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Japanese & Amerindian languages -related? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Philological Room |  | |
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 6944 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes  20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 17 of 26 07 September 2012 at 9:53pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
I don't mean to be an ass, but so what? I've read Roy Andrew Miller's book "Japanese and the Other Altaic Languages" (since I have no practical ability in Turkish) and while his work (and presumably Tekin's) is done fairly well and isn't amateurish, it's hard to take a decisive stance when you compare what else has been written on the subject. In the same way, I believe that I'd do myself an intellectual disservice by confining myself to the research done by "Anti-Altaicists" and "splitters" among comparative linguists who continually shoot down the idea or possibility of Altaic's existence, let alone Japanese belonging to it. The most that I can say is that there are arguments put forth by several linguists with the result that there's no consensus among them. So it still pays to keep an open mind and support more research rather than to simply proclaim the validity or invalidity of the classificatiory schemes by slavishly following conclusions put forth by just one author. If I wanted to play your game and hide behind some scholar's book I could validate my thinking by citing Gerhard Doerfer's book Bemerkungen zur Verwandtschaft der sog. altaische Sprachen ("Remarks on the relationship of the so-called Altaic languages" - even the title hints at his professional bias (sneering/smirking?) by using the term sogennante "so-called"). On this subject, I do not share your confidence in a special relationship between Japanese and Turkic (or Altaic) but I am open to getting more research by the professionals. I am as cautious of the findings by "Anti-Altaicists" such as Janhunen, Georg and Clauson as I am of those by the "Pro-Altaicists" such as Johansen, Starostin and Miller. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| paleolitik Newbie Turkey Joined 4301 days ago 8 posts - 11 votes | Message 18 of 26 07 September 2012 at 10:01pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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I am NOT saying that these languages are RELATIVES, but they have many COMMON WORDS, SUFFIXES and RULES. At least, this MAY prove those people were neighbor or lived together (this is the relationship).Why are you explaining the same things again and again? Edited by paleolitik on 07 September 2012 at 10:11pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 6944 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 19 of 26 07 September 2012 at 10:49pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
You seem to be having problems staying on track. First you state that Japanese and Turkish are related, and then you deny saying that they're relatives. Which is it? There's no semantic difference when looking at languages here as "having a relationship" and being "relatives" since both of these concepts imply that the languages in question developed from a recognizably common ancestor. Look, no one denies that Japanese and Turkish have some similarities. However finding these similarities doesn't mean that they can only be related or are relatives. Because Azeri shows more similarities to Farsi in vocabulary than Turkish does, should you or I be so quick to assert then that Azeri and Farsi are relatives / related? Anyway, the real question of the last few posts is why Japanese and Turkish show similarities. Was it areal influence or descent from a common proto-language? Could it have been both? Could it be coincidence? The research done so far hasn't progressed enough to yield a decisive answer and this is why I question the value of latching onto papers and treatises which proclaim one stance over others in this field. You're stretching the limits of what is known about human history by following along the suggestions that the similarities of 400 items in Turkish and Mayan vocabulary hint at Proto-Turks and Mayans having been neighbours, whatever language they spoke. The insistence here on common words, suffixes and rules means little in isolation unless one can put them in perspective for how they arose (usually the domain of comparative linguistics), or in a more banal example, how someone could potentially take advantage of these similarities to enhance the learning process (usually the domain of applied linguistics). 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| paleolitik Newbie Turkey Joined 4301 days ago 8 posts - 11 votes | Message 20 of 26 07 September 2012 at 10:56pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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This relationship may be different from kinship. Is this not clear?
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| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 6944 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 21 of 26 08 September 2012 at 12:07am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
In comparative linguistics, mentioning "relationship" or "relatives" implies that the languages descend from a common source. By necessity this also implies "kinship" in linguistic terms. Using "relationship" to describe situations of other groups of languages showing intra-similarities would fail when thinking of a Sprachbund. For example, the "Balkan Sprachbund" consists of Albanian, Bulgarian, Greek, Romanian and Macedonian. All of these are Indo-European but it is NOT on the basis of the similarities attributable to the Sprachbund that these languages are considered to be "related" / "in a relationship" / "relatives" / "having kinship" by virtue of being considered Indo-European. Moreover, the similarities shown by these languages have not led to a plausible reconstruction of some kind of "Proto-Balkanic". If these languages were "related", then they would have shared an immediate ancestral form, and even then comparative linguists would have been able to reconstruct at least in part "Proto-Balkanic" and so declare "Balkanic" as a node or clade within Indo-European. It is on these grounds that "Anti-Altaicists" have discounted Proto-Altaic since the similarities found within at least Turkic, Mongolic, Tungusic (if not Korean and/or Japanese) have been explained by them as long periods of mutual influence including "lending" of words, calques, morphological elements or typological traits. This is not an example of a linguistic relationship but areal influence. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Aquila123 Tetraglot Senior Member Norway mydeltapi.com Joined 5094 days ago 201 posts - 262 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Italian, Spanish Studies: Finnish, Russian | Message 22 of 26 07 October 2012 at 12:33am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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The Amerindian languages must of course be related to something in the old world, but the long time-span since the separation has made it very difficult to find credible elements of the relationships.
Ainu is perhaps a better candidate than japanese. The Ket language in Siberia is by now nearly proven to be related to the NA-Dene languages, but many scolars believe this has the origin in a back-migration from America. There is of course the possibllity that some Amerindian tribes originate from more recent migrations from the old world, for example by sea. Therefore one should not dismiss every claim of such findings at hand. Austronesian or even Austronesian branches seem to be likely candidates for relationships with some Amerindian languages for this reason. Edited by Aquila123 on 08 October 2012 at 1:48pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| karaipyhare Tetraglot Groupie Paraguay Joined 5373 days ago 74 posts - 150 votes Speaks: Portuguese, Spanish*, English, Guarani Studies: German, Italian, French, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 23 of 26 25 June 2013 at 5:21am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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Sorry but the text is laughable.
"5) Brazilian researcher Luiz Caldas Tibiriça, who has been studying the linguistic similarities of indigenous Brazilian dialects with Japanese for more than 40 years, claims to have found more than 2,000 related expressions. According to his research, the following are a few examples, which compare Tupi (terms listed on the left) with Japanese (right): ay-ssó/ai-sö = pretty, delicate; a-nhó/an-non = peace, calm; amä/ame = rain; arassy/arashi = bad weather, storm; mirä/mirai = future; coty/kotchi = next to, this side; mé-mé/mai-mai = always. " Most of those words are not Japonic, that is, indigenously Japanese, but sinogenic, imported from Chinese: aisou: 愛想 an'non: 安穏 mirai: 未来 maimai: 毎々 So I think people should be more serious when investigating claims like those 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| karaipyhare Tetraglot Groupie Paraguay Joined 5373 days ago 74 posts - 150 votes Speaks: Portuguese, Spanish*, English, Guarani Studies: German, Italian, French, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 24 of 26 25 June 2013 at 5:42am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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The more I read the more I roll my eyes.
The book published by this Luiz Caldas Tibiriça is sponsored by the Sociedade Criacionista Brasileira, yes, you guessed right.... Creationists. I just read the first pages and is pure BS. He doesn't take into account the history periods involved: as I said in my previous post, he takes the sinojapanese words as evidence of the contact, but he assumes the contact happened during the Jomon period. The Jomon period was in 10000 BCE while the first imports from the Chinese language into Japanese dates back to the 5th century. He also cites the similarity between the Pure Land Buddhism practiced in Japan and the quest for the Yvy Marane'ÿ (the land with no evil) among the Guarani. Just to remind you, pure land Buddhism was brought to japan only in 1175 by Hōnen. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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