高句麗의 言語와 그 特徵

The Language of Koguryo and Its Characteristics

1. The present article represents the most recent one in a series of efforts made by the author in his exploration into the language spoken by the people of the ancient Koguryo Kingdom. As for his previous studies on the language, d. Introduction to the History of the Korean Language (in Korean), Seoul 1961, pp. 68-72; “A Genetic View of Japanese,” Journal of the Academic Association of Koreanology in Japan, No.27. 1963, pp. 136-147, etc. 2. The Koguryo place-names in Vols. 35 and 37 of Sam-guk Sa-gi, (Historical Records of Three Kingdoms) have been assumed by the author as the main source of the Koguryo lang .iage. In the present article, the author elavorates this assumption, drawing the conclusion that the place-names in Vol. 37 labeled as those of the Koguryo Kingdom constitute the primary source of materials for the Koguryo language, while those in Vol. 35 are secondary. 3. A doubt has been raised by some Japanese scholars regarding the above assumption. This question is discussed from various points of view to prove that such :a doubt has little ground. The author demonstrates that there are some unquestionable materials of the Koguryo language other than these place-names and the elements reconstructed from these materials coincide with those from the place-names. 4. On the basis of his reconstruction the author discusses some characteristics of the Koguryo language on the phonological level (dropping of the original final vowels, palatalization of t before i, the change of ＊bi-＞ wi- in the initial position, etc.) and on the lexical level (impressive coincidences with Middle Korean, Ancient Japanese, Manchu-Tungus and some resemblances with Gilyak.). The arrangement of morphemes in place-names generally shows the fact that the syntax of the Koguryo language is similar to that of Korean, Japanese and Altaic. 5. Exploration on the Koguryo language has shed light on the long-standing question of genetic relationships among Altaic, Korean and Japanese. Of particular interest has been the remarkable resemblances of the Koguryo language and Ancient Japanese. The author’s hypothesis on the close relationship of the two languages has been accepted and developed by Prof. S. Murayarna in Japan. Recently, however, Murayama has propounded a new hypothesis: he says that Japanese is a mixed language of what he calls Pre―Japanese (probably of Southern Chinese origin related with Tibeto―Burmese) and a language closely related to Koguryo language which camp to Japan around the end of the fourth century A.D. Ct. his article in the Japanese Journal of Ethnology, Vol. 30, No.4. This hypothesis is criticized by the author from the view-points of linguistic data and the general theory of genetic relationship in linguistics.