韓國語와 알타이諸語의 語彙 比較에 대한 基礎的 硏究 = A Study on the Lexical Comparison of Korean and Altaic

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

The present paper is the first in a series of reports concerning research on the lexial comparison of the Korean and Altaic languages. The aim of this paper is to examine the achievements of the past and to establish the direction for future studies in this field.
The following works are examined in this paper.
(1) G. J. Ramstedt; As a pioneer in Altaic and Korean comparative studies, Ramstedt published his first articles on the Korean language in the twenties, in which he proposed a number of Korean etymologies based on comparisons with the Altaic languages. Already in his article entitled "A Comparison of the Altaic languages with Japanese" (1924) he proposed two etymologies: Korean tol `stone', Turkic tas' id.; Korean kolta `half', Mongolian kaltasun id., Tungus kalta id. It is interesting to note that Ramstedt abandoned the former in his later works and correctly revised the latter by substituting kari-`to divide' for kolta which was an obvious mistake.
The above-mentioned article was followed by various articles and books in which he compared Korean with the Altaic languages. Among those works, the following are examined in this paper. The number of etymologies that Ramstedt proposed in each work follows the title.
Remarks on the Korean language (1928) : 26
Die Palatalisation in den altaischen Sprachen (1932) : 38
Kalmu¨ckisches Wo¨rterbuch (1935) : 48
Koreanisch kes `Ding, Stu¨ck' (1937): 56
A Korean Grammar (1939) : 62
Uber die Stellung des koreanischen (1939/1951): 34
The etymologies presented in these works are interesting because they show the stages that Ramstedt went in studying the Korean language and also what led to his Studies in Korean Etymology (1949), which was a culmination of his life-long research in this field. Out of the total 1,904 entries in this book, 1,599 include Altaic words of which 427 are marked with =, and 196 are marked with either < or >. Also there are 350 entries marked with "sk." (Sino-Korean). Although there is no explanation on the signs in this book, it is obvious that > or < denotes borrowings and = cognates. All other entries have "cf." or no sign at all. This paper looks into some of the basic problems raised by Ramstedt's methodology from the viewpoint of Korean historical linguistics.
(2) E. D. Polivanov; Toward the question of the kinship relations of Korean and the 'Altaic' languages (1927). Although this article includes only 16 etymologies with several obvious mistakes, it is noteworthy that some of the "classical" etymologies appear in this article: Korean nar `day', Mongolian naran `sun'; Korean nun `eye', Mongolian nidun id.; Korean mur `water', Mongolian mo¨ren `river' etc.
(3) S. Ogura published two monographs in 1934 and 1935 which include lexical comparisons of Korean and the Altaic languages. Since he was a protagonist of the Ural-Altaic theory he added words from the Uralic languages to his comparisons. Most of his etymologies are not convincing because he based his comparisons on partial phonic similarities and not strict rules of sound correspondences.
(4) In his monograph on the Korean word for `scissors' (1945) R. Kono compared Korean *ksigai (his reconstruction) with Manchu hasaha and gave 12 etymologies which support the correspondence between Korean k-: Manchu h-. Some of them are those which were already proposed by Ramstedt.
(5) N. Poppe; As the leading scholar in Altaic linguistics today, Poppe has been greatly interested in the Korean language due to the influence of Ramstedt. The result of his research was first published in his review (1950) of Ramstedt's Studies in Korean Etymology and later in his comparative phonology of the Altaic languages (1960). In his review Poppe mentioned 57 etymologies as convincing, 20 as doubtful and presents 35 new etymologies of his own. Some of the etymologies included in his works mentioned above are discussed in this paper.