Asadal

Asadal
Chosŏn'gŭl	아사달
Hancha	阿斯達
Revised Romanization	Asadal
McCune–Reischauer	Asadal

Asadal, (Korean: 아사달; Hanja: 阿斯達; RR: Asadal) was the capital city of the kingdom of Gojoseon (Korean: 고조선; Hanja: 古朝鮮, meaning "Older Joseon"), the first Korean kingdom and notably founded by the legendary king Dangun. It is thought that Asadal was located in Manchuria, in the northeastern Hwanghae Province in North Korea, or in the Pyongyang Province (평양, Hanja 平壤, with no relation to the modern-day capital of North Korea).^[1]^[2]

Etymology

The etymology of "Asadal" is uncertain. One hypothesis is that the word 아사달 is a compound composed of two elements, asa + dal; this hypothesis is primarily motivated by an assumption of equivalence between the Chinese phonetic transcription 阿斯達 Asīdá and the word 조선 Joseon (朝鮮, Cháoxiǎn or Cháoxiān, in Chinese), another name for Korea. However, the etymology of 조선 Joseon is ultimately unknown, with opinions differing as to whether the word was created as a phonetic transcription or as a semantic calque (presumably of a foreign word). Furthermore, the reading of the Mandarin Chinese character 朝 (cháo) in Cháoxian (Joseon) is identical to the reading when used to mean "dynasty," not with the reading when used to mean "morning" (which would instead be zhāo).

However, the character 斯, which is used in modern Chinese languages mainly to represent the phonemes /s/ or /θ/ in word-final and preconsonantal positions when transcribing foreign words, has always had a sibilant (/s/) rather than an affricate like the Korean (/ch/), and there are plenty of other characters better suited to transcribing the Korean sound. The second part, dal, might be the result of reading Chinese characters in the Korean way; if so, the original Chinese pronunciation at the time Asadal was recorded in historical texts could have been Asada, with the final syllable (-da) as a transcription of the Middle Korean word ᄯᅡᇂ〮 (stáh), Early Modern Korean ᄯᅡ (sta), Modern Korean 따 (tta) or 땅 (ttang), meaning "land." In this case, Asadal would mean "Morning Land." If, however, the final syllable was used much like the Goryeo city-name suffix -dal (used for mountains or cities founded on plateaus/mountains), then Asadal would mean "Morning Mountain."

It also draws possible connections to the Japanese word "Asa (あさ)" meaning "morning (朝)". The modern Korean word for morning "Achim (아침)" is thought to have evolved from Middle Korean "Achom (아ᄎᆞᆷ〮)." Using Japanese Asa as a cognate, alongside the aforementioned theories, it can be deduced that "Asadal" most likely meant "Morning Land" or "Morning Mountain". In fact, up until the Yamato Kingdom changed its name from "Wakoku (倭国)" to "Nihon (日本)", Ancient Korean kingdoms such as Baekje had used the same characters "日本", literally meaning "Land where the sun rises" (no relations to Japan) when it colloquially addressed itself, seeming to have carried over the meaning of "Morning Land" from Asadal.

History

The first Korean historical work that mention Asadal is the Samguk Yusa (삼국유사; 三國遺事 - "Memorabilia of the Three Kingdoms"), which cites the Chinese Book of Wei (Korean Hangul/ Hanja: 위서/魏書 - wi-seo). The Samguk Yusa also cites the lost historical records of Go-gi (고기; 古記 - "Old Analects/ Records") to the effect that Dangun's capital was located in Pyongyang. But recent studies show that there were more than one city named Pyongyang (which literally means "flat soil" in Chinese), situated in the north deep in Manchuria - possibly bordering in between China and Russia. The modern Pyongyang, capital of North Korea, is actually the southern counterpart. At that time it was common for an emperor to manage two capitals and rule in two palaces.^{[citation needed]} Therefore, it could be that the "true" Asadal is located in Manchuria.