바오달

Middle Korean

FWOTD – 26 May 2022

Etymology

From Middle Mongol ᠪᠠᠭᠣᠳᠠᠯ (baɣodal, “camp”), whence also modern Mongolian буудал (buudal).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /pà.(ɣ)ò.tál/

Noun

바오달〮 (pà(G)wòtál) (hanja 波吾達)

1. an encampment, such as for a military host or for the royal entourage
   • 1527, 崔世珍 [Choe Se-jin], 訓蒙字會 / 훈몽자회 [Hunmong jahoe]‎^[1]:

     營(여ᇰ) 바오달〮 여ᇰ

     YÈNG pàGwòtál yèng

     [The Chinese word] 營／营 (yíng) [means] "encampment" [and is pronounced] yèng.

Usage notes

• Because administrative or military documents were usually written in Classical Chinese, the word is also commonly attested in the Hanja form in what are otherwise wholly Classical Chinese texts.
• Although commonly attested into the early sixteenth century, the word was totally forgotten by Early Modern Korean. In 1674, the Korean king encountered this word in a fifteenth-century source and inquired as to whether it might be the name of a specific location. A minister responded: "As the language of the past and present are greatly disparate, your servant too does not know the details of what the word might mean, but it is clearly not a place name."