Very little is known of the language of the

Buyeo kingdom Buyeo (; ; ), also rendered as Puyŏ or Fuyu, was an ancient kingdom that was centered in northern Manchuria in modern-day northeast China. It had ties to the Yemaek people, who are considered to be the ancestors of modern Koreans. Buyeo is ...

. Chapter 30 "Description of the Eastern Barbarians" in the ''

Records of the Three Kingdoms The ''Records of the Three Kingdoms'' is a Chinese official history written by Chen Shou in the late 3rd century CE, covering the end of the Han dynasty (220 CE) and the subsequent Three Kingdoms period (220–280 CE). It is regard ...

'' records a survey carried out by the Chinese state of Wei after their defeat of

Goguryeo Goguryeo (37 BC – 668 AD) (; ; Old Korean: Guryeo) also later known as Goryeo (; ; Middle Korean: 고ᇢ롕〮, ''kwòwlyéy''), was a Korean kingdom which was located on the northern and central parts of the Korea, Korean Peninsula an ...

in 244. The report states that the languages of Buyeo and those of its southern neighbours

and Ye were similar, and that the language of

Okjeo Okjeo () was an History of Korea, ancient Korean tribal state which arose in the northern Korea, Korean peninsula from perhaps the 2nd century BCE to the 5th century CE. Dong-okjeo (Eastern Okjeo) occupied roughly the area of the Hamgyong Provin ...

was only slightly different from them. Based on this text, Lee Ki-Moon grouped the four languages as the Puyŏ languages, contemporaneous with the Han languages of the

Samhan Samhan, or Three Han (), is the collective name of the Byeonhan, Jinhan, and Mahan confederacies that emerged in the first century BC during the Proto–Three Kingdoms of Korea, or Samhan, period. Located in the central and southern regions o ...

confederacies in southern Korea. The most widely cited evidence for this group is a body of placename glosses in the ''Samguk sagi'' (1154), which some authors take to represent the language of Goguryeo, but others believe reflect a mix of languages spoken by peoples conquered by Goguryeo. Scholars who take these words as representing the language of Goguryeo have come to a range of conclusions about the language, some holding that it was Koreanic, others that it was Japonic, and others that it was somehow intermediate between these families. The same chapter of the ''Records of the Three Kingdoms'' transcribes a Buyeo word for noblemen subordinate only to the king as . This character was pronounced ''kai'' in

Eastern Han Chinese Eastern Han Chinese (alternatively Later Han Chinese or Late Old Chinese) is the stage of the Chinese language Chinese ( or ) is a group of languages spoken natively by the ethnic Han Chinese majority and List of ethnic groups in China, man ...

. Beckwith identified this word with a ''Samguk sagi'' gloss / (pronounced ''kɛj''/''kɛjtshij^H'' in

Middle Chinese Middle Chinese (formerly known as Ancient Chinese) or the Qieyun system (QYS) is the historical variety of Chinese language, Chinese recorded in the ''Qieyun'', a rime dictionary first published in 601 and followed by several revised and expande ...

, ''kay''/''kaycha'' in Sino-Korean) for 'king', and the

Baekje language The language of the kingdom of Baekje (4th–7th centuries), one of the Three Kingdoms of Korea, is poorly attested, and scholars differ on whether one or two languages were used. However, at least some of the material appears to be a variety of ...

word for 'ruler' transcribed in the ''

Nihon Shoki The or , sometimes translated as ''The Chronicles of Japan'', is the second-oldest book of classical Japanese history. It is more elaborate and detailed than the , the oldest, and has proven to be an important tool for historians and archaeol ...

'' as

Old Japanese is the oldest attested stage of the Japanese language, recorded in documents from the Nara period (8th century). It became Early Middle Japanese in the succeeding Heian period, but the precise delimitation of the stages is controversial. Old Ja ...

''ki₁si''.

References

Works cited * * * * * * Buyeo Puyŏ languages Languages extinct in the 7th century Unclassified languages of Asia Extinct languages of Asia {{koreanic-lang-stub