Baekje = Kudara/Kutara

[masaegu]

Originally Posted by HOURAISAN

I've always found this weird: back a thousand or so years ago, Korea was divided into three/four states, one of which was called Baekje.

The characters for Baekje are 百済.

If pronounced onyomi, they would be, and are, ひゃくさい.

If pronounced (as weird as it would be) kunyomi, they would be ももずみ... I think.

... so where did the kunyomi くだら come from? I'm asking because there's also a weird kunyomi (こにきし) for 王 when used in the historical family name 百済の王 (くだらのこにきし). Are there any likely hypotheses as to the etymologies of these pronunciations? Thanks.

Your approach to these matters appear to have a big hole in it but please do not be discouraged by my comment. Your questions themselves are more than vaild.

1. Your approch is based on your knowledge as a modern-day Japanese-learner with a Chinese background when the subject matter so clearly involves a third language, namely Classical Korean. Have you thought about this?

2. Your current Japanese knowledge itself is questionable. Where do you get ももずみ at all? Thinking kanji combinations used as proper nouns have both a kunyomi and onyomi is one thing and applying that false knowledge to how the Japanese may have read and transcribed Classical Korean words is another.

To put it simply, these matters are too ancient for us to solve with complete evidence. When 百済 existed, Japanese was only a spoken language for at least 99.99% of its people. Even for the elite who were able to write Japanese back then, the huge differences in the sound systems between Japanese and Korean prevented the Japanese from "accurate" transcriptions. The Japanese never had an ear for syllables ending in consonants, which are common in Korean.

くだら is believed to be the Japanese transcription of the Classical Korean word meaning "large village". So it does not appear that we read 百済 as くだら. Rather, we seem to have transcribed as くだら what would have been the nickname for 百済.

コニキシ, according to my dictionary, also comes from Classical Korean. コニ meant "great" and キシ, "you" as in "your highness". Again, it is NOT the kunyomi as you say. These are all transcriptions.

[HOURAISAN]

Ah, okay, that distinction between transcription and kunyomi cleared that up. As for ももずみ - I pulled that out of my ass, because I couldn't think of anything else, and I wanted to make a point out how seemingly out-of-nowhere くだら shows up (note the "I think" in the original post)

And yes, I am very aware that Classical Korean is going to have issues when transcribed using Yamato Japanese, just like how Yayoi Japanese is going to have issues when transcribed using Late Old Chinese. I didn't want to assume that くだら wasn't of native Japanese origin, but I really should have just asked for the etymology of the pronunciations instead >.>

Anyways, thanks.