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Re: Japanese from Tungus

From:Philip Newton <philip.newton@...>
Date:Tuesday, January 25, 2005, 9:06
On Tue, 25 Jan 2005 00:36:01 -0000, caeruleancentaur
<caeruleancentaur@...> wrote:
> If memory serves, I remember (probably from grammar school) that > Korea was called the Land of the Morning Calm by somebody. Any idea > whose name for Korea this is?
"Morning Calm" is a translation of "Chosen"/"Joseon" ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseon ), which was, I believe, a kingdom in what is now Korea. See the Wikipedia article for details. I don't know who came up with the name, though. ==================================================== On Mon, 24 Jan 2005 20:06:50 -0500, Rob Haden <magwich78@...> wrote:
> On Mon, 24 Jan 2005 15:35:41 -0800, B. Garcia <madyaas@...> wrote: > > >In South Korea, Korea is called "Hanguk" (In Hangul: 한국). There and > >outside of Korea, the language is most often called "Hangukmal" (한국말), > >or more formally, "Hangugeo" (한국어). The language is also sometimes > >referred to colloquially as "Urimal" (우리말; "our language"). The > >standard language taught in schools is often referred to as "Gugeo" > >(국어; "national language"). > > Are 'Hanguk' and 'Hangul' caseforms of some word 'Hangu'?
As Hendrik said, no, they're not.
> The '-gu' element and 'Gu-' are probably the same, from Mandarin > 'guo' "nation".
Kind of, but the bits that are the same are "guk" of "Hanguk" and "Gug" of "(Han)gugeo". ================================================ On Mon, 24 Jan 2005 20:09:26 -0500, Rob Haden <magwich78@...> wrote:
> On Mon, 24 Jan 2005 19:39:03 -0500, Matt Arriola <azathoth500@...> > wrote: > > >I believe "Nihon" is an exonym. You got it right, but it was the > >Chinese who gave Japan that name. > > That could very well be true. Japanese has quite a few borrowed words from > Chinese, and 'ni' may be one of them. Is there a Mandarin cognate to the - > hon/-pon element?
Both readings are cognate with Chinese: Ri4ben3, as was previously mentioned in another thread. The first is usually "nichi" or "jitsu", though, when not in the word "Nihon" (and indeed, "Nippon" may be from "nichi" + "hon", since -chi endings can cause following stops to be doubled, and *hh -> pp). Incidentally, there's a difference in meaning: "nichi" usually means "Japan" while "jitsu" usually means "sun" or "day".
> Finally, I wonder if 'go' "language" is really from Mandarin 'guo' "nation" > (or a cognate in some other Chinese dialect).
No. The Chinese cognate is yu3 "language" ("eo" in Sino-Korean). The cognate of Mandarin guó in Japanese in "koku" (also showing the final -k that the word must have had in earlier Chinese.) ======================================================= On Mon, 24 Jan 2005 17:18:26 -0800, B. Garcia <madyaas@...> wrote:
> On Mon, 24 Jan 2005 20:06:50 -0500, Rob Haden <magwich78@...> wrote: > > Are 'Hanguk' and 'Hangul' caseforms of some word 'Hangu'? > > Well, "han" refers to Korea
It certainly does in "Hanguk" (well, to Korea or to the Han tribe/people). I've heard from a Korean that the "han" in "Hangeul" does not mean "Korean" but something like "great", and was originally written with "arae-a", a vowel which dropped out of use in most dialects of Korean. But he's a native speaker, so he could be wrong.
> from what I can tell it seems the common words for language, > speech are: geo
"eo", actually, TTBOMK. This is the Sino-Korean word, cognate with Chinese yu3.
> and mal
I believe this is the native Korean word.
> uri - our + mal - language,
*nods* I've also heard "uri nara mal" (our - country - language, i.e. our country's language).
> gu - national + mal - language.)
gug + mal or gug + eo, not gu + anything. ================================================== On Tue, 25 Jan 2005 04:33:18 +0100, Henrik Theiling <theiling@...> wrote:
> For 'gul', someone else will have to help, I don't know.
I don't know, either, though I think this is a native Korean form. (Its phonological structure makes it a plausible Sino-Korean loan, but I think it isn't one.) I don't know what it means on its own. Cheers, -- Philip Newton <philip.newton@...> Watch the Reply-To!