A comparative onomastic analysis of Kudara (百濟) and the “Kök” Türk Empire (commonly referred to as Tujue 突厥 in Chinese sources): A preliminary survey of lexical parallels in Eastern Eurasian imperial nomenclature

Yıl 2025, Cilt: 9 Sayı: 2, 302 - 312, 18.08.2025

Mehmet Oguz Derin

https://doi.org/10.35236/jots.1762206

Öz

This preliminary survey presents the first systematic comparative onomastic analysis of the ethnonyms Kudara (百濟, Baekje) and the “Kök” Türk Empire (commonly referred to as Tujue 突厥 in Chinese sources), two briefly contemporaneous Eastern Eurasian polities whose nomenclature remains semantically opaque despite extensive philological attention. While both empires overlapped in lasting Han and Xiongnu cultural-linguistic influence spheres, preceding both empires, no previous scholarship has examined potential structural or semantic parallels between their names. Employing a comparative philological methodology, this study analyzes sources alongside modern etymological proposals, with a particular focus on the initial morphemes. Preliminary findings suggest that both ethnonyms may share a component with a common semantic domain, implying the “greatness” concept. These parallels, while tentative given current evidential limitations, indicate that comparative onomastic approaches for Kudara and “Kök” Türk may illuminate broader patterns of political nomenclature in Eastern Eurasian state formation to address persistent lacunae in linguistics and anthropology.

Anahtar Kelimeler

onomastics , comparative linguistics , Kudara (百濟 , Baekje) , “Kök” Türk , Tujue 突厥

Kudara (百濟) ile “Kök” Türk Kağanlığı’nın (Çin Kaynaklarında Yaygın Olarak Tujue 突厥 Şeklinde Anılan) Karşılaştırmalı Adbilimsel Analizi: Doğu Avrasya İmparatorluk Adlandırmalarında Sözcüksel Paralelliklere Dair Ön İnceleme

Öz

This preliminary survey presents the first systematic comparative onomastic analysis of the ethnonyms Kudara (百濟, Baekje) and the “Kök” Türk Empire (commonly referred to as Tujue 突厥 in Chinese sources), two briefly contemporaneous Eastern Eurasian polities whose nomenclature remains semantically opaque despite extensive philological attention. While both empires overlapped in lasting Han and Xiongnu cultural-linguistic influence spheres, preceding both empires, no previous scholarship has examined potential structural or semantic parallels between their names. Employing a comparative philological methodology, this study analyzes sources alongside modern etymological proposals, with a particular focus on the initial morphemes. Preliminary findings suggest that both ethnonyms may share a component with a common semantic domain, implying the “greatness” concept. These parallels, while tentative given current evidential limitations, indicate that comparative onomastic approaches for Kudara and “Kök” Türk may illuminate broader patterns of political nomenclature in Eastern Eurasian state formation to address persistent lacunae in linguistics and anthropology.

Anahtar Kelimeler

onomastics , comparative linguistics , Kudara (百濟 , Baekje) , “Kök” Türk , Tujue 突厥

Kaynakça

• Ayukai, F. (1937). 日本書紀朝鮮地名攷 [A study of Korean place names in the Nihon Shoki]. Tōkyō: Kokusho Kankōkai.
• Beckwith, C. I. (2004). Koguryo, the language of Japan’s continental relatives: An introduction to the historical-comparative study of the Japanese-Koguryoic languages with a preliminary description of archaic northeastern Middle Chinese. Leiden–Boston: Brill.
• Beckwith, C. I. (2009). Empires of the Silk Road: A history of Central Eurasia from the Bronze Age to the present. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
• Golden, P. B. (2006). The Türk imperial tradition in the pre-Chinggisid era. In Sneath, D. (Ed.), Imperial statecraft: Political forms and techniques of governance in Inner Asia, sixth–twentieth centuries (pp. 23–60). Bellingham: Western Washington University.
• Kim Busik (1988). 三國史記 [History of the Three Kingdoms]. Trans. Inoue, H. Tōkyō: Heibonsha.
• Kim, H. (2021). 규슈 지명의 어원에 대한 고찰 [A study on the etymology of place names in Kyushu: Focusing on the place names of Korea–Japan cultural exchange]. 동양문화연구 [Journal of East Asian Cultural Studies], 34, 291–319.
• Lee, K.-M. & Ramsey, S. R. (2011). A history of the Korean language. Cambridge University Press.
• Robbeets, M. & Savelyev, A. (2020). The Oxford guide to the Transeurasian languages. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Robbeets, M. et al. (2021). Triangulation supports agricultural spread of the Transeurasian languages. Nature, 599(7886), 616–621.
• Sakamoto, T. et al. (1967). 日本書紀 [Chronicles of Japan]. Tōkyō: Iwanami Shoten.
• Starostin, S. et al. (2003). Etymological dictionary of the Altaic languages I–III. Leiden: Brill.
• Tezcan, S. (1990). Gibt es einen Namen Kök‑Türk wirklich?. In Baldauf, I. et al. (Eds.), Türkische Sprachen und Literaturen: Materialien der ersten Deutschen Turkologen Konferenz (pp. 357–376). Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.
• Vovin, A. (2000). Pre-Hankul materials, Koreo-Japonic, and Altaic. Korean Studies, 24, 142–155.
• 日本国語大辞典 [Great dictionary of the Japanese language] (2001). 2nd ed. Vol. 4. Tōkyō: Shōgakukan.