JPN494: Japanese Language and Linguistics JPN520:

JPN494/598: History of the
Japanese Language
Prehistory of the Japanese Language
Genetic affiliation of Japanese


“Japanese is something unique: one of the
major languages of the world, spoken by well
over a hundred million people, yet with no
known linguistic relatives.” (Dalby 1998)
“The origin of Japanese is among the most
disputed questions of language theory …”
(Comrie et al. 2003)

Various hypotheses were proposed that
connect Japanese with other languages.



Korean
Altaic languages: subsumes Turkic, Mongorian,
and Tungus languages
Austronesian languages: spoken in the area
covering Madagascar, Easter Island, Hawaii, New
Zealand, Taiwan, …
(e.g. Pilipino (Tagalog), Malay, Javanese, Maori, Tongan,
…)

Others (Tamil, Tibeto-Burman, etc.)
cf.
 (http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/languagefa
milies.html)
 (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commo
ns/b/b4/Human_Language_Families_%28wik
icolors%29.png)
Korean


Martin (1966): presents 320 seeming cognate
sets in Japanese/Korean, and reconstructs
their proto-forms.
“The single most likely sister language of
Japanese” (Shibatani 1990:100)
(http://www.excite.co.jp/world/)
 電気製品 (でんきせいひん) はどこが一番安い
ですか?

전기제품은 어디가 제일 쌉니까?
cenkiceyphm-un eti-ka ceyil ssamnikka?

cf. Where of an electric product is cheapest?

お宅では何新聞をとって (読んで) いらっしゃる
んですか?

댁에서는 무슨 신문을 보십니까?
tayk-eyse-nun mwusun sinmwun-ul
posimnikka?
The Altaic hypothesis


The Altaic hypothesis, 北方説ほっぽうせつ:
Japanese belongs to the Altaic language
family (i.e., is a relative of languages like
Turkish, Mongolian, and Korean).
The status of “the Altaic family” (as the superfamily that subsumes the Turkic, Mongolian,
and Tungusic families) itself is a matter of
controversy.


Boller (1857), Fujioka (1907): point out
characteristic features shared by Japanese
and Altaic languages.
Miller (1971), Murayama (1973): attempt to
prove the genealogical relation by the
comparative method.
→ “supporting evidence for the sound
correspondences arrived at is not always provided
in sufficient quantity and what is offered is often
controversial.”

Evidence for the Japanese-Korean-Altaic
connection:



seeming cognate sets and phonetic correspondences
grammatical similarities
Evidence against the Japanese-Korean-Altaic
connection:


scarcity of (potential) cognate sets and phonetic
correspondences
phonetic disparities
closed syllables, complex vowel systems (Altaic, Korean)
vs. open syllables, simpler vowel system (Japanese)
Open syllables vs. Closed syllables



手 [te]: CV
絵 [e]: V
中 [naka]: CV.CV

本 [hoɴ]: CVC
本気 [hoŋ.ki]: CVC.CV

切手 [kit.te]: CVC.CV

cf. strikes: CCCVCC



pat-ta ‘受け取る’ ⇒ [pat-a]-yo ‘受け取ります’
po-ta ‘見る’ ⇒ [po-a]-yo ‘見ます’
mek-ta ‘食べる’ ⇒ [mek-e]-yo ‘食べます’
ilk-ta ‘読む’ ⇒ [ilk-e]-yo ‘読みます’
{a, o} ⇒ a
{e, i, …} ⇒ e
The Austronesian hypothesis

The Autstonesian hypothesis, 南方説なんぽうせ
つ: seeks Austronesian elements in Japanese

Southern Substratum Theory (Shinmura 1908, Izui 1953,
etc.): Japanese is genealogically affiliated to the Altaic
family, but acquired a significant amount of words and
linguistic features from Austronesian languages.
Superstratum language replaces substratum substratum
language.
Substratum has influence on superstratum language.

Mixed-Language Theory (Polianov 1924,
Murayama 1973): Japanese is a hybrid/amalgam
of Altaic & Austronesian.
(“Mixed” languages are not common, but not
unattested.)

A possible scenario:



Up to c. B.C. 500 (縄文時代じょうもんじだい):
Austronesian languages spoken in the Japanese
archipelago.
B.C. 500 onward (弥生時代やよいじだい): Altaic
speakers migrate to Japan from/through the
Korean peninsula (with their agricultural
technology).
After a period of rivalry, they started to live
together.
Other possibilities


“Tamil (Dravidian) must be counted as one
of the origins of Japanese.” (Ono 1980)
“Japanese is a member of the TibetoBurman family.” (Parker 1938; Nishida 1978,
1980)

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“The comparative method […] relies on
cognate sets, and its usefulness diminishes
as the difficulty of establishing cognate sets
between the languages compared increases.”
Martin (1966) provides 320 possible cognate
sets (in Japanese/Korean).

Among the most basic 100 words, only 20 can be
identified as cognates (with a reasonable degree
of certainty);
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
Attempts to find cognate sets/sound
correspondences between Japanese and
languages other than Korean are even less
successful.
The limited success of the comparative
method suggests: either (i) Japanese
branched off from relative languages a long
time ago, or (ii) Japanese underwent
intensive borrowing/mixing.

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