慕理

Old Korean

Alternative forms

• 慕呂

Verb

慕理 (*KUli-)

1. to long for; to miss [someone]
   • c. 690, 得烏 (Deugo), “慕竹旨郞歌 (Mojukjirang-ga)”, in 三國遺事 (Samguk Yusa):

     慕理尸心未行乎尸道尸

     *KUli-lq MOSOm-oy NYE-wo-lq KIlh

     The path that the longing mind is on

2. to draw, to paint
   • c. 965, 均如 (Gyunyeo), “禮敬諸佛歌 (Yegyeongjebul-ga)”, in 均如傳 (Gyunyeo-jeon):

     心未筆留慕呂白乎隱佛體前衣

     *MOSOm-oy PWUT-ulwu KUli-SOLP-wo-n PWUthye ALPH-oy

     in front of the Buddha painted with the mind’s brush

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 慕理, the first character shows that this is the native Old Korean word for “to long for”, and the subsequent character(s) show(s) that the final syllable of this word is *-li. Because the semantics and the final phoneme(s) match, the word is conventionally reconstructed as *KUli, the ancestor of Middle Korean 그리 (Yale: kuli). 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.

Middle Korean merged Old Korean *r and *l unconditionally, and it is not easy to determine the Old Korean phoneme based on the Middle Korean reflex. Old Korean reconstructions are conventionally given in the Yale Romanization of Korean, which makes only those phonemic distinctions also made in Middle Korean. However, Alexander Vovin gives circumstantial evidence that the syllable being transcribed by 理 is *li with a lateral consonant.

Descendants

• Middle Korean: 그리다 (kulita)
  • Korean: 그리다 (geurida)

References

• 박지용 外 (Park Ji-yong et al.) (2012) 향가 해독 자료집 [hyangga haedok jaryojip, A Sourcebook of Hyangga Interpretations], Seoul National University, pages 9, 200
• Nam Pung-hyeon (2019). "Mojukjirangga-ui saeroun haedok" 慕竹旨郞歌의 새로운 해독 ["A new reading of the Mojukjirangga"]. Gugyeol Hakhoe Haksul Daehoe (conference). Yongin, South Korea. pp. 1–8.
• Alexander Vovin (2020) “Old Korean and Proto-Korean *r and *l Revisited”, in International Journal of Eurasian Linguistics‎^[1], volume 2, pages 94—107