The Phonetic History of Korean Numerals

The purpose of this paper is, first, to survey the history of the linguistic study of Korean numerals. Secondly, drawing from dialectal information, Old and Middle Korean, and employing the facts of Korean historical linguistics, the proto-Silla (not proto Korean) numerals will be reconstructed. If some Korean Altaic etymologies conflict with the facts from Korean historical linguistics, the Altaic etymologies rather than the facts from Korean historical linguistics will be abandoned. This is a necessary procedure because the tendency in Korean and Western scholarship is that, no matter how much Korean historical linguistics advances, its findings are often ignored as soon as the discussion turns to Korean-Altaic linguistic comparisons.