Page:History of Corea, ancient and modern; with description of manners and customs, language and geography (1879).djvu/412

 382 THE COREAK LANGUAGE. best Chinese writers, whose works beax on Corea, agree in stating that the people moved into their present beautiful country of mountains and of floods from the kingdom of Fooyii^ which was powerful in the time of the Han dynasty ; though the emigration must have taken place ages before the Han. They would then have moved southwards and south-eastwards along the north- east and east of Liaotung; which province they occupied for long, and which they still regard as their proper patrimony. Thus they would pass from and over the lands afterwards occupied by the savage but vigorous Sooahun or Niljun stock, which gave the Kin (gold) and the present Tsing (clear) dynasties to China. And though Dr. Williams can be regarded as scarcely accurate in stating that the Kin are the ancestors of the Tsing, except in as far as the Prussians are the ancestors of the English; yet all the Nujun spoke substantially the same language, which language still prevails over immense tracts of country away from Chinese influence, and which is now called Manchu, and is daily heard in the country said to have been the home of the Coreans. Hence we would naturally look for a close resemblance, if not a thorough identity, between the two languages. We have noticed the great difference between the alphabets of the two peoples ; but as both began to write long after the Coreans had settled down in the north of their present lands, differences in detail would not materially affect the question of their original unity. We shall now compare these languages in a table of common words, where resemblance should be expected, and where difference is the more easily detected ; and then append Manchu, Mongol, and Japanese sentences to compare their grammatical structure with that of Corean given above. The Mongol is Eastern Mongol. Snglith, one two three four five six neven ChineM, tir Ban su woo liw chi Manchu, iimoo jwo ilan dooyin Rwunja nixiggwim S.MongoL Ccrean. niga hftnin^ hoya door goorba suit torba nnit taboo dasnt jirkok yusut tolo nilpn Japcmete. btotsz ftatsz mitaz itaztaz mootsz nanatsz