Historical sources and periodization of the Japonic and Koreanic languages

要旨

This chapter outlines the various periods of Japonic and Koreanic language history. It provides approximate dates for each period more or less following traditional divisions while noting issues with conventional dividing lines. Owing to length considerations, it does not contain comprehensive lists of sources. Instead it only refers to a few sources per period, with an emphasis on the difficulties of interpretation that are not often explicitly discussed in the literature. It gives selected examples of characteristic features—mostly phonological but also sometimes morphological and lexical—for each period. It introduces the various scripts in the sources with brief examples and transliteration: Chinese characters, man’yōgana, hiragana, katakana, hyangch’al, idu, kugyŏl, and han’gŭl.

主題