Talk:Old Korean

Reversion
I would really prefer to avoid an edit war here. Hairwizard91, can you please explain what you object to? I am quite happy to see appropriately referenced material added here, but cannot support the wholesale removal of content, links, and references. -- Visviva 14:23, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

What is the age or period of old korean? Is it from 1 century to 10 centry? or is it from 5 century to 10 century? Your explanation is too primitive.--Hairwizard91 14:42, 28 October 2006 (UTC)
 * As the article explains, or did explain, the historical boundaries are defined differently by different scholars. Based on Kim (2004), pp. 28-29, most have defined it as starting in the Three Kingdoms period, or more precisely around the 5th century.  This makes sense, since this is the earliest period from which any significant amount of linguistic material survives.  The earliest closing date given is the 10th century, but most authorities appear to treat Old Korean as having ended at or near the time that the Hunmin Jeongeum was composed.
 * Unfortunately I can't fix the article now since you have already obliged me to exhaust my quota of reverts while merely trying to complete the initial stage of the article. I do not see how I can fix this article without reversion or something comparable.  Perhaps another editor would like to try?  -- Visviva 14:59, 28 October 2006 (UTC)
 * So, you must firstly define the age of old korean. If you did not define it, many readers conflict the age. --Hairwizard91 15:11, 28 October 2006 (UTC)
 * See there are some theories of old korean and middle korean. But, you only explain one thing

김형규(1989) : 상고어(∼934), 중고어(935∼1391), 중기어(1392∼1591), 근대어(1592∼ 1893), 현대어(1894∼) 이기문(1972) : 고대국어(∼10세기), 중세국어(10세기 초∼16세기), 근대국어(17세기 초 ∼19세기 말), 현대국어(20세기 초∼) 전기중세국어(10세기 초∼14세기), 후기중세국어(15세기∼16세기) 박병채(1989) : 고대국어(∼1443), 중기국어(1443∼1598), 근대국어(1598∼1894), 현대국어(1894∼) 전기고대국어(∼1103), 후기고대국어(1103∼1443)

Moreover, old Korean language is not silla's language. It is generally accepted that there were two language families in old korean such as buyeo language and samhan language. At unified silla, the samhan language may be the standard After establishment of goryeo, the buyeo language replaced the samhan language, and this buyeo language is succeeded by middle korean, which is eventually current korean language. Currently korean is not silla's language.--Hairwizard91 14:54, 28 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Please provide specific sources. Your theory seems to suggest that Middle Korean was something completely different from the language of the Silla period... this is completely different from anything I have encountered, and would seem to have no explanation for the hyangga, early idu texts, etc.  -- Visviva 15:01, 28 October 2006 (UTC)
 * So, You must define the age of old, middle and modern. You only refer to one book. There are so many theories about the Korean language and nobody can conclude about the origin and categorization. For the reference, I have linked the web of language research lab. This is very reputable because the Korean government assigned the lab. to the national project for korean language.--Hairwizard91 04:46, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
 * There are so much literature about Korean language history. find articles using the keyword of 이숭녕, 이기문, 박병채, 김형규. Your explanation only describes the theory of 이기문.--Hairwizard91 04:54, 30 October 2006 (UTC)


 * It should be noted that you have not added any references to the article at all, and insist on portraying your claims as "common knowledge." -- Visviva 02:30, 1 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Your version of old korean explains that there is no language of buyeo. You only explains that old korean is silla's language. This is totally wrong. --Hairwizard91 15:08, 28 October 2006 (UTC)


 * There is already an article about the hypothetical Buyeo languages. -- Visviva 02:30, 1 November 2006 (UTC)


 * In addition, your explanation of old language is conflicted with the old language's writing system. So you may refer to only silla's language.--Hairwizard91 15:17, 28 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Even the sources you cite generally regard Old Korean as the language of Silla; they only differ on whether it was also the language of the other kingdoms. I have removed Category:Baekje and Category:Goguryeo for now; I only added them since we do not have (and probably should not have) Category:Three Kingdoms of Korea.  In any case, please note that this is not History of the Korean language; it is just an article on one historical form of the Korean language.  If you have anything verifiable to say about the Goguryeo language or Baekje language, you can feel free to create those articles.  -- Visviva 02:44, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

IIRC, everything I've heard my KS professor say about pre-hangeul Korean supports what Visviva wrote, i.e. that we don't know much about “Old Korean”, but that there's no reason to assume that there was a single Korean language before Goryeo or that “Old Korean” was anything but Silla's language. Concerning even earlier times, he often mentioned a contemporary Chinese source clearly saying that Baekje was bilingual.

I assume he knows a lot about all this, being an authority for hyangga, and I think his department was the host of a conference on Goguryeo's language a few years ago. If you're in Seoul, ask him what he thinks about the matter. Wikipeditor 13:59, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

The generally accepted age differentiation of korean language
As far as i know, this site[] is the most standard differentiation.
 * “Most standard”? There are several, and AFAIR none is generally accepted. Wikipeditor 06:44, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Box
I agree that the terms godae/jungse gugeo are biased to the point that I'm uncomfortable with them in most contexts, and I'm glad the Korean Wikipedia tries to avoid such terms.

At the same time, I think we should use the most common term for the box, so I think it should be godae gugeo. Such boxes in any Wikipedia article can be purely descriptive – the way a Wikipedia names its articles is a different story. Wikipeditor 06:55, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Ono Susumu's mysterious word "Phuwa"
http://linguistics.byu.edu/classes/Ling450ch/reports/korean.html

Ono Susumu has compared a so-called Korean word Phuwa(lung), but such word doesn't exist in Korean. Lung is 허파(heopa) in native Korean. Because of this false comparation, the Austronesian theory has spread everywhere. It is not even a Korean word, and in the first place, a single word can't be the evidence of language classification. Please help to delete this false reference. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 1.247.135.183 (talk) 12:26, 11 June 2018 (UTC)
 * It appears to be 부화(pühua; 훈몽자회(예산 문고본)(1527)). (Modern Korean 부아) Jeannebluemonheo (talk) 10:19, 4 February 2019 (UTC); edited 10:20, 4 February 2019 (UTC)

Although, I gotta say, that 부화 word looks suspiciously like a loanword (vowel harmony violation; if it were a native word, it should be 보화 or 부훠.) Jeannebluemonheo (talk) 16:04, 4 February 2019 (UTC)

Phonology
(I'm new to Wikipedia so tell me if I did something wrong) So this phonology section makes no sense. Old Korean has no unanimous phoneme inventory and I can certainly tell you that this phonology section makes no sense. Old Korean had no voiced/unvoiced distinction (近=巾, 答=沓, 兮=雞 (삼국사기三國史記)) and, I mean, where did this seemingly arbitrary phoneme inventory with no reference? --Jeannebluemonheo (talk) 11:25, 3 February 2019 (UTC); edited 10:20, 4 February 2019 (UTC)

Additions to the lead
I have again reverted excessive detail added to the lead and infobox.

The lead section is supposed to be a summary of the body of the article, per MOS:LEAD. The various views on OK periodization are discussed in detail in the "History and periodization" section, and summarized as
 * Some linguists classify the sparsely attested languages of the Three Kingdoms of Korea as variants of Old Korean, while others reserve the term for the language of Silla alone.

That's perfectly correct, and well supported in the body text. Further detail does not belong in the lead.

Languages before the Three Kingdoms are completely unattested and therefore beyond the reach of linguistics. The Encyclopedia of Korean Culture is a tertiary source, and not specifically linguistic.

Which form lies behind MK is irrelevant to the discussion of OK, but the suggestion of Vovin and Sagart that it comes from Baekje is very much a minority view. (Also Vovin (2013) does not even mention MK.) All the standard surveys (Sohn, Lee IS & Ramsey, Lee KM & Ramsey, Cho & Whitman, etc) say that MK arose from the language of Unified Silla. Indeed this assumption is the basis of all the reconstructions of the Unified Silla texts.

In any case, this article is not a dictionary article on "Old Korean", but an encyclopedia article on a topic it defines as the language of Unified Silla, and that is what the infobox should reflect. Kanguole 20:31, 20 April 2022 (UTC)


 * Could a renaming to "Silla language" as a uncontroversial alternative be possible then, with redirection of Old Korean mentions being towards their respective attested variants.
 * Regarding the classification for its time period, in recent years Korean linguists stance seems to have shifted in favour the extension towards the 13th century. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Wiktionary:About_Korean/Historical_forms#Old_Korean_(600%E2%80%941300 has further explanation of this FingonFindekáno (talk) 11:05, 19 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia articles are named after the common name of the topic (WP:COMMONNAME). For this topic, that is "Old Korean". Silla language redirects to this article.
 * The proposals to extend the definition to the 13th century are mentioned in the second paragraph of the lead, and discussed in detail in the "History and periodization" section. Kanguole 08:04, 20 May 2022 (UTC)

Contradiction
In the "Syllable structure" section, the article says: "On the other hand, Middle Korean consonant clusters are believed not to have existed in Old Korean and to have formed after the twelfth century with the loss of intervening vowels." But in the "Aspirate consonants" section, it says: "The Middle Korean series of aspirated stops and affricates developed from mergers of consonant clusters involving /h/ or a velar obstruent, which in turn had formed from the loss of intervening vowels. To what extent this process had occurred in the Old Korean period is still debated."

Isn't it the case that if there were no clusters in Old Korean yet, then the transformation of clusters into aspirates couldn't have happened in Old Korean either? 62.73.69.121 (talk) 13:09, 23 November 2023 (UTC)