Buyeo languages

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Buyeo or Fuyu languages (부여 in Korean, Fúyú (扶餘) in Chinese) are a hypothetical language family that consists of ancient languages of the northern Korean Peninsula and southern Manchuria and possibly Japan. According to Chinese records, the languages of Buyeo, Goguryeo, Dongye, Okjeo, Baekje—and possibly Gojoseon—were similar. The Buyeo language itself is unknown except for a small number of words and place names, which show it to be significantly different from the language of Malgal (Mohe)^{[clarification needed]} and the Tungusic languages.

Classification of the Buyeo languages

The relationships of the poorly attested Buyeo dialects are disputed.

Japanese-Koguryoic hypothesis

The Korean state of Baekje was founded by Goguryeo princes, and considered itself descended from Buyeo.^{[citation needed]} Baekje subsequently had close relations with Yamato period Japan; Christopher Beckwith suggests that at that point the Japanese may have still recognized a relationship to Buyeo. Beckwith reconstructs about 140 Goguryeo words, mostly from ancient place names.^{[citation needed]} Many include grammatical morphemes which appear to be cognate with morphemes of similar function in Japanese, such as genitive -no and attributive -si.

Buyeo-Silla hypothesis

A number of linguists such as Kim Banghan, Vovin, and Unger classify Goguryeo as Old Korean. They note that the Japanese-like toponyms are mostly found in the central part of Korean peninsula, and theorize that they don’t reflect the Goguryeo language but rather the pre-Goguryeo population of the central and southern part of Korean peninsula. Since a number of Japanese-like toponyms found in the historical homeland of Silla^[1] were also distributed in southern part of Korean peninsula, these linguists propose that there was once a Japonic language spoken in Korean peninsula which forms a substratum of Old Korean; Unger suggests that the ancestors of the Yayoi people would have settled Japan from the central or southern part of Korea. None of the Japanese cognates have been found in the historical homeland of Buyeo and Goguryeo in the northern part of Korean peninsula or south-western Manchuria. Koreanic toponyms, on the other hand, are distributed across the entire territory of the Three Kingdoms, from Manchuria to the southern Korean peninsula.

See also

• List of Korea-related topics

External links

• A review of Beckwith 2007

notes

References

• • 2006. "Methodological Observations on Some Recent Studies of the Early Ethnolinguistic History of Korea and Vicinity." Altai Hakpo 2006, 16: 199-234.
• Alexander Vovin, 2005. "Koguryǒ and Paekche: Different Languages or Dialects of Old Korean?" Journal of Inner and East Asian Studies, 2005, Vol. 2-2: 108-140.
• Blažek, Václav. 2006. "Current progress in Altaic etymology." Linguistica Online, 30 January 2006
• Hong, Wontack (2005). "Tripolar Interaction: Mongolian Steppe, Manchuria and Mainland China The Tripolar Framework of Analysis". East Asian History: A Korean Perspective (4). http://www.upkorea.net/news/photo/5017-2-4633.pdf.