[KS] Multiple Languages on the Korean Peninsula

[Charles Mark Mueller]

Rupert Atkinson brought up an interesting question about multiple
languages on the Korean peninsula. Some people have speculated that the
apparent lack of difficulty in communication between Korean kindgdoms
suggest a common language. I find this highly unlikely. A common
language requires signficant contact between people to prevent dialects
from drifting apart and such contact is unlikely to have occurred in
ancient times. I suspect the opposite is the case: people were so
accustomed to having difficulties with communication whenever they
traveled anywhere that it was not even considered an issue worthy of
note.

As for the multiplicity of languages, I'd be very suprised if there
weren't a large number of languages--quite possibly from different or
distant language families--on the Korean peninsula. Even two
communities sharing a language will drift apart to the point that the
languages are not longer identifiable as belonging to the same family
after about 10,000 years. Since multiple migrations (of people not
necessarily speaking the same language) came into Korea over a much
longer period of time, and since their was no unification of the
peninsula by a strong bureaucratic state (capable of imposing a common
educational system) prior to the Shilla unification, there's no reason
for the languages to be similar. 

My guess (purely speculative) is that Jeju Islanders spoke a completely
different language unrelated to their current dialect and of a
different language family than modern Korean. (This supposition is
supported by early Chinese accounts.) Shilla undoubtedy spoke something
pretty close to modern Korean, although in its early years, there were
probably areas speaking different languages. Goguryeo, representing
people more recently coming in from the north, probably spoke a
different language of a different language family (or one that was at
least beyond the 10,000 year horizon) and areas of Goguryeo, being
populated by tribal groups that had been incorporated into Goguryeo,
undoubtedly spoke their own languages--perhaps in the same language
family as Goguryeo (or Manchurian?) but mutually unintelligible.
Baekje, if historical records are to be believed, was probably settled
by an offshoot of Goguryeo and would speak a related dialect or
language. Areas such as Gaya, which were said to have links to Japan,
may have spoken yet another language. And there may very well have been
some pidgins used in such areas--simple trade languages which could
have developed into full-fledged languages. I'm wary of saying that
some Gaya people spoke "Japanese" since Japan itself would have had a
large number of languages.

The number six cited by Atkinson is as good a guess as any. My guess is
that the current Korean peninsula, around the advent of the C.E., was
probably home to more than six languages (==> languages mutually
unintelligible) and that at least 3 or 4 of these, even if they were
available, could not be reconstructed as part of the same family.


		
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