Re: Japanese from Tungus

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.


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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"
> >(êµ­ì–´; "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".


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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.)


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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.


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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!