Morphology and Syntax in Holes and Scratches: The Latest Stage of Kugyol Research

The first part of this article reviews the differences between the Chinese, Korean and Japanese languages, and explains the importance of Buddhist texts in the history of these languages, especially in the development of written languages in Korea and Japan. The kugyol tradition (a convention for adding Korean grammatical markers at appropriate places to aid the reading of originally Chinese texts) is then explained with concrete examples in three parts: eumdok kugyol (transliteration kugyol), seokdok kugyol (translation kugyol), and jeomto seokdok-kugyol (traslation kugyol with point marks). The latest developments in kugyol research were seen in the 21st century, after the discovery of Yugasijiron in the year 2000, including the detailed point maps. Some questions concerning the jeomto seokdok-kugyol are still open.