14 세기 모음추이가설에 대한 검토

Abstract

It has been suggested by Lee(1964, 1969 etc: )` that` between` 13th cen= tury and 15th century there occurred a vowel shit in Korean. The main evidence for the hypothesis was the Mongolian loanwords in Middle Korean. , In this article the following materials were examined: Mongolian loanwords (data A),, the transcription of the hPags-pa scripts (data B) and the transcription of the Meng-u¨-lao-ki-to (data C). By comparing data A where Mongolian /u / is transcribed in Korean letter ㅗ(i.e. o) and data B,C where Mongolian /u / is transcribed in Korean letter ㅜ(i.e. u), he concluded the vowel shift, for example u>o and the other successive changes, was occurred. To be a reasonable comparison, text-criticism should be preceded. I suggested that data A is a transcription of the sounds of which Koreans heard. By the contrast, data B and C is a transliteration of the letters. So data A and data B, C are of different character and one should not compare the data directly for deducing some linguistic argurnent. I suggested that Mongolian vowel /u / was /is realized roughly as I.P.A. [o] and we Koreans heard it as [ㅗ](o). So it is understandable that in data A Mongolian vowel /u / was transcribed in [o] as it was heard and in data B and C Mongolian letter /u / was transliterated in [u] to distinguish it from the letter /o / which was transliterated in [o]. Thus the different transcription of the vowels in each data does not reflect the changes of the sound value. In conclusion, by Mongolian data one cannot show the vowel shift has occurred. In other words if there be no other evidence, the so-called vowel shift was not occurred in Middle Korean.