悉良

Old Korean

Alternative forms

Adverb

悉良 (*Ta, *TA-a)

all, completely
- c. 1170, Interpretive gugyeol glosses to the Avatamsaka Sutra, vol. 35:
  汝^隱今^爲隱 [有]^斗奴隱所^乙悉^良當^只我^衣中與^{爲古只賜立}
  *NE-n YET-ho-n twu-n-wo-n PA-r TA-a PANTOk NA-uy-kuy YE-ho-kwo-k-si-sye
  May you grant me all that you now possess
  (N.B. Gugyeol glyphs are given in non-abbreviated forms. Bracketed terms were ignored when read.)

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 悉良, the first character shows that this is the native Old Korean word for “all”, and the subsequent character(s) show(s) that the final syllable of this word is *-a. Because the semantics and the final phoneme(s) match, the word is conventionally reconstructed as *Ta, the ancestor of Middle Korean 다〯 (Yale: tǎ). 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.

While the phonograph 良 only represents a single vowel *-a, many linguists prefer to reconstruct *TA-a with two syllables. The Middle Korean reflex having a rising tone, which arises from a merger of a low-pitch and high-pitch syllable, suggests that the Old Korean word was bisyllabic, although what this original form was is not clear.

Descendants

Middle Korean: 다〯 (tǎ)
- Korean: 다 (da)