Korean - Turkic

Please note, Korean people are have diverse origins too, but because Korean formed at very earlier stage of human migration dating back to last major ice age, approx. 10,000 BC. Koreans have very old & unique genes. Korean people in terms of genetic is much older than Chinese, Mongolian and Japanese people.

The Peopling of Korea Revealed by Analyses of mt DNA and Y-Chromosomal Markers
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=2615218&tool=pmcentrez

Today, modern Koreans have multiple ancient origins but remained one of most homogeneous people on earth, and I would say probably the most homogeneous people among other homogeneous people. This was possible because Korean kingdom was largely unknown or mysterious to foreigners other than Chinese, Mongolian, Japanese and few NE Asian tribes. Due to last dynastic ruler of Korean kingdom blocked foreigners entering Korea, Korea earned the name of hermit kingdom. Btw, Korea was only open its door to foreigners well after late 19th century.


Myth 1: Koreans are Mongolian or came from Mongolian tribes
Answer 1: Wrong, Koreans are one of the Mongoloids but not actually related to Mongolian.

Physical appearance of average Korean people reflects the geography of Korea hence there are many theories relating to founding legends of Korean people.

Myth 2: Koreans and Japanese are related
Answer 2: Not that related as originally thought, Koreans and Japanese shared some common physical traits which again only reflects the climate/geographic location.

If you read the scientific DNA research papers, Koreans and Japanese are most closest among other Asians if we use the mt-DNA analysis. But not so similar when using Y-chromosome analysis (Full analysis of comparison can be view from above scientific research paper link provided).

Myth 3: Koreans were came from ancient Chinese people
Answer 3: It depends how people want to trace back far, if Koreans came from ancient Chinese, then we might just call it all Asians are related each other hence modern humans have began from African continent. The answer is big 'No'.
Using mt-DNA analysis, Koreans have totally different patterns from Chinese mt-DNA, however Koreans do carried one prominent Y-chromosome that largely exist in Chinese people, however we can't just use one Y-chromosome marker as 'related' due to every Asians have this Y-chromosome marker.

Myth 4: Koreans are Tungusic people or related to Tungusic tribes
Answer 4: Not really, only 50% of Koreans show Tungus origin patterns. I would say Koreans have multi-tribal origins of NE Asian continent.

Misunderstandings:
1. Where the hell ancient Korean tribes immigrated from?

There are many theories what, where, how they originated. There isn't definite answer to this question as humans are constantly moving around. It is believed to be oldest human + relic remains in Korean peninsula dating back to 8000BC, which roughly translate 10,000 years of early human migration during ice age. When ice melted during last major ice age (around 11000BC~10000BC), tribes started immigrating to warming climate lands. I'm guessing this is where first ancient Korean appeared in Korean peninsula.

Here is what most Korean scholars believes where ancient people moved into Korean peninsula.


2. Korean language is related to Japanese or Chinese or what ever

Please note modern Korean language is different from ancient Korean language (Old Korean or Proto-Korean tribal language). Modern Korean language is largely owed to creation of Korean alphabet back in 1446AD and largely have not changed until today other than imported foreign words and phrases. Grammar, accent & dialects are kept largely unchanged since 15th century.

Also, modern Korean vocabulary use many Sino-Korean words (Chinese words pronounced in Korean), around 60% of words in Korean is Sino-Korean words but this has been decreased to around 40% due to other foreign words replaced the old words (mainly from English/European).

Korean language also have slang words, accents, dialects and native Korean words (some are still used or others are simply not used today, but still kept records of them).

There are some nationalistic approach movement in Korea to use 100% native Korean words in order to preserve them to next generations. By using native Korean words, Korean language will sound very different.

There are some theory of Mongolian and Japanese language could have influenced Korean language as Korean was once under Mongolian empire as many Mongolian princesses married Korean princes in order to kept Korea under Mongolian influence and during early 1900s (1908~45) Korea was under Japanese control, and during this time Japanese government have attempt to forcefully assimilate Korean people as Japanese people, hence Japanese government banned usage of Korean language even banned many Korean folk cultures. But it wasn't successful.

This will explain why Koreans are Altay people.
A: Locations where gene samples was taken
B: Y-Hap C3 Groups
C: Y-Hap P/R/J Groups (Indo-Aryan gene)
D: SE Asian Y-Hap Groups (Commonly Chinese Yangtze origin)
E: Y-HAP O2b/O2b1 Groups (Commonly Korean origin)
F: Asian Gene Y-HAP "O" (Commonly Indian-India origin)

Originally posted by lirelou SNK:  In re your " Modern Korean language is largely owed to creation of Korean alphabet back in 1446AD and largely have not changed until today other than imported foreign words and phrases. Grammar, accent & dialects are kept largely unchanged since 15th century."   Pardon me, but when did the Korean aphabet come into general use in Korea? I am  under the impression that Koreans continued to use Chinese characters and Hanju for their writing up until the early 20th Century, and that the Korean aplhabet did not come into general use until the very late 19th century. And that, indeed, the first Korean alphabet printing type was manufactured in Japan and brought into Korea. As for the Japanese assimilationist policies, my information is that such began in 1937, after the Japanese coup that brought the hard liners to power, and resulted in the China War. You are telling me that I will be able to find a single book or paper published in Hangul in Korea for the period 1910-1936?  As for "imported words and phrases", my impression is that such are substantial. Many Korean I worked with told me that 70% of the words in Korean had chinese roots. (example: Il Tong (reunification) in Chinese is Dong-il in Korean. My credit "ka-da' was issued by my "oeng haeng" (bank) a word as immediately recognizable to any Chinese as"kaad" would be to a Bostonian.)   I was greatly impressed by Korea's literary and economic achievments during my time there, and I don't believe they have any need to overstate them. But for some perverse reason, many ultr-nationalists do just that.

1. You're forgetting why Korean Hangeul (alphabet) was created at first place because using Hanja (Chinese characters) Koreans could not pronounce their native tongue and sounds. Creation of Hangeul corrected the Korean pronunciation and sounds, btw before hangeul, Koreans largely depended on their Idu script to pronounce Hanja characters.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idu_script

2. During upon creation of Korean alphabet, there are many story & folk tale books were published in pure Korean alphabet, which were popular among commoners and women. But aristocrats and nobles still stuck to their Hanja learning and because it distinguish them from lower class people & commoners. Just that you don't know any Hangeul books published during 16~18th century.

3. As I said, it was nobles and aristocrats used more Hanja words than native words, commoners did not extensively used Hanja words. I think 70% of Hanja words is bit extreme and probably used at palace and courts more often than outside.

4. Please note there are no extract Korean native words for "unification"  or "bank", all these ideas were imported from ancient China hence they replaced with Hanja words.

I.e.
"Unification" - Tong-IL (통일) can be said in various native words such as "Hapcheu" "Bu-t-iyja"
"Bank" - Eun-heng (은행) is totally imported word and there was no Korean native word for this.
Besides this there are thousands of other words which are not associated with imported Chinese words.

I also wanted to add - I saw an article few years back where they found drawings of Goguryeo diplomats in Samarkand, Uzbekistan.  At first I was surprised and somewhat skeptical.  I found that there was an actual Korean TV documentary trying to figure out the details of who, what why, when, etc.  Apparently confederate of Turk nomads and Goguryeo stood against Tang Dynasty in time of need.

Here's an interesting information on the good ole Kim clan, the most populous last name in Korea, including the dictators in North Korea.

See the Korean history. I don't think they are isolated. Some of Korean ancestors were making their kingdoms in the middle of Manchuria. Must be well connection between Xianpei and proto Manchus. Also they long term of war with Kitans, Mongols and Tang. Their culture adopted many things from China. Cultural elements must come with Chinese people too.