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<P>Dear list members,</P>
<P>your interesting discussion about multiple languages in Korea, Japan, China,</P>
<P>and the relations between Japanese and Korean made me remember a book that was </P>
<P>written by professor Wontack Hong (Hong, Weon-taek).</P>
<P>Its English title is PEAKCHE OF KOREA AND THE ORIGIN OF YAMATO JAPAN.</P>
<P>The book can be downloaded from his homepage, (please google it) From this book we can assume the existence of something like a common language between the Korean kindgdoms and Japan (Yamato-Wa) during the time of the three kingdoms.</P>
<P>Chapter 5 of this work (pp. 160-162) reads as follows:</P>
<P>[...]<BR>It is therefore interesting to observe an emerging enthusiasm for the<BR>comparison of Japanese and Korean languages that resulted from the opening<BR>of the Takamatsuzuka tomb. According to Lewin (1976), modern Korean<BR>derives directly from Middle Korean, which was essentially the language of<BR>Silla. Lewin contends that the language of Koguryeo stands opposite to that<BR>of Silla, although both go back to an early branch of proto-Altaic, i.e., proto-<BR>Puyeo. He contends that “the language of the upper classes of the old<BR>Paekche kingdom” was also the language of Koguryeo, “since the royal house<BR>and the aristocrocy originated in the north .” Levin also contends that<BR>“Japanese was closely related to the Koguryeo language and that in its core it<BR>belonged to the Puyeo group [which consists of the Koguryeo, Paekche,<BR>Ye, Maek, and Okcho languages].” There
seems, however, to have been only<BR>dialectical differences between the Proto-(Three)-Han-Silla language and the<BR>Proto-Puyeo-Koguryeo-Paekche language. The fact that modern Korean and<BR>Japanese, though revealing substantial lexical differences, share an identical<BR>grammar implies that there could have been absolutely no grammatical<BR>differences between the Proto-(Three)-Han-Silla language and the Proto<BR>Puyeo-Koguryeo-Paekche language.<BR>Ono (1960) contends that Korean and Japanese share only about two<BR>hundred vocabulary cognates. Miller (1980) as well as Lee (1985), however,<BR>suggest that Korean and Japanese share a much larger number of vocabulary<BR>cognates than Ono contends. Miller (1979) has examined ten odd Old<BR>Paekche fragments and finds clear-cut Altaic etymological[...]affinities<BR>(Turkic affinities, in particular). He recovers not only lexical
evidence<BR>relating Old Paekche to other Altaic languages, but also evidence including<BR>phonology (pronunciation of the language) and morphology (the forms of words). <BR>Miller also explores the possibility of establishing an Old Paekche reflex for an <BR>Old Japanese morphological operation. Miller (1979: 6-7) states that: <BR>“If there is anything surp rising about the survival of Old Paekche linguistic <BR>evidence in Japanese sources, it is to be found in their relative rarity; <BR>that so few fragments, relatively speaking, have been identified in <BR>Old Japanese documentary sources to date is surely more of a<BR>reflection upon the lack of diligence with wh i ch these sources have been<BR>studied up until the present time, rather than any measure of their true<BR>potential .”[...]<BR>The language of the Yamato ruling class was what Lewin (1976) calls <BR>“the language of the
upper classes of the old Paekche kingdom .” <BR>The vocabulary of the ab o ri ginal language was greatly enriched<BR>by new borrowings f rom the Paekche people. Furthermore, Korean and<BR>Japanese came to share exactly identical grammar and sentence structures<BR>f rom the Tomb period onward. Indeed, as far as Koreans (or the Japanese,<BR>for that matter) are concerned, one does not have to be a linguist with<BR>t horough knowledge of comparative grammer in order to discern<BR>t hat Korean and Japanese have identical gramma r. Any contemporary<BR>Korean learning Japanese, or Japanese learning Korean, can immediately<BR>see it. [...]<BR>Korean and Japanese apparently came to share enough vocabulary in the<BR>Tomb period to enable men from Paekche or Silla to communicate with the<BR>people of Yamato Wa without any interpreters. Nihongi never records the<BR>presence of an interpreter when
the ruling class of Yamato Wa encountered<BR>the people from Paekche or even from Silla. According to Nihongi (NI: 325-<BR>326), the King of Silla sent messengers of condolence when Igyo died (in<BR>A.D. 453 ?): “Now the men of Silla had always loved Mount Miminashi and<BR>Mount Unebi, which are hard by the capital city. Accordingly, when they<BR>arrived at the Kotobiki Hill, they looked back, and said: ‘Uneme haya! Mimi<BR>haya!’ This was simply because they were unpracticed in the common<BR>speech, and there fore corrupted Mount Unebi, calling it Uneme, and<BR>corrupted Mount Miminashi, calling it Mimi.” This statement of Nihongi<BR>implies that the only thing needed for Koreans and Japanese to communicate<BR>comfortably with each other in those days was “to be practiced in the common<BR>speech[...]</P>
<P>References:<BR>Lewin, Bruno, “Japanese and Korean: The Problems and History of a Linguistic Comparison,” Journal of Japanese Studies, Volume 2, Number 2, 1976, pp. 389-412.</P>
<P>Ki-moon Lee, (Yi Kimun), Kaejeong Kukeosa-kaeseol (1961)</P>
<P>Ono Susumu, “The Japanese Language: Its Origins and Its Sources,”<BR>Japanese Culture: Its Development and Characteristics, edited by R. J. Smith and R. K. Beardsley, Viking Fund Publications in Anthropology, No. 34, New Yo rk: Wenner- Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, Inc., 1962, pp. 17-21.</P>
<P><BR>Lee, Nam Duck, A Study on the Ori gin of Ko rean Language, I & IV, in Korean, <BR>Seoul: Ewha Woman’s University Press, 1985 & 1986.</P>
<P><BR>Miller, Roy Andrew, “Some Old Paekche Fragments ,” Journal of Korean Studies, 1979, pp. 3-69.</P>
<P>Wontack Hong, PEAKCHE OF KOREA AND THE ORIGIN OF YAMATO JAPAN, Kudara International, 1994, ISBN 89-85567-02-0(93910)</P></FONT></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></DIV></div><br clear=all><hr>Wenn Ihnen E-Mail nicht schnell genug ist: MSN Messenger! <a href="http://g.msn.com/8HMBDE/2728??PS=47575" target="_top">Hier kostenlos downloaden!</a> </html>