아사달

Etymology

 * further origin is.

One hypothesis is that is a compound word composed of asa + dal, motivated by an assumption of equivalence between the Chinese phonetic transcription  and the word  ( in Chinese). However, the etymology of is ultimately unknown, with opinions differing as to whether the word was created as a   or as a   (presumably of a foreign word). Furthermore, the reading of the Mandarin Chinese character is identical to the reading when used to mean "dynasty," not with the reading when used to mean "morning" (which would instead be ). However, the name of is read in the former manner despite  also meaning "morning" here.

However, the character, which is used in modern Chinese languages mainly to represent the /s/ or /θ/ in word-final and preconsonantal positions when transcribing foreign words, has always had a  (/s/) rather than an  like Korean (/ch/), as there are plenty of other characters better suited to transcribing the Korean sound. Dal might be the result of reading Chinese characters in the Korean way; if so, the original Chinese pronunciation at the time Asadal was originally recorded in historical texts could have been Asada, with the final syllable (-da) as a transcription of the Middle Korean word, Early Modern Korean , Modern Korean or , meaning "land." In this case, Asadal would mean "Morning Land." If, however, the final syllable is related to 🇨🇬, then Asadal would mean "Morning Mountain."

also meant "mountain" or "hill" in ancient usage.