<table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" border="0" ><tr><td valign="top" style="font: inherit;">WRT the Japanese word for island "shima しま” being from Korean, I'd point out that the Korean word "seom 섬" was earlier rendered "syeom 셤" and that Japanese "tsushima つしま|対馬島" appears to be an adaptation from Korean "dusyeom 두셤," = "two islands." Look at a map.<br><br><div id="RTEContent"><div id="RTEContent"><div id="RTEContent"><div id="RTEContent"><div id="RTEContent"><div id="RTEContent"><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://koreanpoems.blogspot.com/">Dr. Edward D. Rockstein </a><br></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br>ed4linda@yahoo.com <br><br><em>Those who corrupt the public mind are just as evil as those who steal from the public purse</em>--Adlai Stevenson<br></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div><br><br>--- On <b>Tue,
5/29/12, Edward Kim <i><wangkon936@yahoo.com></i></b> wrote:<br><blockquote style="border-left: 2px solid rgb(16, 16, 255); margin-left: 5px; padding-left: 5px;"><br>From: Edward Kim <wangkon936@yahoo.com><br>Subject: Re: [KS] Is Korean an Altaic language?<br>To: "Korean Studies Discussion List" <koreanstudies@koreaweb.ws><br>Date: Tuesday, May 29, 2012, 10:54 PM<br><br><div id="yiv526911781"><table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tbody><tr><td style="font:inherit;" valign="top">John,<div><br></div><div>John R. Bentley at University of Hawaii did an exhaustive study of the Baekje language from surviving fragments in the Nihon Shoki and the Samguk Sagi and reconstructed 100 Baekje words. His conclusion was that Baekje and the language of Silla was more similar to each other than what was being spoken in Japan.</div><div><br></div><div>One interesting tidbit is that the Japanese word for island, "shima," was originally
from the old Korean world for enclosed and isolated space, "sima." Shima (as in Takashima or <span style="background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255);color:rgb(34, 34, 34);font-family:arial, sans-serif;font-size:small;line-height:16px;">Tsushima) was originally an old Korean word.</span><span style="font-size:10pt;"> </span></div><div><br><br>--- On <b>Mon, 5/28/12, John Treat
<i><john.treat@yale.edu></i></b> wrote:<br><blockquote style="border-left:2px solid rgb(16, 16, 255);margin-left:5px;padding-left:5px;"><br>From: John Treat <john.treat@yale.edu><br>Subject: Re: [KS] Is Korean an Altaic language?<br>To: koreanstudies@koreaweb.ws<br>Date: Monday, May 28, 2012, 5:48 PM<br><br><div id="yiv526911781">
<div>
On 5/28/12 2:46 PM, Edward Kim wrote:<br>
<br>
There are really very few compelling questions in Japanese
linguistics (Phonology? No. Syntax? No.), but this is ONE of them. I
was taught decades ago that Japanese (likely) has a genetic
relationship with Paekche, but Paekche itself was overwhelmed so
evidence has been lost. John Whitman toils in the fields, by the
way.<br>
<br>
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<td style="font:inherit;" valign="top"><font face="arial" size="2">Regarding the possible relationship, I would
say that current scholarship is leaning on saying no.
Here is a quick summary:</font>
<div style="font-family:arial;font-size:10pt;"><br>
</div>
<div style="font-family:arial;font-size:10pt;">1)
<span style="color:rgb(34, 34, 34);font-family:arial, sans-serif;line-height:16px;background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255);font-size:small;">Christopher I.
Beckwith</span> (author of Koguryo: The Language of
Japan's Continental Relatives) <span style="font-size:10pt;">gives a resounding no.</span></div>
<div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:10pt;"><br>
</span></div>
<div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:10pt;">2) </span><font face="arial" size="2">Roy Andrew Miller (author
of Languages and History: Japanese, Korean and Altaic)
says yes.</font></div>
<div><font face="arial" size="2"><br>
</font></div>
<div><font face="arial" size="2">3) Alexander Vovin
(author of Korea-Japonica: A Re-evaluation of a Common
Genetic Origin) says no. He had originally started
believing that Korean and Japanese shared a genetic
relationship, but after studying the most archaic
forms of Japanese on the Ryukyu islands, he came to
the conclusion that they were not. </font><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:small;">Interestingly,
Vovin does believe that a common "Old Korean" was
spoken on the peninsula during the Three Kingdom's
Period.</span></div>
<div><font face="arial" size="2"><br>
</font></div>
<div><font face="arial" size="2">4) J. Marshall Unger
(author of The Role of Contact in the Origins of the
Japanese and Korean Language) says yes, but
with caveats. He actually believes that Proto Korean
and Proto Japanese were both spoken widely on the
peninsula, but that Proto Korean eventually displaced
Proto Japanese and pushed it into the archipelago.
The main evidence that he has is that Japanese place
names on the peninsula are not just in old Koguryo
areas, but also in other areas on the peninsula as
well.</font></div>
<div><font face="arial" size="2"><br>
</font></div>
<div><font face="arial" size="2">My personal belief, as an
informed lay person, is a combination of three and
four. Korean and Japanese may have had very distant
genetic relationships somewhere in Manchuria or
Siberia, but separated a very long time ago. It is
very hard to know for sure because we have fragmentary
information on Old Korean due to Korea's more
turbulent history. At the same time information on
Old Japanese isn't exhaustive either. </font></div>
<div><font face="arial" size="2"><br>
</font></div>
<div><font face="arial" size="2">I know there was an
interesting paper by John R. Bentley that took old Han
and Wei documents and glossed Proto Korean and Proto
Japanese words and found out that both had a similar
number of vowels at that time. It also collaborated
the works of Japanese scholars as well. Turns out
that Proto Japanese may have had seven vowels as
opposed to the 5 vowels that it has now. Proto Korean
also had seven vowels back then as opposed to the 10
vowels it has now. It was also determined that those
vowels were overlapping. Thus, it appeared based on
this evidence that back then at least the two
languages sounded similar.</font></div>
<div style="font-family:arial;font-size:10pt;"><br>
</div>
<div style="font-family:arial;font-size:10pt;">Again,
based on the dearth of information, we may never really
know.</div>
<div style="font-family:arial;font-size:10pt;"><br>
<br>
--- On <b>Mon, 5/28/12, Adam Bohnet <i><a rel="nofollow" class="yiv526911781moz-txt-link-rfc2396E"><adam.bohnet@utoronto.ca></a></i></b>
wrote:<br>
<blockquote style="border-left:2px solid rgb(16, 16,
255);margin-left:5px;padding-left:5px;"><br>
From: Adam Bohnet <a rel="nofollow" class="yiv526911781moz-txt-link-rfc2396E"><adam.bohnet@utoronto.ca></a><br>
Subject: Re: [KS] Is Korean an Altaic language?<br>
To: <a rel="nofollow" class="yiv526911781moz-txt-link-abbreviated">koreanstudies@koreaweb.ws</a><br>
Date: Monday, May 28, 2012, 3:55 AM<br>
<br>
<div class="yiv526911781plainMail">Dear Eugene:<br>
<br>
My own fealing, having read a little bit about it as
a non-specialist, <br>
is that the safest course is to tell students that
there is a great <br>
deal of debate concerning Korea's relationship to
Japanese and the <br>
so-called Altaic languages, and that otherwise it
has no obvious or <br>
undisputed connection to any other language. I then
direct students to <br>
Sasha Vovin, etc. My own impression (no doubt based
on insufficiently <br>
deep reading) was that all of the participants in
the debate were able <br>
to claim that what other scholars treated as
evidence of a genetic <br>
relationship was actually just the result of
borrowing of words, so <br>
that unless one really wants to wade deep into the
waters of this <br>
debate, it is best to stay dry and on the edge.<br>
<br>
In response to Henny's comment, note that Eugene's
question was not <br>
concerned with simple "similarity" but with
language families. Note <br>
that English speakers have a notoriously hard time
learning Sanskrit, <br>
although Sanskrit is also an Indo-European language.
Perhaps I might <br>
direct list-members to a comment made by Sasha Vovin
on the Yahoo <br>
Manchu Studies List. His comment concerns Manchu,
but in some respects <br>
it applies to Korean as well.<br>
<br>
<a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ManchuStudy/message/390">http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ManchuStudy/message/390</a><br>
<br>
"Manchu belongs to the Tungusic language family,
namely to its South<br>
(Nanaic) branch. The Tungusic language family is
spread from Western<br>
Siberia to Pacific, and includes about a dozen
languages, among which<br>
Ewenki, Ewen, and Nanai alongside with the Sibo
dialect of Manchu in<br>
Xinjiang have the most number of speakers. Manchu,
as well as other<br>
Tungusic languages have a remarkable similarity to
languages belonging<br>
to languages families found in Central and East Asia
(Turkic,<br>
Mongolic, Korean, and Japonic) that used to be
called 'Altaic', but<br>
the similarity is superficial, mainly due to the
fact that all these<br>
languages have SOV word order. Students of Manchu
who make use of the<br>
Japanese translation of the Manwen laodang will
notice that the<br>
Japanese text placed beneath each line of Manchu
text follows the same<br>
word order as Manchu. But they should keep in mind
that a similar<br>
translation into Hindi or the Sepik language (a
Papuan language) would<br>
enjoy the same privilege, as these languages are
also SOV. Meanwhile,<br>
this will not work for Ewen, which, although
obviously related to<br>
Manchu, has developed SVO order in certain types of
clauses. Though<br>
linguists have debated whether Altaic languages are
actually<br>
genetically linked or whether their similarities
merely reflect<br>
extensive borrowings from one another, most of
Western and Japanese<br>
specialists in 'Altaic' languages believe that these
similarities are<br>
the result of centuries long contacts. In other
words, we deal here<br>
with a Sprachbund situation."<br>
<br>
<br>
Quoting Henny Savenije <<a rel="nofollow">webmaster@henny-savenije.pe.kr</a>>:<br>
<br>
> I am not a linguist either but I do remember
that Turkish and<br>
> Hungarians and even Finnish have a relative
easy time learning Korean.<br>
> I have met people from each group telling me
so. Which indicates to me<br>
> the similarity between the languages.<br>
><br>
> At 02:29 PM 5/27/2012, you wrote:<br>
>> Dear all,<br>
>><br>
>> On a somewhat related note: what is the
latest consensus, if any, among<br>
>> historical linguists on whether Korean (as
well as Japanese) is an<br>
>> Altaic language? I am not a linguist, but
would it be fair for me to<br>
>> tell my students that Korean is either a
member of an Altaic language<br>
>> family or a language isolate to which
Altaic languages, more than any<br>
>> others, are probably most closely related?
My own very limited<br>
>> understanding of the literature on
historical linguistics seems to<br>
>> suggest to me that if one were to place
Korean in a language family,<br>
>> then the Altaic seems to be the best
choice.<br>
>><br>
>> Best,<br>
>><br>
>> Gene<br>
>> ---<br>
>><br>
>> Eugene Y. Park<br>
>> Korea Foundation Associate Professor of
History<br>
>> Director, James Joo-Jin Kim Program in
Korean Studies<br>
>> University of Pennsylvania<br>
>> <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://www.history.upenn.edu/faculty/park.shtml">http://www.history.upenn.edu/faculty/park.shtml</a><br>
>><br>
>><br>
>> On 5/26/2012 11:02 PM, <a rel="nofollow">gkl1@columbia.edu</a>
wrote:<br>
>>> Hi List,<br>
>>><br>
>>> Admittedly a huge number of Chinese
words and compounds have become<br>
>>> part of Korean's vocabulary, just as a
huge number of Greek and and<br>
>>> Latin words have become a part of the
vocabulary of English (and the<br>
>>> other European languages too). But it's
distressing to learn that<br>
>>> people might think ANY Korean word
would be writable with Chinese<br>
>>> characters. If that were so, then
Korean would be a language in the<br>
>>> Sino-Tibetan family. It's hard enough
to get scholarly agreement on<br>
>>> what language family CAN claim Korean's
ancestry, but any linguistic<br>
>>> reference work would make it clear that
it's not a Chinese-type language.<br>
>>><br>
>>> Gari Ledyard<br>
>>><br>
>>> Quoting Clark W Sorensen <<a rel="nofollow">sangok@u.washington.edu</a>>:<br>
>>><br>
>>>> Caren,<br>
>>>><br>
>>>> Namaksin is a native Korean word,
so it doesn't have corresponding<br>
>>>> Chinese characters. However, any of
the on-line dictionaries will give<br>
>>>> the characters for Korean words
such as at naver.com. The problem is<br>
>>>> you have to input the Korean in
hangul.<br>
>>>><br>
>>>> Clark Sorensen<br>
>>>><br>
>>>> On Fri, 25 May 2012, Freeman, Caren
(cwf8q) wrote:<br>
>>>><br>
>>>>><br>
>>>>> I¡¯m asking this question on
behalf of a colleague who is a<br>
>>>>> sinologist. He asks:<br>
>>>>><br>
>>>>><br>
>>>>><br>
>>>>> ¡°i want to see what chinese
characters correspond to korean<br>
>>>>> "Namaksin" wooden clogs.
Namaksin (³ª¸·½Å)<br>
>>>>><br>
>>>>><br>
>>>>><br>
>>>>> Is there an online dictionary
that gives the classic readings for<br>
>>>>> korean words entered in pinyin
type western alphabet?¡±<br>
>>>>><br>
>>>>><br>
>>>>><br>
>>>>> Many thanks for your
recommendations,<br>
>>>>><br>
>>>>> Caren Freeman<br>
>>>>><br>
>>>>><br>
>>>>><br>
>>>>><br>
>>>>><br>
>>>>><br>
>>>>><br>
>>>>><br>
>>>>><br>
>>><br>
>>><br>
>>><br>
>>><br>
><br>
> _ _<br>
> (o) (o)<br>
> oOOO----(_)----OOOo---<br>
> Henny (Lee Hae Kang)<br>
> -----------------------------<br>
> <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://www.henny-savenije.pe.kr">http://www.henny-savenije.pe.kr</a>
Portal to all my sites<br>
> <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://www.hendrick-hamel.henny-savenije.pe.kr">http://www.hendrick-hamel.henny-savenije.pe.kr</a>
(in English) Feel free<br>
> to discover Korea with Hendrick Hamel
(1653-1666)<br>
> <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://www.hendrick-hamel.henny-savenije.pe.kr/indexk2.htm">http://www.hendrick-hamel.henny-savenije.pe.kr/indexk2.htm</a>
In Korean<br>
> <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://www.hendrick-hamel.henny-savenije.pe.kr/Dutch">http://www.hendrick-hamel.henny-savenije.pe.kr/Dutch</a>
In Dutch<br>
> <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://www.vos.henny-savenije.pe.kr">http://www.vos.henny-savenije.pe.kr</a>
Frits Vos Article about Witsen and<br>
> Eibokken and his first Korean-Dutch dictionary<br>
> <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://www.cartography.henny-savenije.pe.kr">http://www.cartography.henny-savenije.pe.kr</a>
(in English) Korea through<br>
> Western Cartographic eyes<br>
> <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://www.hwasong.henny-savenije.pe.kr">http://www.hwasong.henny-savenije.pe.kr</a>
Hwasong the fortress in Suwon<br>
> <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://www.oldKorea.henny-savenije.pe.kr">http://www.oldKorea.henny-savenije.pe.kr</a>
Old Korea in pictures<br>
> <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://www.british.henny-savenije.pe.kr">http://www.british.henny-savenije.pe.kr</a>
A British encounter in Pusan (1797)<br>
> <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://www.genealogy.henny-savenije.pe.kr/">http://www.genealogy.henny-savenije.pe.kr/</a>
Genealogy<br>
> <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://www.henny-savenije.pe.kr/phorum">http://www.henny-savenije.pe.kr/phorum</a>
Bulletin board for Korean studies<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
</div>
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