| Gaya | |
|---|---|
| Kara | |
| Spoken in | Gaya confederacy |
| Region | Southern Korean Peninsula |
| Extinct | 7th century? |
| Language family | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | zra |
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The Three Kingdoms of Korea, with Gaya ('Kaya') in pink
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Gaya (Kaya), also transliterated Kara, is the presumed language of the Gaya confederacy in southern Korea. It is supposedly attested from thirteen toponyms, but it cannot be certain that these reflect the Gaya language itself rather than an earlier language. These place names appear to be in a language related to Japanese, and constitute part of the evidence for the Japanese–Koguryoic hypothesis. However, Koguryo (Goguryeo) itself came from further north, and may have been a language related to Korean that replaced Japonic languages in southern Korea. As Gaya grew out of one of the Samhan nations, it may be that the Goguryeo-derived elite language of Baekje was related to Korean, while the indigenous Samhan language was related to Gaya, assuming they were not both related to Korean. That is, Gaya might not be one of the Buyeo languages but rather part of Japonic.
The name Gaya is Korean, from the modern transcription 加耶 (伽倻). However, it was difficult to render the phonological shape of words in the languages of Korea by the use of Chinese characters, since (hangul had not yet been invented), and thus a variety of historical forms are attested. (See Gaya confederacy#Names.) Generally Gaya was transcribed as Kaya (加耶) or Karak (伽落), but the transcription in the oldest sources is Kara (加羅), and philological reconstruction points towards MC *kayia, from Ancient Chinese *kala = *kara.[1] Beckwith considers the pronunciation [kaɾa] "certain",[2] so the language is also known as Kara, for example in Ethnologue.