On the Origin of -l Coda in Sino-Korean : Evidence from Hyecho’s Wang o Cheonchuk guk jeon

Abstract

This paper aims to shed light on the origin of -l coda in Sino-Korean by examining the transliteration of Sanskrit place names in Wang o Cheonchuk guk jeon 往五天竺國傳 (Memoir of the Pilgrimage to the Five Kingdoms of India) written by Hyecho 慧超 (704-783 AD). By comparing the transliteration in Xuanzang's 玄奘 Datang Xiyuji 大唐西域記 (Records on the Western Regions) and that in Wang o Cheonchuk guk jeon, we find that the alveolar consonant (non-nasal) coda in Hyecho’s language is rather close to the [l] sound. We propose that the [t] coda in Middle Chinese has been probably pronounced as [l] (or [r]) in the phonological system of the language spoken in Silla 新羅 (57BC-935 AD) in the early 8th century. The result of this research, to a certain extant, argues against the influential hypothesis that the -l coda in Sino-Korean originated from the –r in the northwestern dialect of Middle Chinese in the late Tang Dynasty.