Koguryo: The Language of Japan's Continental Relatives (Brill's Japanese Studies Library)

297 Pages·2004·2.98 MB·English

by  Christopher I. Beckwith

KOGURYO
THE LANGUAGE OF JAPAN’S
CONTINENTAL RELATIVES
BRILL’S
JAPANESE STUDIES
LIBRARY
edited by
H. BOLITHO AND K.W. RADTKE
VOLUME 21
KOGURYO
THE LANGUAGE OF JAPAN’S
CONTINENTAL RELATIVES
An Introduction to
The Historical-Comparative Study of the Japanese-
Koguryoic Languages
With a Preliminary Description of
Archaic Northeastern Middle Chinese
BY
CHRISTOPHER I. BECKWITH
BRILL
LEIDEN•BOSTON
2004
This book is printed on acid-free paper.
Illustration on the cover: Drawing by C.I. Beckwith, after a Koguryo tomb mural painting.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Beckwith, Christopher I., 1945-
Koguryo, the language of Japan’s continental relatives : an introduction to the
historical-comparative study of the Japanese-Koguryoic languages with a preliminary
description of Archaic northeastern Middle Chinese / by Christopher I. Beckwith.
p. cm. — (Brill’s Japanese studies library, 0925-6512 ; v. 21)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 90-04-13949-4 (hd. cover)
1. Japanese language—Foreign elements—Korean. 2. Korean language—Influence on
Japanese. 3. Korean language—To 935—Etymology. I. Title. II. Series.
PL664.K6 B43 2004
495.6’24957—dc22
2004049680
ISSN 0925-6512
ISBN 90 04 13949 4
© Copyright 2004 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in
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printed in the netherlands
CONTENTS
Preface ............................................................................................... vii
Abbreviations ................................................................................... xiii
Transcription and Transliteration .................................................... xvii
Map .................................................................................................. xxii
Introduction .......................................................................................... 1
1. Koguryo and the Origins of Japanese ......................................... 8
2. The Ethnolinguistic History of Koguryo .................................... 29
3. The Old Koguryo Toponyms ...................................................... 50
4. Archaic Northeastern Middle Chinese ........................................ 93
5. Old Koguryo Phonology ........................................................... 106
6. Toward Common Japanese-Koguryoic .................................... 118
7. The Proto-Japanese-Koguryoic Homeland ............................... 144
8. Koguryo and the Altaic Divergence Theories .......................... 164
9. The Altaic Convergence Theory ............................................... 184
10. Japanese and the Mixed Language Theory ............................... 195
11. Linguistic Theory and Japanese-Koguryoic ............................. 214
12. The Japanese-Koguryoic Family of Languages ....................... 236
Koguryo Lexicon ............................................................................ 250
Bibliography .................................................................................... 255
Index ................................................................................................ 267
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PREFACE
The beginnings of this book go back to 1996, when I was Visiting Pro-
fessor of Linguistics at the National Museum of Ethnology in Osaka,
Japan. I noticed, by chance, some puzzling correlations between Japa-
nese and Chinese that suggested a significant early preliterate loan
relationship. Since this idea required the Proto-Japanese speakers to
have lived at one time in contact with Old Chinese speakers, I began
looking into the problem of Japanese ethnolinguistic origins, and be-
came interested in the Koguryo language, which I had read about in
the publications of my friend and colleague, Gisaburo N. Kiyose.
When I investigated the sources on Koguryo I discovered that the
philology had never really been done. Most research involving the
language—including some of my own—was vitiated by basic philol-
ogical errors. In order that firm linguistic conclusions could be drawn,
and in order to establish a solid foundation for the study of Japanese
and Koguryo ethnolinguistic history, I decided to undertake the pre-
sent study.
I would like to thank my friend, colleague, and former student—
who has far surpassed his teacher—Tsuguhito Takeuchi, of Kobe City
University of Foreign Studies, for help beyond the call of duty in
every respect before, during, and after my stay at the National Mu-
seum of Ethnology. I am also indebted to my sponsor there, Yasuhiko
Nagano, for his generous assistance to me during my stay.
I could not have written this book without the help of many friends
and colleagues. First of all, Gregory Kasza of Indiana University gave
me much encouragement and advice, as did J. Marshall Unger of Ohio
State University. The discussions I had with Jim Unger helped me to
form clear views of my own on the relationship between Japanese and
Koguryo. At the time I was writing grant proposals I also received
helpful advice on my research from several other scholars, especially
Alexander Vovin of the University of Hawaii. In several instances Sa-
sha Vovin’s criticism pointed out the way to a better understanding.
Most importantly of all, Professor Kiyose not only advised me, he
sponsored me in my application for a Japan Foundation Fellowship
and helped me in every possible way before, during, and after my stay
in Japan. I cannot sufficiently express my deep gratitude to him.
viii PREFACE
Due to all this help from my friends and colleagues I was fortunate
enough to be awarded a Japan Foundation Fellowship for one year,
from August, 2001 to August, 2002. I would like to thank the Japan
Foundation (Kokusai Kôryû Kikin) of the Japanese Foreign Ministry
(Gaimushô) for the fellowship, without which I could not have written
this book.
Because Professor Kiyose retired in spring of 2002, his colleague
Tatsuo Nakami, of the Institute for the Study of Languages and Cul-
tures of Asia and Africa (‘A-A-ken’) at Tokyo University of Foreign
Studies, kindly offered to sponsor me. I am very grateful to him and to
A-A-ken for providing me with an office, an internet connection, and
much other support. Professor Nakami also introduced me to many
other Japanese scholars interested in the subject of my research, in-
cluding several at A-A-ken. I wish to thank Bhaskararao Peri of A-A-
ken for lending me a printer to use with the Macintosh computer Pro-
fessor Nakami found for me; without it my work there would have
been far more difficult. I would also like to thank Izumi Hoshi and the
staff of A-A-ken for their cheerful willingness to help me on many
occasions during my stay there.
Of all the scholars I met in Japan, I owe the biggest debt of grati-
tude to Hiroömi Kanno, who collected almost everything ever pub-
lished in Japanese and Korean on the Koguryo language, lent all of it
to me, and helped me go through some of the Korean publications.
Professor Kanno also assisted me with Korean linguistic matters, es-
pecially Middle Korean citations, and met me on several occasions for
discussion of our common research interests. Without his help this
book would have been much poorer.
When Professors Kanno and Nakami introduced my work to Ta-
katoshi Matsubara, of Kyushu National University, he invited me to
give a lecture on my research in Fukuoka. Professor Matsubara also
took me around to meet archaeologists and anthropologists and to
view Yayoi materials. I am grateful to Professor Matsubara for his
generosity and encouragement, and to the faculty and staff at Kyushu
National University who graciously showed me their collections.
I also wish to thank Professor Takeuchi for inviting me twice to
Kansai, where he generously treated me and my family and introduced
me to several of his collegues and students.
While I was living in Tokyo, my friend and colleague Michael
Walter, of Indiana University, took care of many onerous tasks back
PREFACE ix
home for me. I am indebted to him for helping me out of several diffi-
cult situations. In addition, I would like to thank Mike for generously
answering questions of mine on Buddhist and other topics. I also owe
my gratitute to my friends and colleagues Junko Tanaka, Roger Janel-
li, and Dawnhee Yim, who helped me with the Bibliography.
A special note of thanks is due to all my helpful colleagues on the
Warring States Working Group internet site (http://www.umass.edu/
wsp/), who have answered so many of my questions and often steered
me away from error.
I would also like to thank Ann Bristow and Wen-ling Liu of the
Indiana University Library, who very kindly helped me on several oc-
casions, and the staff of the Indiana University East Asian Studies
Center, who have often provided me with help not available else-
where.
I am indebted to Adam Kilgarriff of the University of Brighton for
permission to quote extensively from his first-rate computational work
on the British National Corpus (see Chapter 10), to Anthropological
Linguistics for allowing me to reuse selections from a published book
review,1 and to the Tôhô Gakkai for allowing me to reprint material
from one of my papers.2
Last but not least, I wish to express my indebtedness to earlier re-
searchers, especially the many scholars from Korea and Japan who
have revived the Koguryo language and kept it alive through their en-
ergetic work.
I am very grateful to all my friends and colleagues, both those
named above and many others, for so much kindness and sage advice.3
Without their help this book would not have been possible. I have
sometimes not taken their advice, and hope not to have made too many
serious errors as a result. Needless to say, all errors that do remain in
this book are fully my responsibility.
With the latter thought in mind, I would like to note that while I
have of course examined all significant previous works known to me
on topics closely related to the problems treated in this book, and have
included references to them when relevant to the topic at hand, a re-

1 C.I. Beckwith, review of Laurent Sagart, The Roots of Old Chinese (Amsterdam:
John Benjamins, 1999) in Anthropological Linguistics 44.2 (2002) 207-215.
2 C.I. Beckwith, On Korean and Tungusic Elements in the Koguryo Language.
Transactions of the International Conference of Eastern Studies XLVII (2002) 82-98.
3 I have thanked colleagues who have helped me with specific problems at the ap-
propriate places in the text.