幾叱

Old Korean

Determiner

幾叱 (*MYEc(h))

1. how many
2. several
   • c. 1170, Interpretive gugyeol glosses to the Avatamsaka Sutra, vol. 35, pages 07:18—19:

     現在^良中隱 幾^叱亇叱 佛^體 [有]^在賜下

     *HYEN.CAY-akuy-n MYEs mas PWUthye kye-si-ha

     There being several Buddhas as of present

     (N.B. Gugyeol glyphs are given in non-abbreviated forms. Bracketed terms were ignored when read.)

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 幾叱, the first character shows that this is the native Old Korean word for “how many”, and the subsequent character(s) show(s) that the coda consonant of this word is *-c(h). Because the semantics and the final phoneme(s) match, the word is conventionally reconstructed as *MYEc(h), the ancestor of Middle Korean 몇〮 (Yale: myéch). 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: 몇〮 (myéch)
  • Korean: 몇 (myeot)

References

• 황선엽 (Hwang Seon-yeop) et al. (2009) 석독구결사전/釋讀口訣辭典 [Dictionary of interpretive gugyeol], Bakmunsa, →ISBN