1. The Origins of the Korean Language: A Linguist’s Perspective
- Author:
- J. Marshall Unger
- Publication Date:
- 04-2019
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- International Journal of Korean Studies
- Institution:
- International Council on Korean Studies
- Abstract:
- On the basis of the comparative method, developed over more than two centuries of empirical study, the best results to date are that the presentday Korean and Japanese languages had a common source, called protoKorean-Japanese. Korean and Japanese are more similar to one another than either is to any of the languages spoken in adjacent parts of Asia. That is as far as pure linguistics takes us at present. Other scientific disciplines must be utilized to determine when and where proto-Korean-Japanese was spoken, when its speakers separated into pre-Korean and pre-Japanese groups, and when the descendants of those groups resumed contact on the Korean peninsula prior to the migration of most pre-Japanese speakers to Japan.
- Topic:
- Migration, History, Linguistics, and Language
- Political Geography:
- Japan, Asia, and Korea