User talk:KYPark/Otis

There are ancient Korean-English cognates
Dear KY Park, I came upon your comments. Please see: http://www.highwaywriter.com/rooms/essays/korean-english_cognates.html BobOtis

Why can't there be Korean-IE cognates?
Dear KY Park,

For several years I have been collecting words that appear to me to be cognates of English or other IE languages. While I am not a linguist and while I do not want to get into silly arguments with people whose notions of language superfamilies are set in stone from 19th Century European assumptions, I will say that we know this:

1. the Indo-Europeans came into Europe from the East, with the Germans and Slavs appearing last. Where did they originate from exactly? Who pushed them west? When? Why?

2. The aboriginal Europeans include the ancestors of the Basques (likely the "Iberians," such as those who created the interestingly Asian-looking Lady of Elche statue see:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lady_of_Elche). There are other genetic traits in Western Europe that appear to be East Asian, such as the so-called "Black Irish" (black hair, light skin, hooded eyes). Similar traits appear in Scandinavians (such as Icelandic singer Björk (http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&num=10&lr=&cr=&safe=images&um=1&ie=UTF-8&q=Bj%C3%B6rk&sa=N&tab=wi&gbv=1&ei=_zQlS-LXK46tlAeb7IX0CQ), in Slavs, (such as geopolitical analyst Zbigniew Brezinski), journalist Jim Hoagland (http://images.google.com/images?gbv=1&hl=en&lr=&num=10&um=1&ei=OTUlS4WyKI6tlAeb7IX0CQ&sa=X&oi=spell&resnum=0&ct=result&cd=1&q=Zbigniew+Brzezinski&spell=1). Finns, Sami, and other Uralic peoples of Europe also frequently exhibit Asian characteristics. While racial or facial features do not definitively prove language connections, they definitely prove that our automatic assumptions about Europeans and Koreans being sort of polar opposites racially, historically, and linguistically, is really based on 19th Century pre-Nazi race theories than on acknowledgement that Eurasia is, and has been, very mixed. Korea included. As any visitor to Korea could see, there are Koreans who, being "100% Korean" (ie, not mixed recently with other races), look Eurasian. I recall meeting one older gentleman who looked Italian. His daughter also looked Eurasian. They came from a very old, yangban family (Kimhae Kims). Mixture means borrowing, mixture means kinship. We do not know exactly where the "Asiatic Europeans" or the "European-looking Koreans" exactly came from, but there existence is real. Something happened long ago. People moved long distances. So when we say "Slavic" are we really talking about the language of a person who is "IE" or really part Mongol or Turkic? So when we say "Celtic language" do we want to ignore that the person speaking it looks Eurasian?

It would be nice if people and languages and histories all fit nice and neatly into comfortable little boxes, so that once they are classified, we don't have to think again. BUT THIS IS NOT THE REAL WORLD! Classifications of languages, races, etc. are only TOOLS, hints, indicators of certain relationships or characteristics. They are not the be-all and end-all of all discussions.

3. The most easterly Indo-Europeans were the Tocharians, who settled about as far east as eastern Uzbekistan. Paintings of the Tocharians frequently display Caucasian features or Eurasian features, particularly light eyes and red hair (red hair = black hair mixed with blond hair; hence, prominence of red hair in Ireland, where blond Norse intermarried with black haired Irish) The current population of Afghanistan still includes some people with these features. But isn't this shocking to hear or see, when we are taught that they really should be sitting somewhere in Switzerland, not somewhere between Tajikistan and China! The fact that they still exist should tell us that we ought to open our minds and ears to connections between even far-flung languages like Korean and English. After all, the ancestors of the English were somewhere in the Urals not really too long ago.... The Koreans' ancestors were somewhere south of Mongolia only around 5,000 years ago.

4. The Korean language today is largely derived from Shilla dialects, with remaining words not of Chinese origin being of Baekje, Gaya or Goguryeo Korean dialects. History tells us that for the most part, at least the founders of the Korean kingdoms and their clans migrated from somewhere in Manchuria. Lore or extrapolations (ie, best guesses) suggest various connections to earlier kingdoms, states or groupings in Manchuria or Inner Asia, such as Gojoseon, and perhaps Xiongnu. While we cannot know for sure the names of these ancestor peoples, we do know that the KOREANS HAD TO COME FROM SOMEWHERE before entering the Peninsula. They did not come from Japan, as Japan was in the stone age. They did not come from America. They came from the West, from somewhere in Inner Asia. If they went eastward to the Peninsula, from whence did they originate?

While developments in the modern Korean language even make connections with modern Japanese seem to some to be "unproven," (actually because they do not look hard enough into regional dialect vocabularies and for political reasons in JP)it can be harder to show obvious kinship to languages such as Mongol or Manchu, although these connections most certainly can be done. So what's the point here? A LOT OF TIME HAS PASSED BETWEEN THESE LANGUAGES, and even more time between Korean and Indo-European. When we speak of Korean cognates to Indo-European languages, what is there to take offense at? We are not saying that Korean is an Indo-European language or that it is a member of the Indo-European "family" of languages. We do not have to say that. We are merely saying that these neolithic peoples - the ancestors of Germans,Latins,Celts, Greeks, Slavs, etc.,and the ancestors of the Koreans - were possibly speaking the same language or similar enough languages that, after say, 5,000 or 10,000 years, 20,000 years, WE STILL CAN SEE OBVIOUS LINKAGES BETWEEN THESE PEOPLES.

Should one want to call them "false cognates"? Why? Because their existence is inconvenient to earlier theories or artificial groupings of languages? This is just silly.

5. Suggesting that Korean-IE cognates do not exist because Korean is not a member of the IE family is simple minded. If someone discovered that the skeleton of a cow and that of a walrus are shown to be from the same ancestry, isn't that interesting enough? Does the cow have to swim underwater or does the walrus have to graze on a pasture for us to accept such a discovery? Is academia and intellectual thought in the 21st Century to be straightjacketed to follow every recipe and classification made by 19th Century minds? We should find that these K-IE are NOT "false cognates," but rather that they are at least "possible cognates" with IE. Will this overturn the entire sacred classification of IE languages? Nope. It just makes life more interesting to think that maybe - just maybe - people existed before the charting of the IE family of languages. And yes, that maybe there was some kind of language that joined Korean with Indo-European. Is this really so unacceptable to the authorities here???

6. I am reminded here of my days in college. It went something like this: I am reading a book in 1978 that was written in 1968, assigned by a professor who has taught nearly the same course from the same notes since 1958. His notes for the course were based on his classes, during the early 1950's, which were taught by professors formed in the 1920's, who were raised on texts largely written in the 19th Century. And in 2010, with this basis of knowledge, weighed down with the burden to keep these often flawed or incorrect teachings sacredly hoisted above my shoulders as ABSOLUTE TRUTHS, I am expected to look at the world in a bold new way? No. This does not happen if one allows oneself to be trapped in the texts and formulas of one's professors' professors. It only makes us sub-human, as ciphers repeating what we are told and being reminded that there is no need to think because it all has been thought out for us already.

Why is this so important in regard to this topic? Because until very, very recently, perhaps in the 1980's, there was almost no usable discussion in the West of Korea, of Korean history, of Korean linguistics, etc. The Japanese tried to extinguish this people's culture and when they could not do that, they did everything that they could after WWII to influence Western academia to disregard Korea, Koreans and their language. This is a sick pathology of the post-Meiji Japanese educational-political-wartime machine, and western "scholars" have been easily bought, bribed or pandered to by the Japanese militarists, and that is why only in the 21st Century is there a bit of frankness about the discovery that the Koreans founded Yamato, settled Japan, and tungusicized the Austronesian language of the Cipangans. I suggest that the main reason why it seems so unacceptable on this forum to accept a simple list of Korean-IE cognates or possible cognates is that many of the commenters here have been frankly brainwashed into undermining Korea, Koreans, and their role in world civilization. Also, as far as linguistics classification theories go, the field has been dominated by Europeans, some of whom cannot accept non-European linkages to their own peoples. (You know who you are....)

Mr Park, I have been randomly collecting words that I felt were K-IE cognates and I will call them so, because that is what they are. Is there ever going to be evidence of the super-super family that brought Korean together with Indo-European? I doubt it. I am amazed that there are still some trace evidences of Gothic, Etruscan, and Tocharian, which all have been very much more recent that our expected K-IE connections. I stumbled upon your website and this discussion following a web search, and I hope that you continue your work. What you see IS evidence of a common language. The words that you and I have noted are not words like semiconductor or street car or nucleic acid. These aren't "false cognates" or borrow words. These are basic words that people wandering Eurasia in very ancient times might have used so regularly that even thousands of years later they did not need to change them. Words like apa (father) and eoma (mother). Are these not cognates to English pa and ma? I have noted that words like gae (dog) are cognate to IE canine, cão (PT), etc. They are not cognates?

Please keep up the good work. If you wish to communicate, please write me at highwaywriter@yahoo.com. Best regards and great success! Bob Otis