From Koguryǒ to T’amna: Slowly riding to the South with speakers of Proto-Korean

Vovin, Alexander

doi:10.1075/kl.15.2.03vov

Article published In: Korean Historical Linguistics:
[Korean Linguistics 15:2] 2013
► pp. 217–235

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From Koguryǒ to T’amna

Slowly riding to the South with speakers of Proto-Korean

Alexander Vovin | University of Hawai’i at Manoa, USA

Published online: 21 February 2014

https://doi.org/10.1075/kl.15.2.03vov

This article recapitulates some old evidence for the Japonic linguistic substratum in Silla and Paekche in and for the lack of thereof in Koguryǒ. It also introduces some new evidence for the same linguistic distribution. The new evidence for Koguryǒ 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 considered 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, T’amna.

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

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