This page intentionally left blank A History of the Korean Language A History of the Korean Language is the first book on the subject ever published in English. It traces the origin, formation, and various historical stages through which the language has passed, from Old Korean through to the present day. Each chapter begins with an account of the historical and cultural background. A comprehensive list of the literature of each period is then provided and the textual record described, along with the script or scripts used to write it. Finally, each stage of the language is analyzed, offering new details supplementing what is known about its phonology, morphology, syntax, and lexicon. The extraordinary alphabetic materials of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries are given special attention, and are used to shed light on earlier, pre-alphabetic periods. ki-moon lee is Professor Emeritus at Seoul National University. s. robert ramsey is Professor and Chair in the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures at the University of Maryland, College Park. Frontispiece: Korea’s seminal alphabetic work, the Hunmin cho˘ngu˘m “The Correct Sounds for the Instruction of the People” of 1446 A History of the Korean Language Ki-Moon Lee S. Robert Ramsey CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, Sa˜o Paulo, Delhi, Dubai, Tokyo, Mexico City Cambridge University Press The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB2 8RU, UK Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521661898 # Cambridge University Press 2011 This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published 2011 Printed in the United Kingdom at the University Press, Cambridge A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Yi, Ki-Moon, 1930– A history of the Korean language / Ki-Moon Lee, S. Robert Ramsey. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-521-66189-8 (Hardback) 1. Korean language–History. I. Ramsey, S. Robert (Samuel Robert), 1941– II. Title. PL909.Y49 2011 4950.709–dc22 2010042242 ISBN 978-0-521-66189-8 Hardback Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate. Contents List of figures and maps page vii Acknowledgements viii Introduction 1 The origin of Korean 2 The beginnings of Korean history 3 The historical periods 4 Background to the present work 8 Romanization 10 Grammatical terms 12 1 Origins 13 1.1 Genetic hypotheses 14 1.2 Altaic 15 1.3 Japanese 26 1.4 Toward history 30 2 The formation of Korean 31 2.1 Old Choso˘n 31 2.2 The Puyo˘ and the Ha´n 34 2.3 The Three Kingdoms 36 3 Old Korean 50 3.1 Sources 51 3.2 Transcription methods 59 3.3 Phonology 63 3.4 Sino-Korean 68 3.5 Grammar 70 3.6 Vocabulary 73 4 Early Middle Korean 77 4.1 The formation of Middle Korean 78 4.2 Sources 79 4.3 The transcription of Korean 85 4.4 Phonology 89 4.5 Vocabulary 95 v vi Contents 5 Late Middle Korean 100 5.1 Sources 101 5.2 The Korean alphabet 115 5.3 Phonology 127 5.4 Morphology 169 5.5 Syntax 227 5.6 Vocabulary 235 6 Early Modern Korean 241 6.1 Sources 242 6.2 Writing and orthography 253 6.3 Phonology 256 6.4 Grammar 266 6.5 Vocabulary 282 7 Contemporary Korean 287 7.1 Script reform 287 7.2 Language standardization 291 7.3 Trends and changes 292 7.4 Morphology 297 7.5 Syntax 300 7.6 Vocabulary 301 Additional readings on selected topics 306 References 316 Index 320 Figures and maps Figures Frontispiece: Korea’s seminal alphabetic work, the Hunmin cho˘ngu˘m “The Correct Sounds for the Instruction of the People” of 1446 page ii 1 The Kwanggaet’o Stele 42 2 The Imsin so˘gi so˘k 54 3 The J¯ıl´ınleish `ı (Kyerim yusa 鷄林類事) 80 4 The Hunmin cho˘ngu˘m haerye 103 5 The Korean version of the Hunmin cho˘ngu˘m 104 6 “The Song of the Dragons Flying through Heaven” 105 7 “Songs of the Moon’s Imprint on the Thousand Rivers” 106 8 The Chinese-language textbook, “The Old Cathayan” 112 9 The sixteenth-century Chinese–Korean glossary, Hunmong chahoe 113 10 The Tongguk sinsok samgang haengsil to 244 11 The Japanese-language textbook, Ch’o˘phae sino˘ 246 12 The “Tale of Ch’unhyang,” a story of love transcending social class 251 Maps 1 The Korean peninsula ix 2 The Korean peninsula during the Three Kingdoms period, around AD 400 32 vii Acknowledgements In completing this work, we are indebted to numerous friends and colleagues to whom we have expressed our gratitude in private communication. A special word of thanks is owed to Hwang Seon-Yeop, however; Professor Hwang spent the better part of the summer months of 2009 reading and editing the next-to-last draft of this work. Professor Park Jin-Ho, aided by Professor Lee Ho-Kwon, kindly shared some high-resolution text images. Finally, we acknowledge the support of generous grants from the Korea Foundation, the American Council of Learned Societies, and the Graduate Research Board, University of Maryland. Ki-Moon Lee S. Robert Ramsey viii RUSSIA Siping Vladivostok Tumen Huadian Nakhodka CHINA Khasan Musan Najin Shenyang Badaojiang Tonghua Ch′ongjin Hyesan ′ ′ Anshan Ji an Manp o Kanggye Kimch′aek Dandong Sinuiju NORTH Kusong Yongbyon Hamhung KOREA East Sea P¢yongyang Wonsan Namp′o Korea Bay Demarcation line P′yonggang Changyon Sariwon Haeju Ch′orwon Kaesong ′ ′ Ongjin Ch unch on Munsan Kangnung Ullung-do Inch′on Seoul Wonju Suwon SOUTH Ch′onan Ch′ongju Andong KOREA ′ Yellow Sea Taejon P ohang Kunsan Chonju Taegu Ulsan Kwangju Masan Pusan t Morkp′o rai St Yosu a Hiroshima re o Tsushima K Kitakyushu Cheju 0 50 100 150 200 km Fukuoka 0 50 100 150 miles Cheju-do JAPAN Map 1. The Korean peninsula Introduction The story of Korean begins with the invention of the Korean alphabet. Ever since it was introduced in 1446, the Korean alphabet has been the source of precise and detailed information about the phonological and morphological structure of the language. In that year, some three years after an announce- ment of its creation had been made in the dynastic annals, the reigning monarch, King Sejong, promulgated a handbook introducing the new script and explaining its use, and from that point on Korean has been a language structurally accessible to future generations of linguists. Before the alphabet, there is virtually nothing in the way of quality documentation; with the alphabet, Korean structure is laid out for us to see. (The invention, how it happened, and what we know as a result, will be discussed in detail in Chapter 5.) Thus, lucid and precise written records of the Korean language go back slightly more than five and a half centuries. That length of time may seem ancient by most standards, but it is not particularly long on the time scale of East Asian history, or even of Korean history. Chinese writing is thought to have begun around the seventeenth century BC; and it was certainly a fully developed writing system by the fourteenth century BC. That means histories were being written and literature composed almost two thousand years before the Korean alphabet was invented. That was of course in China. But on the Korean peninsula as well, local scribes most certainly wrote in Chinese – at least soon after the Han commanderies established a presence there in 108 BC. In other words, Koreans were literate and creating histories and literature about a millennium before the beginning of the alphabetic period. But what do such early writings tell us about the Korean language? The simple answer is, frustratingly little – at least not in a direct and easily accessible way. People on the Korean peninsula were writing in Chinese, after all. But quite naturally Koreans did attempt to record elements of their native language – first and foremost proper names – and they did so with the only writing system they knew, Chinese characters. There were two ways to use these logographs: either to approximate sounds or to suggest meanings, and Koreans experimented with both methods, often in combinations. 1 2 Introduction Such writing of native words was apparently practiced in all the peninsular states during the Three Kingdoms period, and evidence of that usage can still sometimes be found in the transcriptions of place names. But it was in Silla (57? BC – 935 AD), the last of the three kingdoms to take up Chinese writing, where we see the most advanced adaptation of Chinese characters to tran- scribe Korean. There, the poems now known as hyangga, or ‘local songs,’ were written down in a complex interweaving of Chinese graphs, one hinting at meaning, the next one or two at sounds, then perhaps another one or two with by now obscure associations. (The method is described in Chapter 3.) The Silla system might best be compared to the man’yogana writing of early Japanese verse. But whereas almost 5,000 man’yogana poems from the eighth century alone are still extant, no more than 25 hyangga from all the centuries in which such verse was being composed in Korea have survived.