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Leon's Theory about
 the Origin of
Koreans
and the Korean Language

© 2007-2008 by Leon's EFL Planet

If you've visited this page before,
please know that I've updated it
March 29, 2008 & again October 10, 2008
  Look for this: 

 

 Foreword:

 

Encyclopedia Britannica (Concise) has an article entitled "Korean Language" wherein one may read the following:

     "Korean is not closely related to any other language, though a distant genetic kinship to Japanese is now thought probable by some scholars, and an even more remote relationship to the Altaic languages is possible. Korean was written with Chinese characters to stand in various ways for Korean meanings and sounds as early as the 12th century, though substantial documentation is not evident until the invention of a unique phonetic script for it in 1443. This script, now called Hangul, represents syllables by arranging simple symbols for each phoneme into a square form like that of a Chinese character. Grammatically, Korean has a basic subject-object-verb word order and places modifiers before the elements they modify."

My ideas/theories regarding the origins of the Korean people and their language has undergone a series of changes.  What I have currently posted, and what was posted before may be radically different.  This is because I am ever searching and researching for the truth.  I may never find the truth, but until I am satisfied that I have found the truth, I will most likely continue to search and research and update this page from time to time with my new findings.  And, of course I will fill in the blanks with philosophical ramblings from my mind.  Enjoy and Peace be unto you (Anyeonghashipshio).

 

Table of Contents:

Linked
Roman
Numerals
Titles
I.

History of Korea ("unofficial" & "official")

II. 2 Theories (North and South)
III. My Conclusion (about the origin of the Korean language)
IV. DNA Connection between Koreans & Mongolians
V. Japanese-Korean-Mongolian Connection

 

 

Very Brief History of Korea

Ancient Period

Foreword:  Most historians say that the Korean peninsula was inhabited by Paleo-Siberians until around 2333 BC, when they were forced out.  [I think this is non-sense, and I'll explain why later].  The "official" history of Korea begins at 2333 BC, with Dangun, but I'm not going to start with the "official" history.  I'm going to start with the UNofficial history.

Preface:  This part is not the "official history" of Korea.  It is considered apocryphal by mainstream historians, but mainstream historians are NOT always correct (I can cite some examples, but I won't).

The Dong (East) Yi (Barbarians)

7193 BC   Han-In establishes a country: Han-Guk.  (Around where China is now).

[Ah! So this is where the Koreans get their name "Han"!  And the connection between the Chinese "Han" and the Korean "Han" now becomes perfectly clear].

[Further explanation may be needed here:  China is composed of 56 nationalities.  The dominant (elite) and (ruling/educated) people are the Han /pronounced: hahn/ People.  The language currently spoken in China is NOT Mandarin.  Mandarin is a dead language.  It was the language of the ruling oligarchy of China before communism.  It was extinguished when the Communists took power.  The current (official and common) language of China is called: Han Yu (or Han Language).  It is commonly referred to as BuTongHwa (meaning: 'common language').  Incidentally, the Koreans call their country: "Han Guk" /pronounced: hahn gook/.

          Although the Chinese characters for the two 'hans' are different, I believe (now) as I have suspected (in the past), that there is/was a common ancestry for both the Han Chinese and the Korean Han.

Han-guk  was comprised of twelve nations, also known as "DongYi" (Eastern Barbarians).  Some of the tribes included Manchurians, Mongols, and the Huns.

7193 BC - 3898 BC   Han-guk was ruled by seven in succession; i.e., by seven Han-In's  (Han-In was a title of a ruler, rather than a personal name).

3898 BC   Establishment of Bak-dal Nara, the first Dongyi state. Its territories were as follows:

To the North - Lake Baykal vicinity. Stanovoy mountains
To the South - Yangzi river (includes present Jiangsu, Shanghai, and Anhui)
To the East - Russian Maritime provinces
To the West - Dunhuang

3898 BC - 2333 BC   There were eighteen Han-ungs, each ruling in succession of the other. (Han-ung was a title, not a name). The last Han-ung gave birth to the first Dan-gun.

NOTE:  Dan-gun (the first) was considered by some to have been a god.
             See the legend of Dan-gun.

(Source)

 

This is where the official history begins:

2333 BC   Founding of old Jo Seon (called Chao Xian in Chinese) by Dan Gun
              
{
See the Legend of Dan Gun}

                [Koreans are still called "Chao Xian Jo" by the Chinese].

1122 BC   Alleged arrival of Kija from Shang China (contentious)

c. 1000 BC   Start of bronze working in Liaodong peninsula (Ex. Pipa-like bronze daggers)

311 BC   Invasion of Qinkai of Yen, loss of 2000-li territory

194 BC   Wiman usurps the throne of Joseon's King Jun

108 BC   Invasion by Emperor Wudi of the [Chinese] Han Dynasty and establishment of the Four  Commandaries

82 BC Commandaries Zhenfan and Lindun eliminated

75BC  Xuantu commadary removed from peninsula

(Source)

It is my opinion that the reason that the "official" history begins at 2333 BC, is because that's when the Koreans moved there [After the Great Flood of approx 3,000 B.C.]  It should be noted that there is no 'official' date for the great flood (or the most recent of great floods), but based on the fact that civilizations "sprung up" around this time all over the globe, and that we have no written records from before that time, it makes perfect sense.

Another source gives some added information around this time period

It has been discovered in recent archeological excavations that the early race called Paleosiberians lived in the Korean peninsula and Manchuria before the Altaic race migrated to these areas. The Paleosiberians, who include the Chukchi, Koryaks, Kamchadals, Ainu, Eskimos etc., were either driven away to the farther north by the newly arrived race or assimilated by the conqueror when they came to the Korean peninsula. It is believed that the migration of the new race towards the Korean peninsula took place around 4000 BC.

More like around 3,000 B.C., and they weren't conquered, nor were they driven out.  They all died in the Great Flood!

Nothing is known about the languages of the earliest settlers. [Yeah, cause none of their records (if they had any) survived the flood.]  After migration, some ancient Koreans settled down in the regions of Manchuria and northern Korea while others moved farther to the south. Many small tribal states were established in the general region of Manchuria and the Korean peninsula from the first century BC to the first century AD. The ancient Korean language is divided into two dialects: the Puyo language and the Han language. The Puyo language was spoken by the people of tribal states such as Puyo, Kokuryo, Okcho and Yemaek in Manchuria and northern Korean. The Han language was spoken by the people of the three Han tribal states of Muhan, Chinhan and Byonhan which were created in southern Korea. (source)

End Ancient Period.

  start...

"Three Kindoms Period": From 75 BC to 676 AD

There were more than three kindgoms to begin with, like the ones mentioned above, but there was a lot of fighting, and war-mongering, and there were three kingdoms that dominated during this period: Shilla, Gogeuryeo, and Baekje. In the end (676 AD), Shilla dominates and unifies all.

   start...

Shilla Period: From 676 AD to 935 AD

Shilla ruled the whole peninsula.

Then, began the "Koryo" [old romanization] Period,

   or "Goryeo" [new romanization] Period,

   which is where we get the name "Korea".

 

 

Two Theories
on the origins of the Korean Language

One day, I typed "Origin of Korean Language" in a search engine (Google), and this is what I found:

TWO THEORIES ON THE ORIGIN OF THE KOREAN LANGUAGE

SOURCE: <article> by Nam-kil Kim.

[MY COMMENTS IN BLUE]

Intro:

For a long time scholars have tried to associate the Korean language to one of the major language families but have not been successful in this venture." There have been many theories about the origin of the Korean language, but two have been most popular: The Southern and Northern Theories.

Southern Theory PART 1 in a nutshell:

"...it was strongly advocated by the British scholar Homer B. Hulbert at the end of nineteenth century. Hulbert's argument was based on the syntactic similarities of Korean and the Dravidian languages. For instance, both languages have the same syntactic characteristics: the word order subject-object-verb, postpositions instead of prepositions, no relative pronouns, modifiers in front of the head noun, copula (BE VERB) and existential (EXIST VERB) as two distinct grammatical parts of speech etc."

MY COMMENT:  Interesting; BUT, I highly doubt that there is any similarity in lexis.

Southern Theory PART 2 in a nutshell:

"The other version of the Southern theory is the view that Korean may be related to the Austronesian languages (Like that of the Aborigines of Australia and New Zealand). There are some linguistic as well as anthropological and archeological findings which may support this view. The linguistic features of Korean which are shared some Polynesian languages include the phonological structure of open syllables, the honorific system, numerals and the names of various body parts. The anthropological and archeological elements shared by Koreans and the people in other regions of the South Pacific are rice cultivation, tattooing, a matrilineal family system (???? What???? Koreans are so patriarchal it hurts), the myth of an egg as the birth place of royalty (NOT Korean) and other recent discoveries in Paleolithic or preceramic cultures."

MY COMMENT:  This is the first time I've heard about the Southern theory. And it was initially compelling.  And yet, it is so replete with "holes" that it makes me puke.

Northern Theory in a nutshell:

"The Northern theory is the view that Korean is related to the Altaic family. The Northern theory stipulates that the Tungusic branch of Altaic tribesmen migrated towards the south and reached the Korean peninsula. The Tungusic languages would include two major languages: Korean and Manchu. Korean is similar to the Altaic languages with respect to the absence of grammatical elements such as numbers, genders, articles, fusional morphology, voice, relative pronouns and conjunctions. Vowel harmony and agglutination are also found in Korean as well as in the Altaic languages."
Article by
Kim, Nam-kil

MY COMMENT:  I knew a Manchurian person while staying in Inner Mongolia, CHINA.  The similarities in lexis (between the Manchurian language and the Korean language) were so compelling as to knock my socks off!  While the Mongolian language shares not a single lexical similarity with Korean!

:  My current position (extrapolated below) is that the Koreans, who share identical grammar structure with Mongolian, Japanese, Manchurian and Turkic Peoples, may have originated from a common ancestor, perhaps in the Altaic Mountains, as linguists suspect.  In fact, it makes perfect sense that all currently existing civilizations got their start from a mountain top, because only the those people on the mountain tops survived the GREAT FLOOD!  BUT, while the grammar is the same, 70% of Korean lexis is from the Han Yu (Chinese Common Language).  So, having either passed through, or been highly influenced by their Chinese neighbors, they lost a lot of their original lexis, only to retain the grammar of the Altaic language branch.

 

Conclusions (about origin of Korean Language)

At the beginning of this page, I quoted the Encyclopedia Britannica as saying that the Korean language is not closely related to any other language.

Intriguing.

But is it true?  I think NOT.  Let me explain why.

I have studied Korean (in Korea) for ten years (see my Korean Language Page).

I have studied some Japanese, Mongolian, and Manchurian; and now Turkish (all Altaic languages).

I have studied Chinese (in China) for 1 year.

My FINDINGS:

FACT- Korean LEXIS is VERY similar to Chinese LEXIS (in fact, I'd estimate 70% of Korean lexis is from the Chinese language.  Some 'more official' estimates say that 50-60% of the Korean language is from Chinese.  My studies revealed a much higher percentage, because some words that are NOT acknowledged as being from Chinese are so similar that it is uncanny.  A prime example is, the words for this....

                      in Korean:  i-geot
                      in Chinese: ji-geo

The word for "yes" or "okay" (dweh) in Chinese is exactly the same as the Korean word for "okay" (dweh).  Are they cognates or false cognates?  I don't know.

FACT- Korean shares no similarity with Chinese syntax.

FACT- Korean LEXIS shares NO similarity with Mongolian lexis or Japanese lexis.  {In fact, the Japanese lexis (that portion of it that is not Chinese in origin) is closely related in etymology to that of the Mongolian language.}

FACT- Korean LEXIS shares similarities with Manchurian.

FACT- Korean syntax is exactly the same as Mongolian, Japanese, Manchurian, and Turkic syntax.

My CONCLUSIONS:

The Korean people are probably genetically related to the Mongolians, Japanese and Manchurians, and yet the influence of the Chinese lexis is VERY strong and undeniable.  This leads me to believe that the Korean people are a Tungusic people, who passed through China, picking up the lexis of the Hahn Chinese (Han Yu), but maintained their own syntax.

It makes perfect sense if you think about it.

What happens when Pidgins are made?

Well, a people adopt the lexis of another language for trading purposes, but quite generally refuse to give up their own grammar rules (e.g., syntax).

In essence, I believe that the Korean language started out as a Pidgin, but is now a Creole.

 

 

 

Background Information

about how this page came to be...

I had spent eight years living and teaching English in Korea.  All of my students during that time told me that they firmly believe themselves to be related to Mongolians, and even claim that they have evidence, that evidence being the so-called "mon-gol jeom" (Mongolian Spot).  All Koreans have it somewhere on their body when they are born.  They told me that only Mongolians and Koreans have the "mon-gol jeom".  Now, I don't believe everything that I hear or read.  So, I actually went to Inner Mongolia to check it out for myself.  Here is the data of my research...

 

 

 

DNA Connection between the Koreans and Mongolians

I conducted a survey of my Mongolian students.  I told them about how all Koreans have what they call the "Mon Gol Jeom" (Mongolian Spot), which is a birthmark that goes away after several years.  I told them how my son is only half Korean, but he has the so-called "Mon Gol Jeom".  I also told them that every Korean believes that only Koreans and Mongolians have "Mon Gol Jeoms". 

This is a photo of my newborn son with is "Mon-gol jeom".

{And he is only ½ Korean (from his mom)}

Lastly, I told them I wanted to know if it was true.  So, I asked them if any of them had the "Mon Gol Jeom" when they were born.  None of them knew.  So, I gave them homework to ask their mother and report back to me the following week.

Only four students out of maybe four hundred Mongolian students did the homework, (and this is partly due to the sensitive, personal nature of the question, and partly due to the fact that most students could not understand the question).

Here are the results of the survey:

1.  One boy claims he had none.

2.  One boy said that he had one.

3.  One girl said that she had one.

4.  One girl said that she had one on her bum.

Grand Tally 3/4ths have had it.  That's pretty good odds.  I'll bet that not all Koreans get the Mon Gol Jeom either.

I'm convinced.  Those statistics are good enough for me.  I am fully convinced now of the Korean-Mongolian connection.

Question:  Wouldn't the Japanese also have the Mon Gol Jeom?

And writing of Japanese, we should wonder where the Japanese people and language came from...

 

 

 

The Japanese-Korean-Mongolian Connection

From my lexical analysis of the Japanese, Korean, and Mongolian languages, it appears that the Japanese language has a much closer connection to Mongolian.

Of course all three languages have EXACTLY the same grammar (same syntax; AND, all three have the same suffix-like particles), and all three have VERY similar phonological traits, such as rules regarding vowel harmony.

Yet, when I write "much closer", I simply mean that there are more words in Japanese which bear resemblance to Mongolian, but the connection is still a weak one.

The Korean-Japanese ties go way back.  It has been told me that the Koreans introduced the Chinese characters to the Japanese.  Whether this is true or not, is not known to me, but it seems very plausible, given the geographical situation (i.e., Korean being between China and Japan).  The Japanese language, like Korean has "borrowed" a heck of a lot of words from Chinese.  But, both the Korean language and Japanese languages have retained many of their "original" lexis as well.  It is of this "original" lexis that I write, when I write about the connection to the Mongolian language.

However, due to the fact that much of the "original" lexis has fallen out of use and has become lost over the centuries, it is really difficult for linguists to "classify" the two languages.

Because the syntax and phonological features are remarkably similar to Altaic languages, it is logical to include them in the Altaic language group.  However, due to lexical differences, it is difficult to place them in any specific language group.

Look at the following diagram to see what I mean:

Source

One can see where I got the above information from, however, my language map is different (and superior, in my opinion, because it shows more clearly how languages "overlap").

Important Points to consider (refer to diagram above):

1.  The diagram shows how the Korean language has roots in the Tungusic Language group AND NOT THE MONGOLIAN language group.  Note:  Manchurian is part of the Tungusic language group, and Korean may have some roots from the Manchu language.

2.  The diagram shows how the Korean and Japanese languages have been heavily influenced by the Han-Chinese language.

3.  The diagram shows how the Japanese language has some roots in the Mongolian language group.  Hence, the lexis of "pure" Japanese is closer to Mongolian than that of the "pure" Korean.

4.  The diagram shows how the Korean language has been influenced by the Austronesian language group.

5.  It is not known (by me) whether the Japanese language has been influenced by the Austronesian language group or not.  Therefore, I have not extended the Japanese language into that "field".

6.  The funny thing is, according to genetic maps (on above SOURCE page), the Koreans and Japanese are more closely related to Tibetans than Mongolians. (see diagram below): 

 

But, look at this language pedigree chart:

 

All right, now!  There is something screwy going on here.  The Ainu, Siberians, Tibetans and Eskimos are all closely related genetically, yet the Tibetan language is in a totally different language group (not on chart above; see chart below).  If you examine the chart closely, you see that languages are grouped based upon their geographic location (i.e., the location of the people that speak them).  And yet, logic tells us that you cannot do that, simply because people move around a lot.  For example the Lapp people claim to have come from Tibet; And, I'll bet that there is not one single similarity between the "pure" Lapp language and the "pure" Finnish language.  The Samoyeds, likewise are genetically different from the Finnish people.  They look more like Eskimos.

Notice all the question marks in the chart above.  That is to say that most linguists aren't sure of the links, but some linguists go with it out of convenience, I'm sure.  I've read in a book about the Korean language (and heard as well) that the Korean language is linguistically related to the Finnish language.  I now see why such is reported, but my own studies of the two languages show no similarities, neither in lexis nor in grammar.

Japanese and Korean are often linked with Mongolian, because they all share exactly the same grammatical features.  They even share some phonological features.  Yet, my studies have shown NO lexical similarities between the Japanese language and the Korean language, and NO lexical similarities between the Mongolian language and the Korean language.  I HAVE, however, noticed similarities in lexis between the Japanese language and the Mongolian language.

Also, I have noticed some similarities between the Manchurian language, which is dying quickly, and the Korean language.  It is my goal to study, learn, and document the Manchurian language before it completely dies from the face of the earth.  If only somebody would finance the goal.

It should be noted that that the Tibeto-Burman language groups consists of roughly 250 languages, and the Chinese language group consists of countless dialects (if you could even call them dialects).  The Sino-Caucasian Language group is expanded to look like this (according to "linguists"):

But it is a joke to group the Han-Chinese language and Tibeto-Burman language group together, because they are not linguistically related.  It is also a joke to link the Basque language and Caucasian language group together, because they are not linguistically related either.  AND, it is an even bigger joke to link the Sino-Tibetan group with the Basque-Caucasian group, because you probably couldn't find a single linguistic similarity.  

For more information on the Basque language, see (and click on) the link below:

http://www.cogs.susx.ac.uk/users/larryt/basque.html

For more information on the Sino-Tibetan group, see (and click on) the link below:

http://stedt.berkeley.edu/html/STfamily.html

For more information on the Tungusic language group, see (and click on) the link below:

http://www.dartmouth.edu/~trg/endangered.html

 

 

However, there is a theory that some linguists have which I fancy, because it matches my own.  The following passage is from a web-article contained in the Sino-Tibetan Etymological Dictionary and Thesaurus (STEDT):

The Proto-Sino-Tibetan (PST) homeland seems to have been somewhere on the Himalayan plateau, where the great rivers of East and Southeast Asia (including the Yellow, Yangtze, Mekong, Brahmaputra, Salween, and Irrawaddy Rivers) have their source. The time of hypothetical ST unity, when the Proto-Han (= Proto-Chinese) and Proto-Tibeto-Burman (PTB) peoples formed a relatively undifferentiated linguistic community, must have been at least as remote as the Proto-Indo-European period, perhaps around 4000 B.C.

The TB peoples slowly fanned outward along these river valleys, but only in the middle of the first millennium A.D. did they penetrate into peninsular Southeast Asia, where speakers of Austronesian (= Malayo-Polynesian) and Mon-Khmer (Austroasiatic) languages had already established themselves by prehistoric times. The Tai peoples began filtering down from the north at about the same time as the TB's. The most recent arrivals to the area south of China have been the Hmong-Mien (Miao-Yao), most of whom still live in China itself.