國惡

Old Korean

Etymology

*/-k/ may be an ancient place-related suffix; see Appendix:Middle Korean h-final nouns.

Noun

國惡 (*NALak)

1. (hapax) country
   • 765, 忠談師 (Chungdamsa), “安民歌 (Anmin-ga)”, in 三國遺事 (Samguk Yusa) [Memorabilia of the Three Kingdoms]:

     國惡太平恨音叱如

     *NALak THAYPHYENG-ho-ms-ta

     It is fitting that the country will be greatly peaceful.

Reconstruction notes

In Old Korean orthography, native terms with clear Chinese equivalents are usually written with an initial Chinese character (logogram) glossing the meaning of the word, followed by one or more Chinese characters (phonograms) that transcribe the final syllable or coda consonant of the term. In the case of 國惡, the first character shows that this is the native Old Korean word for “country”, and the subsequent character(s) show(s) that the coda consonant of this word is *-k. Because the semantics and the final phoneme(s) match, the word is conventionally reconstructed as *NALak, the ancestor of Middle Korean 나랗〮 (Yale: nàláh). Note that the reconstruction was not necessarily the actual pronunciation. Rather, it should simply be considered as a method of representing an Old Korean form phonetically by using its Middle Korean reflex.

According to scholarly convention, the elements of the reconstruction which are not directly represented by phonograms are given in capital letters. This allows readers to identify what part of the reconstruction is attested and what part is applied retroactively from the Middle Korean reflex.

Descendants

• Middle Korean: 나랗〮 (nàláh, “country”)
  • Korean: 나라 (nara, “country”)
• Yukjin Korean: 나랑 (narang)
• Jeju: 나라 (nara)

References

• 박석문 (Park Seok-mun), 서장국 (Seo Jang-guk) (2015) “국어 어말음 ‘ㄱ’의 교체와 변화에 대하여 [gugeo eomareum ‘g’ui gyochewa byeonhwa'e daehayeo, On the alternation and change of the Korean coda consonant *-k]”, in Ban'gyo Eomun Yeon'gu, volume 41, pages 315–334