About “Kara” v. “Gaya”

So many names of things on the peninsula have changed over the years, largely because of how things were recorded. The first system of writing that was used was Sinitic writing, just as in Japan, and so the characters used were not strictly phonetic. Korea would develop its own phonetic alphabet, Hangul, just as Japan would develop katakana and hiragana, but not until much later. The early chronicles were all written with Chinese characters, and so their pronunciation is typically something debated as linguists attempt to reconstruct the old pronunciations. In general what we know today as Gaya was probably pronounced something like “Garak”, “Gara”, or even “Kara” in its own time. In much of east Asia, voiced and unvoiced consonants can be almost interchangeable, with aspiration playing a more important role, which is almost reversed from English. This can make it hard to always see the relationships between things.

As for the relationship in Japanese—as I mention in the podcast, we have various things referring to the continent that all get a “kun’yomi” reading of “Kara”. So for instance you can find 漢・唐・観 all as “Kara”, when these characters represent, respectively, the Han Dynasty (KAN), the Tang Dynasty (TOU), and Korea (KAN). Basically anything that came from the continent through the peninsula was pronounced in the same way as “Gara” or “Garak”, which was spelled in various ways including: 加羅, 伽羅, 迦羅, 柯羅, 駕洛, 迦落.

And while we are talking about potentially confusing homophones in the text, I think that we should have a talk about “Han”. I believe I mentioned this before about the fact that we have the “Han” dynasty and then we have the “Samhan” or the three Han. It is quite confusing, but the truth is that these are different words that sound the same but use different characters. So for instance you have 漢 or 汉, which are both pronounced “Han” in modern Putonghua dialect of Chinese, and which refer to either the Han dynasty or, today, the ethnic Han people—the majority ethnicity of modern China. Then you have 韓, which is also pronounced “Han” in Chinese and Korean, and it is used to refer to Korea (the modern name of the Republic of Korea is Daehan Minguk: 大韓民國), but its original use appears to have been in referring to the three Han of the Korean Peninsula. To even further complicate matters, in Japanese both are pronounced with the same On’yomi of “KAN”.

So this has two problems. First is determining when we are talking about the ethnic Han of China, to which some might just suggest that we call them “Chinese”. However, not all of the dynasties of the area that we know as China were ethnically Han. Many of them descended from different ethnic roots. Even the Tang dynasty was not considered an ethnic Han dynasty, and neither was the more recent Qing dynasty—and we aren’t even talking about the Mongolian Yuan. On top of that, we should be careful of conflating modern states and political entities with previous states or governments, especially in an area as diverse as East Asia.

Even on the peninsula, which is only a fraction of the size of the rest of the continent, we know that there were a variety of cultures mixing and mingling, and a variety of languages that were being spoken.

Duck Shaped Vessels

These duck-shaped vessels were popular in the areas that would become Gaya and Silla prior to the Three Kingdoms period. From the Seoul National Museum, photo by author.

Duck shaped vessels

These duck-shaped vessels were popular in the areas that would become Gaya and Silla prior to the Three Kingdoms period. From the Seoul National Museum, photo by author.

Glass Beadmold, 1C-3C

Mold for making glass beads on the peninsula. From the Seoul National Museum. Photo by author.

Ritual Artifact with Birds 3C-4C

Bronze ritual artifact from Goseong showing a pair of birds. Birds were an important part of the spiritual and religious life of the peninsula in early days, and even today you can find sotdae—poles topped with birds—in the Korean countryside.

Bronze TLV Mirror, 4C

From Gimhae, which also has a set of “royal” tombs that appear in the 3rd C. Bronze mirrors, originally acquired from the Han and later dynasties, were not only prestige items in the archipelago, but on the continent as well. From the Seoul National Museum, photo by author.

Bronze Spearhead 2C-3C

Bronze socketed spearhead from Gimhae around the time that the Gaya states were forming. From the Seoul National Museum, photo by author.

Japanese Bronze Spirals 1C-3C

Bronze spiral ornaments from Japan.. From the Tokyo National, photo by author.

Magatama and other Jewelry

Examples of magatama (the comma shaped jewel) on the Korean peninsula. This design may have originated in the archipelago and then traveled west, demonstration cultural borrowing in both directions. From the Seoul National Museum, photo by author.

W. Jin Soldier, 3C

A statue of a soldier from the Western Jin, about the 3rd Century. From the Tokyo National Museum, photo by author.

References

Barnes, G. (2015). Archaeology of East Asia: The Rise of Civilization in China, Korea and Japan. Oxbow Books. Retrieved November 30, 2020, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt19893vd
Ō, Yasumaro, & Heldt, G. (2014). The Kojiki: An account of ancient matters. ISBN978-0-231-16389-7
Vovin, Alexander (2013). "From Koguryǒ to T’amna*: Slowly riding to the South with speakersof Proto-Korean." Korean LInguistics 15:2. John Benjamins Publishing Company. doi:10.1075/kl.15.2.03vov
Barnes, Gina L. (2007). State Formation in Japan: Emergence of a 4th-Century Ruling Elite. Routlede. ISBN 9780415596282
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