Dravido-Koreanic, sometimes Dravido-Koreo-Japonic, is an abandoned proposal linking the
Dravidian languages
The Dravidian languages (or sometimes Dravidic) are a family of languages spoken by 250 million people, mainly in southern India, north-east Sri Lanka, and south-west Pakistan. Since the colonial era, there have been small but significant ...
to
Korean
Korean may refer to:
People and culture
* Koreans, ethnic group originating in the Korean Peninsula
* Korean cuisine
* Korean culture
* Korean language
**Korean alphabet, known as Hangul or Chosŏn'gŭl
**Korean dialects and the Jeju language
** ...
and (in some versions) to
Japanese
Japanese may refer to:
* Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia
* Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan
* Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture
** Japanese diaspor ...
. A genetic link between the Dravidian languages and Korean was first hypothesized by
Homer B. Hulbert
Homer Bezaleel Hulbert (January 26, 1863 – August 5, 1949) was an American missionary, journalist, and political activist who advocated for the independence of Korea.
Biography
Hulbert was born in New Haven, Vermont, in 1863 to Calvin and Mar ...
in 1905. In his book ''The Origin of the Japanese Language'' (1970),
Susumu Ōno
was a Tokyo-born linguist, specializing in the early history of the Japanese language. He graduated from the University of Tokyo in 1943, where he studied under Shinkichi Hashimoto. He was professor emeritus at Gakushuin University.
Career
Ō ...
proposed a layer of Dravidian (specifically
Tamil
Tamil may refer to:
* Tamils, an ethnic group native to India and some other parts of Asia
**Sri Lankan Tamils, Tamil people native to Sri Lanka also called ilankai tamils
**Tamil Malaysians, Tamil people native to Malaysia
* Tamil language, nativ ...
) vocabulary in both Korean and Japanese. Morgan E. Clippinger gave a detailed comparison of Korean and Dravidian vocabulary in his article "Korean and Dravidian: Lexical Evidence for an Old Theory" (1984), but there has been little interest in the idea since the 1980s.
Recognition of language similarities
Similarities between the
Dravidian languages
The Dravidian languages (or sometimes Dravidic) are a family of languages spoken by 250 million people, mainly in southern India, north-east Sri Lanka, and south-west Pakistan. Since the colonial era, there have been small but significant ...
and
Korean
Korean may refer to:
People and culture
* Koreans, ethnic group originating in the Korean Peninsula
* Korean cuisine
* Korean culture
* Korean language
**Korean alphabet, known as Hangul or Chosŏn'gŭl
**Korean dialects and the Jeju language
** ...
were first noted by French missionaries in Korea. In 1905,
Homer B. Hulbert
Homer Bezaleel Hulbert (January 26, 1863 – August 5, 1949) was an American missionary, journalist, and political activist who advocated for the independence of Korea.
Biography
Hulbert was born in New Haven, Vermont, in 1863 to Calvin and Mar ...
wrote a comparative grammar of Korean and Dravidian in which he hypothesized a genetic connection between the two. Later, Susumu Ōno caused a stir in
Japan
Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...
with his theory that
Tamil
Tamil may refer to:
* Tamils, an ethnic group native to India and some other parts of Asia
**Sri Lankan Tamils, Tamil people native to Sri Lanka also called ilankai tamils
**Tamil Malaysians, Tamil people native to Malaysia
* Tamil language, nativ ...
constituted a lexical stratum of both
Korean
Korean may refer to:
People and culture
* Koreans, ethnic group originating in the Korean Peninsula
* Korean cuisine
* Korean culture
* Korean language
**Korean alphabet, known as Hangul or Chosŏn'gŭl
**Korean dialects and the Jeju language
** ...
and
Japanese
Japanese may refer to:
* Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia
* Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan
* Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture
** Japanese diaspor ...
, which was widely publicized in the following years but was quickly abandoned. However, Clippinger applied the
comparative method
In linguistics, the comparative method is a technique for studying the development of languages by performing a feature-by-feature comparison of two or more languages with common descent from a shared ancestor and then extrapolating backwards t ...
systematically to
Middle Korean
Middle Korean is the period in the history of the Korean language succeeding Old Korean and yielding in 1600 to the Modern period.
The boundary between the Old and Middle periods is traditionally identified with the establishment of Goryeo in 91 ...
forms and reconstructed Dravidian forms. Lee Ki-Moon, Professor Emeritus at
Seoul National University
Seoul National University (SNU; ) is a national public research university located in Seoul, South Korea. Founded in 1946, Seoul National University is largely considered the most prestigious university in South Korea; it is one of the three "S ...
, argued in 2011 that Clippinger's conclusion should be revisited. According to
Homer B. Hulbert
Homer Bezaleel Hulbert (January 26, 1863 – August 5, 1949) was an American missionary, journalist, and political activist who advocated for the independence of Korea.
Biography
Hulbert was born in New Haven, Vermont, in 1863 to Calvin and Mar ...
, many of the names of ancient cities of southern Korea were the exact counterpart of Dravidian words. For example, the Karak Kingdom of King Suro was named after the
proto-Dravidian
Proto-Dravidian is the linguistic reconstruction of the common ancestor of the Dravidian languages. It is thought to have differentiated into Proto-North Dravidian, Proto-Central Dravidian, and Proto-South Dravidian, although the date of divers ...
meaning ''fish''.
The ''
Samguk yusa
''Samguk yusa'' () or ''Memorabilia of the Three Kingdoms'' is a collection of legends, folktales and historical accounts relating to the Three Kingdoms of Korea (Goguryeo, Baekje, and Silla), as well as to other periods and states before, duri ...
'' describes
Heo Hwang-ok
A commemorative Rs. 25.00 postage stamp on Princess Suriratna (Queen Heo Hwang-ok ) was issued by India in 2019.
A commemorative Rs. 5.00 postage stamp on Queen Heo Hwang-ok (Suriratna) was issued by India in 2019.
Heo Hwang-ok, also known a ...
, who was the first queen of
Geumgwan Gaya
Geumgwan Gaya (43–532), also known as Bon-Gaya (본가야, 本伽倻, "original Gaya") or Garakguk (가락국, "Garak State"), was the ruling city-state of the Gaya confederacy during the Three Kingdoms of Korea, Three Kingdoms Period in Korea. ...
—a statelet of the
Gaya confederacy
Gaya (, ) was a Korean confederacy of territorial polities in the Nakdong River basin of southern Korea, growing out of the Byeonhan confederacy of the Samhan period.
The traditional period used by historians for Gaya chronology is AD 42–53 ...
—as coming from India's Ayuta or Ay (
Kanyakumari
Kanniyakumari (; , referring to Devi Kanya Kumari), also known as Cape Comorin, is a city in Kanniyakumari district in the state of Tamil Nadu, India. It is the southern tip of the Indian subcontinent and the southernmost city in mainland Ind ...
) in
Tamil Nadu
Tamil Nadu (; , TN) is a States and union territories of India, state in southern India. It is the List of states and union territories of India by area, tenth largest Indian state by area and the List of states and union territories of India ...
. Since the ''Samguk yusa'' was compiled in the 12th century, and contains mythical narratives, it is not strong evidence. However, contact with
Tamil
Tamil may refer to:
* Tamils, an ethnic group native to India and some other parts of Asia
**Sri Lankan Tamils, Tamil people native to Sri Lanka also called ilankai tamils
**Tamil Malaysians, Tamil people native to Malaysia
* Tamil language, nativ ...
merchants and a limited inflow of immigrants may have influenced the formation of the Gaya confederacy.
In 2011, Jung Nam Kim, president of the Korean Society of Tamil Studies, mentioned that the similarities between Korean and Dravidian are strong, but he also said that this does not prove a genetic link between Dravidian and Korean, and that more research needs to be done.
Arguments
Susumu Ōno
was a Tokyo-born linguist, specializing in the early history of the Japanese language. He graduated from the University of Tokyo in 1943, where he studied under Shinkichi Hashimoto. He was professor emeritus at Gakushuin University.
Career
Ō ...
, and
Homer B. Hulbert
Homer Bezaleel Hulbert (January 26, 1863 – August 5, 1949) was an American missionary, journalist, and political activist who advocated for the independence of Korea.
Biography
Hulbert was born in New Haven, Vermont, in 1863 to Calvin and Mar ...
propose that early
Dravidian people
The Dravidian peoples, or Dravidians, are an ethnolinguistic and cultural group living in South Asia who predominantly speak any of the Dravidian languages. There are around 250 million native speakers of Dravidian languages. Dravidian sp ...
, especially
Tamils
The Tamil people, also known as Tamilar ( ta, தமிழர், Tamiḻar, translit-std=ISO, in the singular or ta, தமிழர்கள், Tamiḻarkaḷ, translit-std=ISO, label=none, in the plural), or simply Tamils (), are a Drav ...
, migrated to the Korean peninsula and Japan. Hulbert based his theories of language relationships and associated migration patterns on the
Turanian language hypothesis, which has been obsolete since the early 20th century. Morgan E. Clippinger presents 408 cognates and about 60 phonological correspondences. Clippinger found that some cognates were closer than others leading him to speculate a genetic link which was reinforced by a later migration. The Japanese professor
Tsutomu Kambe
Tsutomu is a masculine Japanese given name.
Possible writings
''Tsutomu can be written using different kanji characters. Here are some examples:
*勉, "make effort"
*務, "affairs"
*務武, "affairs, warrior"
*勤, "diligence"
*努, "strive"
The ...
found more than 500 similar cognates between Tamil and Japanese. There are two basic common features:
* all three languages are
agglutinative
In linguistics, agglutination is a morphological process in which words are formed by stringing together morphemes, each of which corresponds to a single syntactic feature. Languages that use agglutination widely are called agglutinative langu ...
,
* all three follow
SOV word order SOV may refer to:
* SOV, Service Operations Vessel
* SOV, a former ticker symbol for Sovereign Bank
* SOV, a legal cryptocurrency created by the Sovereign Currency Act of 2018 of the Republic of the Marshall Islands
* SOV, the National Rail statio ...
, and consequently modifiers always precede modified words and particles are post-positional.
However, typological similarities such as these could easily be due to chance; agglutinative languages are quite common, and half of the languages in the world follow SOV word order. The lack of a statistically significant number of cognates and the lack of anthropological and genetic links can be adduced to dismiss this proposal.
Comparative linguist Kang Gil-un identifies 1300 Dravidian Tamil cognates in Korean. He suggests that Korean is probably related to the
Nivkh language
Nivkh (; occasionally also Nivkhic; self-designation: Нивхгу диф, ''Nivxgu dif'', ), or Gilyak (), or Amuric, is a small language family, often portrayed as a language isolate, of two or three mutually unintelligible languages spoken b ...
and influenced by Tamil.
List of potential Korean-Tamil cognates
Personal pronouns
Kinship
Others
References
Works cited
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External links
{{Eurasian languages
Proposed language families
Tamil language
Dravidian languages
Japanese language
Korean language