The Role of Contact in the Origins of the Japanese and Korean Languages

by J. Marshall Unger

Overview

Despite decades of research on the reconstruction of proto-Korean-Japanese (pKJ), some scholars still reject a genetic relationship. This study addresses their doubts in a new way, interpreting comparative linguistic data within a context of material and cultural evidence, much of which has come to light only in recent years.

The weaknesses of the reconstruction, according to J. Marshall Unger, are due to the early date at which pKJ split apart and to lexical material that the pre-Korean and pre-Japanese branches later borrowed from different languages to their north and south, respectively. Unger shows that certain Old Japanese words must have been borrowed from Korean from the fourth century C.E., only a few centuries after the completion of the Yayoi migrations, which brought wet-field rice cultivation to Kyushu from southern Korea. That leaves too short an interval for the growth of two distinct languages by the time they resumed active contact. Hence, concludes Unger, the original separation occurred on the peninsula much earlier, prior to reliance on paddy rice and the rise of metallurgy. Non-Korean elements in ancient peninsular place names were vestiges of pre-Yayoi Japanese language, according to Unger, who questions the assumption that Korean developed exclusively from the language of Silla. He argues instead that the rulers of Koguryo, Paekche, and Silla all spoke varieties of Old Korean, which became the common language of the peninsula as their kingdoms overwhelmed its older culture and vied for dominance.

Was the separation so early as to vitiate the hypothesis of a common source language? Unger responds that, while assuming non-relationship obviates difficulties of pKJ reconstruction, it fares worse than the genetic hypothesis in relation to non-linguistic findings, and fails to explain a significant number of grammatical as well as lexical similarities. Though improving the reconstruction of pKJ will be challenging, he argues, the theory of genetic relationship is still the better working hypothesis.

The Role of Contact in the Origins of the Japanese and Korean Languages shows how an interdisciplinary approach can shed light on a difficult case in which the separation of two languages lies close to the time horizon of the comparative method.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780824832797
Publisher:	University of Hawaii Press, The
Publication date:	11/30/2008
Edition description:	New
Pages:	224
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

J. Marshall Unger is Emeritus Professor of Japanese at Ohio State University. His research has focused on the history of Japanese, teaching Japanese as a second language, and writing systems of East Asia. Two of his books, The Fifth Generation Fallacy and Literacy and Script Reform in Occupation Japan, are available in Japanese.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments vii

Conventions ix

Introduction xi

1 Contact Hypotheses and Their Consequences 1

1.1 Operationalizing the proto-Korean-Japanese hypothesis 2

1.1.1 Pre-migration convergence? 6

1.1.2 Post-migration convergence? 12

1.1.3 Divergence 17

1.2 Language contact as a supplementary hypothesis 21

1.3 Should the pKJ hypothesis be rejected? 29

2 Critical Assessment of the pKJ Reconstruction 39

2.1 Phonemic correspondences 41

2.1.1 Pre-OJ mid-vowel raising 45

2.1.2 Vowels 50

2.1.3 Some etymologies 53

2.2 Grammatical similarities 59

3 Convergence Theories 71

3.1 Beckwith's theory 71

3.1.1 What do we know of Koguryoan? 73

3.1.2 Who named the places? 80

3.1.3 Who were the Yemaek? 82

3.1.4 Were founding myths inherited? 87

3.2 Vovin's theory 90

3.2.1 Is the nasal-cluster theory valid? 90

3.2.2 How did Japanese spread? 94

4 Japanese Borrowings from Old Korean 107

4.1 Synonyms of OJ words with para-Japanese cognates 107

4.2 Synonyms of OJ words with Korean cognates 113

4.3 Synonyms of OJ words of uncertain provenance 115

4.4 Innovative loans from Korean 121

5 Syncretism in Japanese Mythology 123

5.1 Volcano myths 128

5.2 Identification of chronological strata 135

5.2.1 Confounding the moon with Susa-no-wo 136

5.2.2 Winning the bride from Susa-no-wo 139

5.3 Dating the syncretism 141

6 The Korean Role in the Rise of Kofun Culture 143

6.1 The Yayoi-Kofun transition 145

6.1.1 Mounted archery 146

6.1.2 Writing and speaking 150

6.1.3 Other elements 152

6.2 How many non-Japonic languages were there? 156

7 Languages in Contact with Early Japanese 161

7.1 Wet-field rice cultivation 163

7.2 Bronze 169

7.3Languages of the trade network 172

Works Cited 177

Indexes 197

Middle Korean 197

Modern Korean 198

Old Japanese 199

Modern and Middle Japanese 202

English glosses 203