The Puyŏ (; ) or Puyo-Koguryoic languages are four languages of northern

Korea Korea is a peninsular region in East Asia consisting of the Korean Peninsula, Jeju Island, and smaller islands. Since the end of World War II in 1945, it has been politically Division of Korea, divided at or near the 38th parallel north, 3 ...

and eastern

Manchuria Manchuria is a historical region in northeast Asia encompassing the entirety of present-day northeast China and parts of the modern-day Russian Far East south of the Uda (Khabarovsk Krai), Uda River and the Tukuringra-Dzhagdy Ranges. The exact ...

mentioned in ancient Chinese sources. The languages of

Buyeo Buyeo (; ; ), also rendered as Puyŏ or Fuyu, was an ancient kingdom that was centered in northern Manchuria in modern-day northeast China. It had ties to the Yemaek people, who are considered to be the ancestors of modern Koreans. Buyeo is ...

Goguryeo Goguryeo (37 BC – 668 AD) (; ; Old Korean: Guryeo) also later known as Goryeo (; ; Middle Korean: 고ᇢ롕〮, ''kwòwlyéy''), was a Korean kingdom which was located on the northern and central parts of the Korea, Korean Peninsula an ...

Dongye Dongye may refer to: * Eastern Ye, chiefdom in northeastern Korean peninsula from roughly 3rd-century BC to around early 5th-century AD Towns in China *Dongye, Wutai County Dongye () is a town in southwestern Wutai County, Xinzhou city, Shanxi ...

and

Okjeo Okjeo () was an History of Korea, ancient Korean tribal state which arose in the northern Korea, Korean peninsula from perhaps the 2nd century BCE to the 5th century CE. Dong-okjeo (Eastern Okjeo) occupied roughly the area of the Hamgyong Provin ...

were said to be similar to one another but different from the languages of the

Yilou Yilou is the modern Chinese name of a people in 3rd- to 6th-century Manchuria. In some sources, their name was also written as Sushen, after an earlier people that were traditionally thought to be from the same region. Although it is common to ...

and Mohe to the north (believed on non-linguistic grounds to be Tungusic). Other sources suggest that the ruling class of

Baekje Baekje or Paekche (; ) was a Korean kingdom located in southwestern Korea from 18 BCE to 660 CE. It was one of the Three Kingdoms of Korea, together with Goguryeo and Silla. While the three kingdoms were in separate existence, Baekje had the h ...

may have spoken a Puyŏ language. The Puyŏ languages are very poorly attested, and their affiliation is unclear. However, most researchers in Korea assume that Puyŏ is a branch of the

Koreanic language family Koreanic is a small language family consisting of the Korean and Jeju languages. The latter is often described as a dialect of Korean but is mutually unintelligible with mainland Korean varieties. Alexander Vovin suggested that the Yukjin dial ...

. Other researchers hold a range of views on the affiliation of the Goguryeo language: that the evidence is insufficient to classify it, that it was Japonic, that it was Tungusic, or that was the ancestor of Korean that subsequently spread to the south of the peninsula.

Languages of early Korea and eastern Manchuria

Chinese histories provide the only contemporaneous descriptions of peoples of the Korean peninsula and eastern Manchuria in the early centuries of the common era. They contain impressionistic remarks about the languages of the area based on second-hand reports, and sometimes contradict one another. Chapter 30 "Description of the Eastern Barbarians" of the ''

Records of the Three Kingdoms The ''Records of the Three Kingdoms'' is a Chinese official history written by Chen Shou in the late 3rd century CE, covering the end of the Han dynasty (220 CE) and the subsequent Three Kingdoms period (220–280 CE). It is regard ...

'' records a survey carried out by the Chinese state of Wei after their defeat of

in 244. Regarding the languages of

and Ye, the report says: * (of Goguryeo) "in language and in many things they are similar to Buyeo", * (of Okjeo) "the language is much the same as Goguryeo but with small differences here and there", * (of Ye) "their language, laws, and customs are for the most part the same as those of Goguryeo". The same text records that the language of the

to the north differed from that of Buyeo and Goguryeo. Chapter 94 of the ''

History of the Northern Dynasties The ''History of the Northern Dynasties'' () is one of the official Chinese historical works in the '' Twenty-Four Histories'' canon. The text contains 100 volumes and covers the period from 386 to 618 CE: the histories of Northern Wei, Wester ...

'' (compiled in 659) states that the language of the Mohe in the same area was different from that of Goguryeo. The languages of the Yilou and Mohe are completely unattested, but are believed, on the basis of their location and the description of the people, to have been Tungusic. The "Description of the Eastern Barbarians" also describes the

Samhan Samhan, or Three Han (), is the collective name of the Byeonhan, Jinhan, and Mahan confederacies that emerged in the first century BC during the Proto–Three Kingdoms of Korea, or Samhan, period. Located in the central and southern regions o ...

('three Han') in the southern part of the Korean peninsula as culturally significantly different from the northern peoples. Based on this text, Lee Ki-Moon divided the languages spoken on the Korean peninsula at that time into Puyŏ and Han groups. Lee originally proposed that these were two branches of a Koreanic language family, a view that was widely adopted by scholars in Korea. He later argued that the Puyŏ languages were intermediate between Korean and Japanese.

Christopher Beckwith Christopher I. Beckwith (born October 23, 1945) is an American philologist and distinguished professor in the Department of Central Eurasian Studies at Indiana University Bloomington, Indiana. He has a Bachelor of Arts in Chinese from Ohio Stat ...

claimed that the Puyŏ languages (which he called Koguryoic) were most closely related 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 ...

. Beckwith's work has been criticized on both linguistic and historical grounds, though the former presence of Japonic languages on the Korean peninsula is widely accepted.

Alexander Vovin Alexander Vladimirovich Vovin (; 27 January 1961 – 8 April 2022) was a Soviet-born Russian-American linguist and philologist, and director of studies at the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences (EHESS) in Paris, France. He wa ...

and James Marshall Unger argue that Goguryeo brought an early form of the Korean language to the peninsula from Manchuria, replacing the Japonic languages which they believe were spoken in the Samhan. Some authors believe that the Puyŏ languages belong to the Tungusic family.

Juha Janhunen Juha Antero Janhunen (born 12 February 1952) is a Finnish linguist whose wide interests include Uralic and Mongolic languages. Since 1994, he has been Professor in East Asian studies at the University of Helsinki. He has done fieldwork on Samo ...

discounts the Chinese statements, suggesting that the dynastic languages of Buyeo and Goguryeo may have been Amuric and Tungusic respectively. Others believe that there is insufficient evidence to support a classification. The ''

Book of Liang The ''Book of Liang'' () was compiled under Yao Silian and completed in 635. Yao heavily relied on an original manuscript by his father Yao Cha, which has not independently survived, although Yao Cha's comments are quoted in several chapters. ...

'' (635) states that the language of

was the same as that of Goguryeo. According to Korean traditional history, the kingdom of Baekje was founded by immigrants from Goguryeo who took over the

Mahan confederacy Mahan () was a tribal grouping in southwestern Korea described in Chinese sources from the 3rd century. It was the largest of the 'three Hans' (the Samhan), along with Byeonhan and Jinhan. During the 4th century, the kingdom of Baekje rose in ...

. Based on a passage in the ''

Book of Zhou The ''Book of Zhou'' () records the official history of the Xianbei-led Western Wei and Northern Zhou dynasties of China, and ranks among the official Twenty-Four Histories of imperial China. Compiled by the Tang dynasty The Tang dy ...

'' (636) and some Baekje words cited in the Japanese history ''

Nihon Shoki The or , sometimes translated as ''The Chronicles of Japan'', is the second-oldest book of classical Japanese history. It is more elaborate and detailed than the , the oldest, and has proven to be an important tool for historians and archaeol ...

'' (720), Kōno Rokurō argued that the kingdom of Baekje was bilingual, with the gentry speaking a Puyŏ language and the common people a Han language.

Linguistic data

There is no evidence of the languages of Buyeo, Okjeo or Ye, but Goguryeo became a powerful kingdom, conquering much of central Korea before it was destroyed by the armies of

Silla Silla (; Old Korean: wikt:徐羅伐#Old Korean, 徐羅伐, Yale romanization of Korean, Yale: Syerapel, Revised Romanization of Korean, RR: ''Seorabeol''; International Phonetic Alphabet, IPA: ) was a Korean kingdom that existed between ...

and the Chinese

Tang dynasty The Tang dynasty (, ; zh, c=唐朝), or the Tang Empire, was an Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 618 to 907, with an Wu Zhou, interregnum between 690 and 705. It was preceded by the Sui dynasty and followed ...

in the late 7th century. The Korean history ''

Samguk sagi ''Samguk sagi'' () is a historical record of the Three Kingdoms of Korea: Goguryeo, Baekje, and Silla. Completed in 1145, it is well-known in Korea as the oldest surviving chronicle of Korean history. The ''Samguk sagi'' is written in Classical ...

'' contains glosses of placenames from Goguryeo, but these are difficult to interpret, and many scholars also doubt that they reflect the language of Goguryeo. Other evidence of the Goguryeo language is extremely meagre. Chapter 37 of the ''Samguk sagi'' (compiled in 1145) contains a list of pronunciations and meanings of placenames in the former kingdom of Goguryeo. Both are recorded in

Chinese characters Chinese characters are logographs used Written Chinese, to write the Chinese languages and others from regions historically influenced by Chinese culture. Of the four independently invented writing systems accepted by scholars, they represe ...

, making their pronunciations difficult to interpret, but different names appear to resemble

Korean Korean may refer to: People and culture * Koreans, people from the Korean peninsula or of Korean descent * Korean culture * Korean language **Korean alphabet, known as Hangul or Korean **Korean dialects **See also: North–South differences in t ...

, Japonic and Tungusic words. Other authors point out that most of the place names come from central Korea, an area captured by Goguryeo from

and other states in the 5th century, and none from the historical homeland of Goguryeo north of the

Taedong River The Taedong River () is a large river in North Korea. The river rises in the Rangrim Mountains of the country's north where it then flows southwest into Korea Bay at Namp'o.Suh, Dae-Sook (1987) "North Korea in 1986: Strengthening the Soviet ...

. These authors suggest that the place names reflect the languages of those states rather than that of Goguryeo. This would explain why they seem to reflect multiple language groups. It is generally agreed that these glosses demonstrate that Japonic languages were once spoken in part of the Korean peninsula, but there is no consensus on the identity of the speakers. A small number of inscriptions have been found in Goguryeo, the earliest being the

Gwanggaeto Stele The Gwanggaeto Stele is a memorial stele for the tomb of Gwanggaeto the Great of Goguryeo, erected in 414 by his son Jangsu. This monument to Gwanggaeto the Great is the largest engraved stele in the world. It stands near the tomb of Gwanggaeto ...

(erected in

Ji'an Ji'an ( zh, c=吉安 , p=Jí'ān) is a prefecture-level city situated in the central region of Jiangxi province of the People's Republic of China and bordering Hunan province to the west. It has an area of and as of the 2020 census, had a popu ...

in 414). All are written in Chinese, but feature some irregularities that reflect the native language of their authors. These include occasional use of object–verb order (as found in Korean) instead of the usual Chinese verb–object order, and particles 之 and 伊, for which some authors have proposed Korean interpretations. Chinese texts such as the ''

Book of Wei The ''Book of Wei'', also known by its Chinese name as the ''Wei Shu'', is a classic Chinese historical text compiled by Wei Shou from 551 to 554, and is an important text describing the history of the Northern Wei and Eastern Wei from 386 to 5 ...

'' (6th century) contain a few

words, which appear to have Korean etymologies. The Jurchen and

Manchu The Manchus (; ) are a Tungusic peoples, Tungusic East Asian people, East Asian ethnic group native to Manchuria in Northeast Asia. They are an officially recognized Ethnic minorities in China, ethnic minority in China and the people from wh ...

languages contain loanwords that appear to be Korean;

proposes Goguryeo as the likely source.

Notes

References

Works cited

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * {{Korean language History of the Korean language Languages of Korea Koreanic languages Proposed language families