於陸

Baekje

Etymology

Probably related to 於羅瑕 (“king”).

Speculatively connected to Middle Korean 얼이 (el-Gi-, “to marry off”) by John Bentley, and to Middle Korean 오ᄅᆞ/올ㅇ (olo/olG-, “to rise”) by Alexander Vovin.

Noun

於陸 (*oluk or *oruk) (Nihon shoki ヲルク)

1. queen (as used by the elite?)

   Synonym: ハシカシ (*pas[i/ɨ]kas[i/ɨ], “royal consort”)

   Coordinate term: 於羅瑕 (“king”)

Reconstruction notes

Given as 於陸 (MC 'jo|'u ljuwk) in the Book of Zhou, which states that this is an aristocratic word for the queen (queen consort) of Baekje.

Given as 于陸 (MC hju ljuwk) in the History of the Northern Dynasties.

Given as ヲルク (*oruk(u)) in katakana glosses to the Nihon shoki, which also gives similar words (*woriku, *orike, *worikuku) to refer to Goguryeo queens: whether these reflect Baekje terminology to refer to Goguryeo queens, or the language of Goguryeo itself, is not clear.

References

• John Bentley (2000) “New Look at Paekche and Korean: Data from Nihon shoki”, in Language Research‎, volume 36, number 2, Seoul National University, pages 417—443
• Alexander Vovin (2005) “Koguryo and Paekche: Different Languages or Dialects of Old Korean?”, in Journal of Inner and East Asian Studies, volume 2, number 2, Koguryo Research Foundation, pages 108—140
• Alexander Vovin (2013) “From Koguryo to T'amna”, in Korean Linguistics‎, volume 15, number 2, John Benjamins Publishing Company, pages 222—240