A visitor checking out the exhibits displayed at the Korean Exhibition at Fort S

t George | D Sampath Kumar

CHENNAI:Just as Prime Minister Narendra Modi was recalling the age-old cultural
and business relations between South Korea and India in Seoul on Monday, Kyungso
o Kim, Consul General of South Korea in Chennai, revealed that his country indee
d had a link with Tamil Nadu from the first Century AD., at a function held at F
ort St George. Speaking at the inauguration of exhibition titled Museums of Indi
a and Korea, Kim said strong evidence to this connection lay in the common words
used in Korean and Tamil languages even today. He narrated an interesting incid
ent that took place just a day before, on Sunday, when he was visiting Mahabalip
uram. As he was walking along the sea-shore, Kim heard his son calling him. When
he turned back, he realised that it was not his son, but another child who was
calling him Appaa. He learned, to his surprise, that the two languages shared so
me common words.
In all, he claimed, there were around 4,000 words in Korean and Tamil that had s
imilar meaning, indicating the age-old connection between the two countries. It
was the French missionaries in Korea who first noted the similarities between th
e two languages. Many of the names of ancient colonies of Southern Korea were th
e exact counterparts of Tamil words. Exhaustive as it is, linguistic similaritie
s were not all. The Consul General pointed out that the way both people built th
eir hutments were the same, so were some of the household utensils like ural (a
heavy stone or wooden mortar) and ulakkai (long heavy wooden pestle). Experts sa
y that agriculture, pottery, beads, textile, turtle boats, and many ancient indu
stries and cultures in the two countries have stunning similarities.These simila
rities, they add, are not coincidences. Early Tamil people migrated to the Korea
n peninsula around the first century AD, noted N Kannan, Orissa Balu and Dr Naga
rajan, all experts on the topic.
The connect between the two cultures is believed to have started way back in CE
45, from the period of King Suro and Hok and Ayi of Pandian Kingdom. Incidentall
y, King Suro s kingdom was named Karak, which has a Tamil (proto-Dravidian) meanin
g fish. This view was confirmed by the Centre for Korean Studies at the Universit
y of Hawaii. Both languages are agglutinative, follow the subject-object-verb or
der, nominal and adjectives follow the same syntax, particles are post positiona
l, modifiers always precede modified words are some of the common features, they
say.
Inaugurating the photo exhibition, R Kannan, secretary, Culture, Museums, Touri
sm and Religious Endowments Departments, recalled the strong cultural connection
between the two countries.
Earlier, Consul General Kim released a CD
tudent community. K Moortheeswari, Deputy
ogical Survey of India, said the CD would
Nadu free of cost if they approached the

on the museums
Superintending
be distributed
Fort St George

in Tamil Nadu for the s

Archaeologist, Archaeol
to all schools in Tamil
museum.

The theme of this year s International Museum Day is Museums for a sustainable soci
ety . It highlights the role of museums in raising public awareness about the need
for a society that is less wasteful, more cooperative and that uses resources i
n a way that respects living systems, she added.
The exhibition will be on till the end of May.
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