‘獨島’ㆍ石島’의 地名 表記에 관한 硏究

Abstract

The place name, ‘Dokdo'(獨島), appeared first in 1906 in the report from Sim, Heung-taek who was the county chief of Ulleung-gun in Korea. On the other hand, in the previous year(1905), the announce- ment from Shimane county(島根縣) in Japan announced that the island belonged to Japan. Based on this assertion that they announced dominium of the island first, the Japanese insisted that the island was theirs. Koreans, however, proclaimed that ‘Seokdo'(石島) fell under the jurisdiction of Ulleung-do according to the Royal Order 41 in 1900. For this reason, Koreans contended that they claimed the island earlier than Japan. In this respect, the question whether ‘Dokdo'(獨島) and ‘Seokdo'(石島) are referred to as the same island arises. Apart from a number of political and diplomatic issues regarding the island, this study tried to clarify the argument that ‘Dokdo'(獨島) and ‘Seokdo'(石島) referred to the same island, but they were spelled in a different way in terms of orthography of the borrowed sino-letters. In addition, this study attempted to show that the orthography varied depending on the form of documents. ‘Seok'(石) and ‘Dok'(獨) were traditionally the borrowed sino-letters which had long been used historically. ‘Seok'(石) was a meaning- borrowed sino-letters (i.e. its meaning was borrowed from the character) to indicate ‘Dol'(돌), ‘Dok'(독)(<돓<*돍). And ‘Dok'(獨) was a sound- borrowed sino-letters (i.e. its sound was borrowed from the character) to spell Korean ‘Dok'(독). In the same fashion, ‘梁' and ‘督' played the same role as ‘Seok'(石) and ‘Dok'(獨) respectively. That is to say, ‘梁', a meaning-borrowed sino-letters, was used to indicate Dol(돌), Dok(독)(<돓<*돍), and ‘督', a sound-borrowed sino-letters, was adopted to spell Korean 독(Dok). In addition, it could be confirmed that 道 could replace ‘獨' and ‘梁’ based on research materials. Therefore, ‘Dol'(돌) and ‘Dok'(독) were written as ‘石' or ‘梁' if we use the meaning-borrowed sino-letters and they also were written as ‘Dok'(獨), ‘Dok'(督) if we use the sound-borrowed sino-letters. The Royal Order where ‘Seokdo'(石島) was spelled is an ancient document with a king's message and the message was traditionally written in Chinese. It was a custom to use the meaning borrowed letters ‘Seokdo'(石島) in order to spell Dolsum(돌섬) or Doksum(독섬). The report from Sim, Heung-taek where ‘Dokdo'(獨島) was recorded was chupjeong(牒呈), a kind of an ancient document, which was customarily written in idu(吏讀). Thus, it was a natural custom to have Dolsum(돌섬), or Doksum(독섬) recorded as Dokdo(獨島) by using borrowed sino-letters. All in all, ‘Dokdo'(獨島) and ‘Seokdo'(石島) are different orthography while referring to the same object.