Abstract
ABSTRACT The main topic of this paper is the ancient language of the state of Koguryo, one of the three states vying for dominance in the Korean peninsula during the first millennium CE. Even though this language is very badly attested, there have been attempts to analyse it and link it to other languages, the best known work on this topic is most probably Christopher I.
Beckwith's book Koguryo: The Language of Japan's Continental Relatives. This book contains a wide-ranging analysis of the extant material focusing on the possible connection to the Japanese language, but it has been criticized for being flawed in some aspects.
This paper critically reviews Beckwith's book while attempting an independent analysis of the extant material from the Korean chronicle Samguk Sagi. The material consisting of old place-names from the Korean peninsula is being closely scrutinized, taking into account mainly the geographic distribution and the frequency in which the cognates to the Japanese language appear.
The aim of the paper is to try to answer the following questions: Is it possible to say that the language attested in Samguk Sagi is related to Japanese? Is it the Koguryo language? Is it actually only one language?