The language of the kingdom of Baekje, one of the Three Kingdoms of Korea, is poorly attested, and scholars differ on whether one or two languages were used. However, at least some of the material appears to be related to the Old Korean of the neighbouring Silla kingdom.
Description in early texts
Baekje was preceded in southwestern Korea by the Mahan confederacy. The Chinese Records of the Three Kingdoms states that the language of Mahan differed from that of Goguryeo to the north and the other Samhan to the east, Byeonhan and Jinhan, whose languages were said to resemble each other. However, the Book of the Later Han speaks of differences between the languages of Byeonhan and Jinhan. Historians believe that Baekje was established by immigrants from Goguryeo who took over Mahan, while Byeonhan and Jinhan were succeeded by Gaya and Silla respectively. According to Book of Liang, the language of Baekje was similar to that of Goguryeo. Chapter 49 of the Book of Zhou says of Baekje: Based in this passage and some Baekje words cited in the Japanese historyNihon Shoki, many scholars, beginning with Kōno Rokurō, have argued that the kingdom of Baekje was bilingual, with the gentry speaking a Puyŏ language and the common people a Han language.
Linguistic data
There are no extant texts in the Baekje language. The primary contemporary lexical evidence comes from a few glosses in Chinese and Japanese histories, as well as proposed etymologies for old place names.
''Nihon Shoki''
The Japanese history Nihon Shoki, compiled in the early 8th century from earlier documents, including some from Baekje, records 42 Baekje words. These are transcribed as Old Japanese syllables, which are restricted to the form V, limiting the precision of the transcription. Early Japan was heavily influenced by Baekje and the Gaya confederacy, and several of the above matching Old Japanese forms are believed to be borrowed from Baekje. For example, kaso2 'father', ki2 'fortress', ko2po2ri 'district' and kuti 'hawk', have no cognates in Eastern Old Japanese or Ryukyuan languages. For some words, like 'father' and 'mother', there are alternative words in Old Japanese that are attested across the Japonic family. Bentley lists these words, as well as kuma 'bear' and suki2 'village', as loans into Old Japanese from Baekje.
Other histories
The Middle Korean text Yongbieocheonga transcribes the name of the old Baekje capital 'Bear Ford' as kwomá nolo, closely matching two of the words from the Nihon Shoki. Chapter 49 of the Chinese Book of Zhou cites three Baekje words:
ʔyo-la-hae 'king'
kjon-kjit-tsye 'king'
ʔyo-ljuwk 'queen'
These may be the same words as orikoke 'king', ki1si 'ruler' and oruku 'queen' respectively, found in the Nihon Shoki. Chapter 54 of the Book of Liang gives four Baekje words:
kuH-mae 'ruling fortress'
yem-luX 'settlement'
pjuwk-syaem 'short jacket'
kwon 'pants'
None of these have Koreanic etymologies, but Vovin suggests that the first two could be analysed as otherwise-unattested compounds of Japonic words. Several of the Baekje placenames in chapter 37 of the Samguk sagi include the form 夫里 pju-liX, which has been compared with later Korean pul 'plain'.
Wooden tablets
Wooden tablets dated to the late Baekje era have been discovered by archaeologists, and some of them involve the rearrangement of Classical Chinese words according to native syntax. From this data, the word order of Baekje appears to have been similar to that of Old Korean. Unlike in Silla texts, however, no uncontroversial evidence of non-Chinese grammatical morphemes has been found. Compared to Silla tablets, Baekje tablets are far more likely to employ conventional Classical Chinese syntax and vocabulary without any native influence. The tablets also give the names of 12 locations and 77 individuals. A total of 147 phonographic characters have been identified from these proper nouns, but this is insufficient to allow a reconstruction of the phonology. A tablet found in the Baekje-built temple of Mireuksa, originally thought to be a list of personal names, appears to record native numerals, possibly a series of dates. Although the tablet is dated to the early Later Silla period, postdating the 660 fall of Baekje, its orthography differs from conventional Old Korean orthography. In the extant Silla texts, a native numeral is written by a logogram-phonogram sequence, but in this tablet, they are written entirely with phonograms. Lee Seungjae thus suggests that the tablet is written in Baekje numerals. The numerals appear Koreanic, with a suffix 邑 *-p that may be cognate to the Early Middle Koreanordinal suffix *-m.
