初叱音

Old Korean

Etymology

Almost certainly a suffixed derivative of the Old Korean ancestor of Middle and Modern Korean 첫 (Yale: ches) "first".

Noun

初叱音 (*CHEsem)

1. the first time
   • c. 1170, Interpretive gugyeol glosses to the Avatamsaka Sutra, vol. 14:

     菩薩^是 初^叱音 發心^爲良 誓^是㢱 求^爲良厼

     *PWO.SAL-i CHEsem PAL.SIM-hoy-a PYEKi-mye KWU-hoy-a-kwom

     [if] a Bodhisattva resolves for the first time to vow and seek

     (N.B. Gugyeol glyphs are given in non-abbreviated forms. Bracketed terms were ignored when read.)

Reconstruction notes

This word is attested once in a twelfth-century gloss of the Avatamsaka Sutra.

In Old Korean orthography, native terms with clear Chinese equivalents are usually written with an initial Chinese character glossing the meaning of the word, followed by one or more Chinese characters that transcribe the final syllable or coda consonant of the term. In the case of 初叱音, the first character shows that this is the native Old Korean word for "first", and the subsequent characters show that the final syllable of this word involves *-s and *-m. Because the semantics and the final syllable match, the word is conventionally reconstructed as *CHEsem, the ancestor of 처〮ᅀᅥᆷ (Yale: chézèm, “the first time”). Besides the orthographic evidence (see 叱#Phonogram), there is growing scholarly consensus that Middle Korean /z/ arises from lenition of intervocalic Old Korean */s/.

Descendants

• Middle Korean: 처〮ᅀᅥᆷ (chézèm)
  • Korean: 처음 (cheo'eum)
• Korean: 처잠 (cheojam) (Hamgyong)
• Korean: 처머냐 (cheomeonya) (Jeolla)
• Jeju: 처왐 (cheowam)
• Jeju: 체얌 (cheyam)

References

• 이병기 (Yi Byeong-gi) (2014) “구결자료의 어휘 [Gugyeol jaryo-ui eohwi, Vocabulary in the gugyeol sources]”, in Gugyeol Yeon'gu, volume 33, pages 23–61