[KS] Corea

Andrea Campana md3206 at mclink.it
Wed Sep 15 03:30:47 EDT 1999


Summing up the discussion:

the name that we use today (in Latin countries) "Corea" came from a
translitteration of the sound used by Koreans during the Koryo dinasty and
was used for the first time either by the Arabs or the Portuguese somewhere
between the Xth and the XIIIth Century (if we accept the Arab origin) or
later (if we accept the Portuguese one). But the origin of the name from
Koryo makes more possible the Arab origin of the translitteration (the
Portuguese were not around Korea during the Koryo dynasty).

After the first source using "Cooray" or "Core" by the Dutch Van Linschoten
in 1585-6 on Portuguese boats, the time the name "Corea" was exactly used
how we (Latin) know today was in western sources at the early beginning of
the XVIIth Century.

the change of the first letter, from "C" to "K" was generally accepted in
the 1880s, probably because of the Anglo-Saxon (American) pronunciation,
more prone to the hard pronounciation of the sound "C--G--K" (it occours to
me difficult to believe that this was due -historically speaking- to the
Germans!).

Last consideration: why ICAS today????


Andrea C.



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