跡烏

Old Korean

Noun

跡烏 (*CACHwo)

1. (hapax) trace; mark; legacy
   • 1120, King Yejong of Goryeo, “悼二將歌 (Doijang-ga)”, in 平山申氏系譜 (Pyeongsan Sin-ssi Gyebo) [Genealogy of the Pyeongsan Sin descent group]:

     直隱跡烏隱現乎賜丁

     *KOT-on CACHwo-n NATH-wo-si-ntye

     he has made apparent their righteous legacy

Reconstruction notes

In Old Korean orthography, native terms with clear Chinese equivalents are usually written with an initial Chinese character (logogram) glossing the meaning of the word, followed by one or more Chinese characters (phonograms) that transcribe the final syllable or coda consonant of the term. In the case of 跡烏, the first character shows that this is the native Old Korean word for “trace”, and the subsequent character(s) show(s) that the final syllable of this word is *-wo. Because the semantics and the final phoneme(s) match, the word is conventionally reconstructed as *CACHwo, the ancestor of Middle Korean 자최 (Yale: cachwoy). Note that the reconstruction was not necessarily the actual pronunciation. Rather, it should simply be considered as a method of representing an Old Korean form phonetically by using its Middle Korean reflex.

According to scholarly convention, the elements of the reconstruction which are not directly represented by phonograms are given in capital letters. This allows readers to identify what part of the reconstruction is attested and what part is applied retroactively from the Middle Korean reflex.

Descendants

• Middle Korean: 자최〮 (càchwóy, “trace; mark; legacy”)
  • Korean: 자취 (jachwi, “trace; mark; legacy”)

References

• 황선엽 (Hwang Seon-yeop) (2015) “ko:<悼二將歌>의 해독 [An interpretation of the Doijang-ga]”, in Gugyeol yeon'gu, volume 35, pages 111—154