[KS] Is Korean an Altaic language?

[Jim Thomas]

Hi Gene, 
To my knowledge, the best work on the origins of Korean (and Japonic) is Koreo-Japonica: A Re-Evaluation of a Common Genetic Origin By Alexander Vovin. As you will see at this link:
http://books.google.ca/books?id=um8O1bp-86EC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q=altaic&f=false
references to "Altaic" appear in the text on pages 40, 45, 71, 92, and 156, and in three refrences at the end of the book.  
But the focus there, as in most of the works by good linguists today, is on the similarities between Korean and Japanese, rather than with other putative "members of the Altaic family." I suppose, at some point, we are all forced to abandon romantic notions of certain old language empires--however appealing their inclusiveness may have sounded when we first learned of them.
best,
jim
 
> Date: Sun, 27 May 2012 01:29:51 -0400
> From: epa at sas.upenn.edu
> To: koreanstudies at koreaweb.ws
> Subject: [KS] Is Korean an Altaic language?
> 
> Dear all,
> 
> On a somewhat related note: what is the latest consensus, if any, among
> historical linguists on whether Korean (as well as Japanese) is an
> Altaic language? I am not a linguist, but would it be fair for me to
> tell my students that Korean is either a member of an Altaic language
> family or a language isolate to which Altaic languages, more than any
> others, are probably most closely related? My own very limited
> understanding of the literature on historical linguistics seems to
> suggest to me that if one were to place Korean in a language family,
> then the Altaic seems to be the best choice.
> 
> Best,
> 
> Gene
> ---
> 
> Eugene Y. Park
> Korea Foundation Associate Professor of History
> Director, James Joo-Jin Kim Program in Korean Studies
> University of Pennsylvania
> http://www.history.upenn.edu/faculty/park.shtml
> 
> 
> On 5/26/2012 11:02 PM, gkl1 at columbia.edu wrote:
> > Hi List,
> >
> > Admittedly a huge number of Chinese words and compounds have become
> > part of Korean's vocabulary, just as a huge number of Greek and and
> > Latin words have become a part of the vocabulary of English (and the
> > other European languages too). But it's distressing to learn that
> > people might think ANY Korean word would be writable with Chinese
> > characters. If that were so, then Korean would be a language in the
> > Sino-Tibetan family. It's hard enough to get scholarly agreement on
> > what language family CAN claim Korean's ancestry, but any linguistic
> > reference work would make it clear that it's not a Chinese-type language.
> >
> > Gari Ledyard
> >
> > Quoting Clark W Sorensen <sangok at u.washington.edu>:
> >
> >> Caren,
> >>
> >> Namaksin is a native Korean word, so it doesn't have corresponding
> >> Chinese characters. However, any of the on-line dictionaries will give
> >> the characters for Korean words such as at naver.com. The problem is
> >> you have to input the Korean in hangul.
> >>
> >> Clark Sorensen
> >>
> >> On Fri, 25 May 2012, Freeman, Caren (cwf8q) wrote:
> >>
> >>>
> >>> I’m asking this question on behalf of a colleague who is a
> >>> sinologist. He asks:
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> “i want to see what chinese characters correspond to korean
> >>> "Namaksin" wooden clogs. Namaksin (나막신)
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> Is there an online dictionary that gives the classic readings for
> >>> korean words entered in pinyin type western alphabet?”
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> Many thanks for your recommendations,
> >>>
> >>> Caren Freeman
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >
> >
> >
> >
> 
 		 	   		  
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://koreanstudies.com/pipermail/koreanstudies_koreanstudies.com/attachments/20120527/c37153ea/attachment.html>