OJ -n [n] SKSK 34: 3b, 8b

tiger tora WOJ tra SKSK 34: 5b

face, front tura WOJ tura SKSK 34: 9b

private mutu WOJ mutu intimate SKSK 34: 4a

joining katu WOJ kate- to join SKSK 34: 4a

attributive form of a copula

n WOJ n- [n-] SKSK 34: 9b

adjectival attributive -se OJ -si, adjectival final/at-tributive

SKSK 34: 10a

The combined evidence from Cin-Han Japonic and Silla Japonic glosses in the Wei zhi and the Liang shu, as well as Silla Japonic placenames in the Samkwuk saki vol. 34, strongly support Ungers (2005, based on extralinguistic data) and Vovins (2007, based on linguistic data) suggestion that Silla territory had original-ly Japonic substratum language(s) that was/were eventually assimilated by Korean.

In combination with the evidence from the Japonic-looking pseudo-Kogury placenames that are mainly found in the Hankang basin (Murayama 1963, Yi 1963, To 19872000), etc., it appears that the linguistic history of the Southern part of the Korean peninsula from the Hankang basin to the Southern end of the Korean peninsula by and large conforms to the same pattern: gradual replacement of Japonic languages by languages closely related to Korean that can be tagged as Old Koreanic for practical purposes.

3.4 Tamna

Apart from the slow abatement of a Japonic language in Silla (Vovin 2007c), the interesting case in question is the possible replacement of a Japonic language by a Koreanic one in Chejudo. I have written previously on possible Japonic elements in Chejudo (Vovin 2003, 2010). This time, however, I would like to take up the is-sue of the ancient name for Chejudo. It is very well known that until the fifteenth



century Chejudo was an independent kingdom with only a tributary relationship to Korea. The modern spelling for the name of this ancient kingdom is /tham-na/ (, ). However, the older name is actually /tammura/ () (Kwen 1994: 167). This place name is meaningless in Korean, but it can be clearly analyzed in Japonic as either tani mura valley settlement or tami mura peoples settlement with expected apocope in Korean and subsequent assimilation n > m if it is derived from tani mura. It is worth noting that among the Liang shu records of Silla words we have *gjn *mu *la castle, fortification (LS 54.805), with *mula () supported by WOJ mura village, settlement (Omodaka et al. 1967: 729), and PR *mura settlement (Hirayama 1966: 313).5 WOJ tani valley is well attested, see for example NK 2. WOJ tami people is not attested in phonographic spelling, so we really do not know whether it was tam or tam. Nevertheless, given the apocope in the name tam-mura, there is no consequence for the etymology in case it is based on tami-mura peoples settlement rather than tani-mura valley settlement.

Chejudo was probably conquered by Koreans well before the fifteenth century, but its original Japonic legacy continued to survive for some time in the origi-nal Japonic name for the island as well as in the place names and some specific Chejudo dialect words.

4. Conclusion

I basically believe that speakers of Korean or Old Koreanic came from Inner Asia (possibly from South or Central Manchuria, as Korean foundation myths suggest), where they had learnt mounted warfare. In spite of many claims to the contrary, their language had no genetic connection to the language of the people they met in their move to the South in the Hankang valley and furthermore to the South. These folks were agriculturalists, basically growing rice. Their military power based on foot soldiers armed with swords and spears was no match for the iron-clad mounted newcomers from the North. Therefore, the old population had only two choices: either to submit to new masters or to emigrate to the islands in the

5. Nam Phwunghyen has recently discussed this *mura () settlement in detail (2009: 21324). In his opinion it is a Korean word used in the southern part of the Korean peninsula, which is cognate with Kogury *moru () (Nam 2009: 223). The apparent difficulty in this equation is the vocalism of the second syllable: the character did not have a low unrounded vowel /a/ at any point in the history of the Chinese language: cf. OC ro, LHC lio, EMC lju (Schuessler 2009: 151), Mandarin l. A completely fantastical solution by Kiyose and Beckwith must be also mentioned, as these two scholars derive both Silla Japonic *mura and MK mozol village from an ad hoc PK *mozora (2006: 6) that, of course, goes contrary to everything we know about Korean language history.


238 Alexander Vovin

East beyond the horizon. As we can guess now, the second choice was much more popular. But at the same time, the retreat of Japonic speakers from the Korean peninsula was neither fast nor instant.

This also gives further credibility to the hypothesis that the Korean language was originally an intrusive language in the Korean peninsula that was introduced by mounted warriors familiar with Inner Asian warfare who eventually subjugated Japonic-speaking agriculturalists in the center and south of the peninsula.

Received 11 April 2010; revision received 16 March 2011;

accepted 22 December 2011

Language abbreviations

LHC Late Han ChineseEMC Early Middle ChineseEMK Early Middle KoreanEMdK Early Modern KoreanMK Middle KoreanLMJ Late Middle JapaneseEOJ Eastern Old JapaneseWOJ Western Old JapaneseOJ Old JapanesePR Proto-Ryukyuan

References

Primary sourcesKoreanKKP Kokwulye Kwangkaytho taywang pimun, 414 or 415 ADKup-kan Kwukup kan.i-pang, 1489 ADKyeylim Kyeylim yusa, 1103 ADSek Sekpo sangcel, 1447 ADSKSK Samkwuk saki(), 1145 ADTongkwuk Tongkwuk Cengwun, 1448 ADYek.e po Yek.e yuhay po, 1775 ADYongpi Yongpi Echenka, 1445 AD

ChineseLS Liang shu (), 635 ADWS Wei shu (), 55154 AD



WZ Wei zhi (), late 3rd century ADZS Zhou shu (), early 7th century AD

JapaneseMYS Manysh, 759, ca. ADNK Nihon shoki kay (), 720 ADUSM Uji shi monogatari, ca. 12131221 AD

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& Boston: Brill.Bentley, John R. 2000. New look at Paekche and Korean: Data from Nihon shoki. Ehak yenkwu

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Ryukyuan Languages]. Tokyo: Meiji shoin.Kane, Daniel. 2009. The Kitan Language and Script. Leiden & Boston: Brill.Kiyose, Gisabur N. 1977. A Study of the Jurchen Language and Script. Kyoto: Hritsubunka-sha.Kiyose, Gisaburo N. & Christopher I. Beckwith. 2006. The Silla word for walled city and the

ancestor of Modern Korean. Arutai go kenky 1.110.Kno, Rokur. 1987. Kudara go no nijgosei. Chsen no kobunka ronsan: Nakagiri sensei kiju

kinen ronsh [A Collective Volume on the Ancient Korean Culture: A Collection of Articles Commemorating Seventy-seventh Birthday of Professor Nakagiri]. Ed. by Nakagiri sensei no kiju o kinen suru kai, pp. 8194. Tokyo: Kokusho kankkai.

Kwen, Sangno 1994. Hankwuk cimyeng yenhyeng sacen [A Diachronic Dictionary of Korean Placenames]. Seoul: Ihwa munhwa chwulphansa.

Martin, Samuel E. (1997) Un-Altaic features of the Korean verb. Japanese-Korean Linguistics, Volume 6 ed. by Ho-min Sohn & John Haig, 340. Stanford: CSLI Publications.

Murayama, Shichir. 1963. Kkurigo to chsengo to no kankei ni kan-suru ksatsu [A study on the connection between the Kogury language and the Korean language]. Chsen gakuh 26.18998.

Nam, Phwunghyen. 2009. Kotay Hankwuke yenkwu [A Study of the Old Korean Language]. Seoul: Sikan-uy mulley.

Omodaka, Hisataka et al., eds. 1967. Jidai betsu kokugo daijiten. Jdai hen [A Large Dictionary of the Japanese Language by Periods. A Volume on Ancient Period]. Tokyo: Sanseid.

Robbeets, Martine. 2005. Is Japanese Related to Korean, Tungusic, Mongolic and Turkic? Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.

Starostin, Sergei, Anna Dybo & Oleg Mudrak. 2003. Etymological Dictionary of the Altaic Languages. With assistance of Ilya Gruntov & Vladimir Glumov, 3 vols. Leiden & Boston: Brill.

To, Swuhuy. 19872000. Paykcey-e yenkwu [A Study of the Paekche Language]. IIV. Seoul: Paykcey munhwa kaypal yenkwuwen.


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Uchima, Chokujin & Kimiko Arakaki 2000. Okinawa kita bu/ nan bu hgen no kijutsuteki kenky [A Descriptive Study of the Dialects in the Northern and Southern Parts of Okinawa]. Tokyo: Kazama Shob.

Unger, J. Marshall. 2005. When was Korean first spoken in the southeastern Korea? Journal of Inner and East Asian Studies 2:2. 87105.

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Vovin, Alexander. 2006. Why Manchu and Jurchen are looking so non-Tungusic? Tumen jalafun jecen ak, Manchu Studies in Honor of Giovanni Stary ed. by Juha Janhunen, Alessandra Pozzi, & Michael Weiers, 25566. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.

Vovin, Alexander 2007a. Once again on doublets in western Old Japanese. Current Issues in the History and Structure of Japanese, ed. by Bjarke Frellesvig, Masayoshi Shibatani & John Charles Smith. Tokyo: Kurosio Publishers, pp. 35173.

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Vovin, Alexander 2010. Koreo-Japonica A Re-evaluation of a commom genetic origin. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.

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Seoul: Thap chwulphansa.

Authors address

Alexander VovinProfessor of East Asian Languages and LiteraturesDepartment of East Asian Languages and LiteraturesUniversity of Hawaii at MnoaUSA

[email protected]

From Kogury to Tamna1. Introduction2. Old evidence2.1 Kogury2.2 Paekche2.3 Silla

3. New evidence3.1 Kogury3.2 Paekche3.3 Silla3.4 Tamna

4. ConclusionLanguage abbreviationsReferencesPrimary sourcesSecondary sources

Authors address

koguryo tamna vovin

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