# Etymology of Native Korean Numbers



## LiKenun

So I created a table of some Korean native number-related terms. The table below contains the basic numbers (1–9), the multiples of 10 (10–90), and the counts of days (1–9). The terms come in pairs with the modern Korean on the left and the archaic Korean to the right. Under the very first column, I’ve noted the “common theme” of the row which could be a hypothetical root used to form all the other terms.







Some of the oddballs that don’t quite fit in:

*열* (10)

*스물*/*스무* (20)
*마흔* (40)
*쉰* (50)
Within the archaic Korean columns themselves, sometimes it looks like there is a common pattern among a group of numbers, but a consonant or vowel is out of place in one of them.

Are there any academic papers that discuss the origins of these terms?


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## boomluck

아리랑 역사와 한국어의 기원



It's a Naver-blog-link. It seems this person has been posting many things about origins of words. This is not an academic paper, though, I hope it may be helpful.

It's in Korean, and seems difficult even for me. What it says is that many languages came from Rwanda, and Korean was one of them. Numbers from 1 to 10 represent the steps of hunting. For example, 하나 came from Rwandan hana meaning 'to leave (for hunting)', 둘 came from Rwandan tura meaning 'to put down a load (the things they used for hunting)', etc...

I have no idea if these explanations are ever correct, because I don't have that much understandings about language and its history. I wish you have a good luck.


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## BloodBird

boomluck said:


> 아리랑 역사와 한국어의 기원
> 
> View attachment 25242
> 
> It's a Naver-blog-link. It seems this person has been posting many things about origins of words. This is not an academic paper, though, I hope it may be helpful.
> 
> It's in Korean, and seems difficult even for me. What it says is that many languages came from Rwanda, and Korean was one of them. Numbers from 1 to 10 represent the steps of hunting. For example, 하나 came from Rwandan hana meaning 'to leave (for hunting)', 둘 came from Rwandan tura meaning 'to put down a load (the things they used for hunting)', etc...
> 
> I have no idea if these explanations are ever correct, because I don't have that much understandings about language and its history. I wish you have a good luck.


This blog contains independent studies and the author is not a scholar but a mere retired businessman.
He claim that the Korean language is of African Rwandan origin. It is ridiculous. I think it is not worth considering.


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