Classifiaction of Japanese language - Page 3 - Historum

Eroica · March 21st, 2012, 03:26 AM

Worth a look I'd say, if you're interested in languages. My knowledge of the subject of linguistics is fairly amateurish so I'm probably not the best person to judge.

kiwiken · March 21st, 2012, 03:38 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fox

Given how nearly-identical Korean and Japanese grammar are, and given how closely related the Korean and Japanese people are genetically, I'm incredibly suspicious of the notion that Japanese and Korean are not related, and strongly suspect that Japanese evolved from a now-extinct dialect of Korean (which would explain the strong phonetic variation).

Having similarities does not constitute a hypothesis. Grammar can easily be borrowed. The problem with linking Japanese and Korean is that there is very little similarity in vocabulary (apart from the Chineae-borrowed words) and linguists have not been able to construct a proto language for these two. The two show less similarity the further back one goes in time, which suggests a convergence due to geographic proximity. I they are genetically related there should be evidence for divergence. We cannot rule out that the possibility of a much earlier divergence, and then a more recent re-convergence but I don't know of any convincing evidence for this.

And what makes you say the two are closely related genetically? Is this an assumption or do you have some scientific data?

Fox · March 21st, 2012, 03:41 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Eroica

As far as I am aware, the general consensus is that the similarities are largely a result of borrowing. Both languages borrowed heavily from Chinese, old Japanese borrowed heavily from old Korean, and there is strong evidence that a Japonic language was once spoken in the Korean peninsula

Well, the shared sinitic loan words obviously prove nothing with regards to the Korean and Japanese languages sharing a common ancestry, but I have to admit a bit of incredulity with regards to the notion that two totally unrelated languages could end up with nearly identical grammar structures through such a process while still remaining nearly mutually unintelligible from a vocabularly perspective.

Quote:

Originally Posted by kiwiken

Having similarities does not constitute a hypothesis. Grammar can easily be borrowed.

The grammatical structures of Korean and Japanese seem far more related to me than merely 'having some similarities.'

Quote:

Originally Posted by kiwiken

The problem with linking Japanese and Korean is that there is very little similarity in vocabulary

An obvious issue, which is why I suggested that if the two were linked, it would be most likely through a now extinct dialect of Korean, which would explain both the shared grammatical structure and the dissimilar vocabulary.

Quote:

Originally Posted by kiwiken

The two show less similarity the further back one goes in time

I'm interested in this. Could you please elaborate on how the two languages show substantially less grammatical similarity in the past than they do in the present? My position on this matter is tentative, and quite open to persuasion!

1991sudarshan · March 21st, 2012, 04:08 AM

What is the Current status of AInu language ? Language Isolate or come under Japonic languages ? The altaic theory proposed that Japanese and Ainu are derived form the unkown proto language which is related to the mongolian manchu and Tungus languages.

kiwiken · March 21st, 2012, 05:11 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fox

The grammatical structures of Korean and Japanese seem far more related to me than merely 'having some similarities.

That is quite true, but in linguistics having identical or nearly identical grammar has never been a criteria for linking two languages to a common ancestor.

Grammatical features such as verbs after the object, post-positions, agglutination, adjective before modifier and all such features etc. can really only produce a certain number of potential structures. In saying that, for all those to be the same suggests almost little possibility for sheer chance and a more significant relationship between the two than just superficial contact.

My opinion is that Japanese and Korean people, in terms of the original inhabitants of the archipelago and the peninsula, are either of completely different origin or a very distant relative.

There reason why the two show such striking grammatical similarity is the influence of the 渡来人 (toraijin) who were thought to be Korean scholars who came to Japan in the early Yamato era. I believe Japan had many languages across the islands, as evidenced by the Yamato people needing an interpreter to communicate with the Hayato and Kumaso peoples during their conquest of Kyushu, and after the conquest these toraijin helped standardise the language. And to standardise it, it is a no brainer that they would use Korean structures.

It is similar to how English scholars in the middle ages used Latin grammatical rules to standardise English after it received so much influence from French and Scandinavian words. That is how we get the -ed form that indicates completion (which later also developed into the past tense).

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fox

I'm interested in this. Could you please elaborate on how the two languages show substantially less grammatical similarity in the past than they do in the present? My position on this matter is tentative, and quite open to persuasion!

I was referring to the whole language in general, rather than just the grammatical structure. I'm not very familiar with Korean grammar, but Japanese grammar is very flexible. One can omit the subject easily in casual speech and in some cases even in formal text or narrative. This is not just a modern feature but is evidenced in many early writings too. And Japanese is generally considered an SOV language, but OSV works quite nicely too and again this is evidenced in many earlier texts. Maybe these are all common to Korean, which would make my theory weak. But with lexis and morphology it seems to be the common consensus among many linguists. Many suggested cognates between Japanese and Korean or Japanese, Korean and other Altaic languages, were disproved as those Japanese words meant something entirely different in olden texts or were not used in Old Japanese at all (obviously all non-sinitic words).

The other thing about the convergence/divergence thing is that Ryukyuan languages, which branched off from Japanese, seems to have far less "Korean-like" influences.

There is no doubt Korean language had a huge influence on Japanese, and some Altaicist linguists argue that the influence alone is strong enough to put the two languages in the same language family. This may be theoretically true, but it does not solve the question of ethnogenesis.

Like you my position is tentative too and open to persuasion, which I think is a good place to be unless you are a hardcore linguist devoting all your time to reading and research. I'm currently more interested in the Austronesian theory but I haven't made much progress in convincing myself either way yet.

**beorna** · March 22nd, 2012, 01:24 AM

Perhaps the DNA can help us a bit to find the way to the origins of japanese language?
According to a research by hammer et al. from 2005, there are four major haplogroups on the Japanese archipelago C, D, N, and O. They account for 98.9% of Japanese Y chromosomes. Among these four haplogroups O and D are the major ones with together 86.4%. Haplogroup O is the most frequent haplogroup in Japan, accounting for 51.7% of Japanese Y chromosomes. The haplogroup O is found in all Japanese populations except the Ainu, with frequencies ranging from 37.8% in Okinawa to 46.2–62.3% on Honshu. There are two major sub-clades of this haplogroup, O-P31 and O-M122. O-P31 has a frequency of 31.8% and is divided into two sub-clades, O-SRY465 and

O-M95. Especially O-SRY465* and its descendent O-47z have a
frequency in Japan of 7.7 and 22.0% and in Korea of 33.3 and 4.0%. It is as well distributed in a significant frequency in Manchuria. O-47z is found in all Japanese populations except the Ainu, with higher frequencies on Honshu (21.3–28.3%) than in Okinawa (11.1%).
Another marker of that group is O-M95, a marker found at notable frequencies in Southeast Asia and some south Asian populations and
in small numbers in northeast Asia as well, is present at 1.9% in Japan. The marker O-M122, is represented in Japan by two derived subtypes, O-M134 (10.4%) and O-LINE (3.1%), as well as by chromosomes not marked by any downstream mutations, O-M122* (6.6%). These lineages are very common in southeastern Asia, Oceania, and several central Asian populations, with O-LINE1 and O-M134 comprising almost 50% of all sampled chromosomes in China. Some researchers believe that it first appeared in China approximately 10,000 years ago, while others believe, that it had an origin in South East Asia approximately 25,000-30,000 years ago

Japan’s second most frequent haplogroup is D. It is divided into three sub-clades, D-P37.1, D-M15 and D-P47. The D-P37.1 together with D-P37.1* account for 34.7% of Japanese Y chromosomes. Haplogroup D has a very different distribution, different to haplogroup O in Japan. So it's frequency is differing between 75% in the Ainu to 25.7% in Tokushima. Outside of Japan D-P37.1 and its sub-lineages are extremely rare, being
found in only three Korean males (D-P37.1* and D-M125*) and one male from Micronesia (D-M116.1*).
The other two sub-clades of D-M174 are found only on mainland Asia. D-M15 is present in Tibet, Mongolia and Southeast Asia, and D-M174* is found in Central Asia. The newly identified P47 mutation establishes a fourth Asian D lineage that marks most chromosomes that were previously ancestral D-M174* from Central Asia (see Karafet et al. 2001).

The third most frequent major clade in Japan is haplogroup C, with a frequency of 8.5% of Japanese Y chromosomes. There are three sub-clades of haplogroup C, M8, M217 and M38. C-M217 and the derived
C-M86 lineage are common haplogroups in Northeast and Central Asia, but are present only at low frequency in Japan of 1.2 to 1.9%. It is interesting, that C-M217 is found in the Ainu and on Honshu, but not in Okinawa. C-M38 chromosomes are found only in the Pacific and east Indonesia. C-M8 chromosomes are completely limited to the Japanese
archipelago, present at 5.4% on the mainland and Okinawa, but not in the Ainu.

Haplogroup N is the fourth most common haplogroup in Japan but with just 1.5%. It is found only among mainland Japanese.

So we have in japan two main branches, the DE and the CF branch. Both evolved between 50,000 and 60,000 years ago in South West Asia, perhaps DE in Africa. O evolved circa 30,000 years ago in East and South East asia, but perhaps even only 10,000 years ago in China. The D group is only circa 20,000 years old and widely spread across northern Asia and europe. C evolved in South Asia, around 50,000 years ago and is in America probably related with the Dene migration, 8,000 years ago. N Both, O and N shall derived from the same ancestor, perhaps 35,000 years ago, somewhere east of Aral Sea, perhaps in recent China.

Does this help us, if we discuss the origins of the Japanese language? Well, I suppose it does, at least it shows us a direction. We can probably exclude an Altaic language for the people with the haplogroup O. These populations should be linked with Austronesian or Austric language families. The connection of C and the supposed connection between Sino-tibetic languages and Dene languages, let me suppose, that the C speakers perhaps used languages of these linguistic branch, too. For the haplogroup N we should suppose an Altaic language. It is difficult to say for the haplogroup D, perhaps we have here speakers of an unknown linguistic group or of early migrants from a Nostratic or Eurasiatic language. I would suppose, that these D people are the oldest group of inhabitants of the Japanese archipelago, followed by people of haplogroup C and by O from the austric region. I can just suppose, that perhaps the haplogroup N derived from later groups of migrations via korea.
So at least the descendents of D and O are the overwhelming majority of the Japanese people and so the Japanese language is probably as well a mix of a basic Eurasiatic with Austric.

vulgar latin · March 22nd, 2012, 08:44 PM

altaic maybe ?

kiwiken · March 22nd, 2012, 09:28 PM

Genetics only shows the supposed genetic make-up of the current inhabitants and it does not correlate with language development. It may give a good idea of where to start in reconstructing a proto-language or relating it to other languages, but in the case of Japanese all the languages and language families that would come into questions based on the majority haplogroups have already had significant research done to them. While the genetic research is interesting, I don't think it sheds any more light on the history of Japanese languages than what we already know and what has been hypothesised.

There is always that paradox for linguists: many linguists agree that language reconstruction should be done solely based on linguistic methods and should not be influenced by other fields such as archeology, genetics and historical documents, yet many linguists use records from those fields in their publications, especially when it seems to support their theories. I guess it depends on whether one is simply trying to reconstruct a proto-language or whether one is interested in the ethnogenesis as a whole.

**beorna** · March 23rd, 2012, 12:00 AM

Of course the influence of genetics to the research about the linguistic is limited. If I had done the same e.g. for Turkey, I would probably not come to the conclusion, that it is an Altaic language.
Cavalli-sforza wrote in one of his books, that languages don't marry and don't have kids. I think the japanese language shows that he is wrong here.

Katophract · March 31st, 2012, 03:19 PM

one interesting book I read states that the only language even close to being like Japanese is from the Zuni tribe in South Western United States. Sounds implausible, I know, but it's actually quite convincing. The book goes into words that are directly the same from Japanese and zuni. Also there's a rare kidney disease that Japanese and Zuni share as well as a unique molar that they share, but the book focuses mostly on language.

Top is the Zuni Sacred Rosetta, bottom is the Japanese chrysanthemum.

Amazon.com: The Zuni Enigma: A Native American People's Possible Japanese Connection (9780393322309): Nancy Yaw Davis: Books

Here's the book. Give it a look over before dismissing it.