| Gaya | |
|---|---|
| Kaya, Karak, Kara | |
| Native to | Gaya confederacy |
| Region | Korea |
| Era | 5th–7th centuries |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | zra |
zra | |
| Glottolog | None |
 The Korean peninsula in the late 5th century | |
Gaya (伽耶語, 가야어), also renderedKaya,Kara orKarak, is the presumed language of theGaya confederacy in ancient southernKorea. Only one word survives that is directly identified as being from the language of Gaya. Other evidence consists of place names, whose interpretation is uncertain.
The nameGaya is the modern Korean reading of a name originally written using Chinese characters. A variety of historical forms are attested. Generally it was transcribed asKaya (加耶) orKarak (伽落), but the transcription in the oldest sources isKara (加羅,Middle Chinesekæla).[1]It is referred to asKara andMimana in the 8th-century Japanese historyNihon shoki.[2]
Beckwith coined the termpre-Kara for a hypotheticalJaponic language spoken in southern Korea at the time of theYayoi migration toKyushu (4th century BC).[3]
The earliest accounts of the southern part of the Korean peninsula are found in Chinese histories.Chapter 30 "Description of the Eastern Barbarians" of theRecords of the Three Kingdoms (late 3rd century) and Chapter 85 of theBook of the Later Han (5th century) contain parallel accounts of theSamhan ('three Han') –Mahan,Byeonhan andJinhan – which were later replaced byBaekje, Gaya andSilla respectively.[4][5]The Mahan were said to have a different language from Jinhan, but the two accounts differ on the relationship between the languages of Byeonhan and Jinhan, with theRecords of the Three Kingdoms describing them as similar, but theBook of the Later Han referring to differences.[6]
TheRecords of the Three Kingdoms lists 12 polities within Byeonhan, here given with pronunciations inEastern Han Chinese:[7][8]
The three longer names appear to include suffixes.The suffix *-mietoŋ (which also occurs in one of the Jinhan names) has been compared withLate Middle Koreanmith andProto-Japonic *mətə, both meaning 'base, bottom' and claimed bySamuel Martin to be cognate.The suffix *-jama is commonly identified with Proto-Japonic *jama 'mountain'.[9]
By the 4th century, Byeonhan had been replaced by the Gaya confederacy.[10]Gaya traded extensively with theChinese commanderies in northern Korea and with Japan, but was absorbed by Silla in the 6th century.[2]
Much of our knowledge of Gaya comes from theSamguk sagi, a history of the KoreanThree Kingdoms period, written inClassical Chinese and compiled in 1145 from records of the kingdoms ofSilla,Goguryeo andBaekje that are no longer extant.[11]Chapters 34, 35 and 36 survey the geography of the former kingdoms of Silla (including the former territory of Gaya), Goguryeo and Baekje respectively. They also cover the administrative re-organization after unification asLater Silla in 668, including former place names and the standardized two-characterSino-Korean names assigned underKing Gyeongdeok in the 8th century.[12]Some of the places named in Chapter 34 are in the area of the former Gaya confederacy, but attempts to interpret them are controversial.[13][14]
The only word directly attributed to Gaya is found in an explanatory note in the same chapter, which reads:
旃檀梁，城門名。加羅語謂門爲梁云。
Sandalwood 梁: name of the fortress gate. In the Kaya language, 'gate' is called '梁'.
The Chinese character⟨梁⟩ was used to write theSilla word for 'ridge', which was ancestral to Middle Koreantwol 돌 'ridge', suggesting that the Gaya word for 'gate' may have been pronounced something liketwol. This looks similar toOld Japaneseto1 (modern Japaneseto,戸), meaning 'door, gate'.[15][16]