[KS] A Question about pukkando

[Frank Hoffmann]

>All this chatter about bando brings another 
>question to my mind, and that is the etymology 
>of Pukkando -- the term for Manchuria.  It's is 
>"north" "space" "island" -- and how did that 
>come about?  There is nothing of an island in 
>that northern space.


Pukkando was the name for only the southeastern 
part of Manchuria, today's Yanbian -- but I guess 
you just simplified since Koreans often use the 
name Kando when referring to Manchuria as such. 
In 1934 the Japanese organized Manchukuo into 14 
provinces and 2 special municipalities and Kando 
(Kantô) was one of them.
In any case, the translation "Northern - area 
(space) - island" is deceiving because the term's 
origin goes most likely back to the Jurchen. That 
would at least make most sense. Same case with 
Yalu (Yalu / Amnok) and Tumen (Tumen / Tuman) 
rivers right in that area: look at either older 
or modern maps and you see that there are no 
common Chinese characters for these names in East 
Asia. "Tumen" is clearly of Jurchen origin 
(meaning: ten thousand), which is why we have two 
sets of Chinese characters, since these are just 
markers for the pronunciation. Must be the same 
with Jiandao/Kando/Kantô.

Frank

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Frank Hoffmann
http://koreaweb.ws