Dear Adam,

It seems to me your advice to regard tngri in various forms as  
"Altaic" is perfectly good.  On the other hand, there is probably no  
reason to expect that Tungusic names, including Korean, must be  
Tungusic in derivation.  There are plenty of loanwords, especially in  
names, from Turkic all over the Northeast and in Korean history, I've  
noticed.



On May 19, 2006, at 11:20 AM, Adam Bohnet wrote:

> Dear all:
>
> If I may reveal my ignorance, I have been recently
> editing a very poorly translated book on Korean
> history. There is one comment, at one point, about the
> name Tan'gun, the legendary founder of Korea being
> related to the Tungusic word tengri, meaning 'heaven.'
> I know that most scholarship related to 'Tan'gun' is
> fairly lousy, so my question is'nt really concerning
> the accuracy of the claim.
>
> THe only Tungusic language I know is Manchu, and in
> Manchu the idea 'heaven' is expressed by 'abka,' or so
> I thought. I flipped through a few other dictionaries
> in Mongolian and Tungusic languages (with a view to
> confirming the spelling),and was only able to find
> tengri for Mongolian languages. I then found a
> wonderful three volume etymological dictionary
> designed to prove the Altaic hypothesis (I have
> forgotten the author). There tengri was listed as
> Turkic, although it was linked to some words with
> quite different meanings and forms in Tungus-Manchu.
> Presumably, then it is a loan-word form Turkish into
> Mongolian?
>
> On the off-chance that I consider it worth my while to
> argue with the author on this subject, I was
> considering advising him to call 'tengri' an 'Altaic,'
> not a 'Tungusic' word, (letting sleeping theories
> about magical ancestors lie, and arguments about
> Altaic alone). I am aware that a layman's interest in
> historical linguistics doesn't really qualify me to
> say anything, so I thought I might check that piece of
> advice with others in advance.
>
> Yours sincerely,
>
> Adam Bohnet