Japanese Ethnic Origins: Korean-Malay-Ainu Hybrid
thequest...@my-deja.com
time on Dejanews. Sorry for the repetition.)
Japanese nationalists since Meiji times at least
have done a great job of clouding over the obvious
ethnic origins and ancient history of the Japanese
people. Sometimes, absurd myths involving
Scythians, Normans or races never heard of, seen
or commented on by other nations in Asia are
freely bantered about in Japanese and Western
"academic circles" as virtual truths. Rules of
historical analysis that could not be violated for
the study of any nation and be taken seriously are
waived in the cause of maintaining the dangerous
myth that the Japanese are unrelated to their
neighbors, are special beings deserving of
mythical history rather than historical facts
about their past and themselves.
You will learn how language, in a very orwellian
way, is used by academics and politicians alike to
skirt around details. The obvious is always to be
avoided. The vagueness of the passive voice is the
preferred syntax. It is necessary to avoid direct
discussion of Who? What? When? Where? How? or By
What Means? Things happen. Capitals are moved.
Emperors live 200 or 400 years. The word "ancient"
might be used to mean something imported from
Korean civilization in 1600 (like sumo wrestling).
Phrases like "Asian mainland" or "China" or
"Chinese civilization" are used to mean "Korea."
"Korean immigrants" are used to mean "Korean
conquerors, soldiers, settlers." "Austronesian" or
"southern" influences mean "Malay Taiwanese" or
"Northern Filipino."
How did people get to those islands? Who were
they? Are, as we are forever told, that the
Japanese are a "unique" race? What about the
supposed Caucasoid origins of the Ainu? Why was
this myth promulgated to advance 19th and 20th
Century Japanese imperialism in Asia at the full
acceptance of the Western colonialist powers?
Read about the complicity of Japanese militarists,
Western "Asian Studies" departments and others to
cloud the obvious: that the Japanese are, what any
map would suggest to any reasonable person, the
decendants of Koreans from the nearby Korean
kingdoms (of Kaya and Paekche mostly) and ethnic
Malay tribes from the northern Philipines and
aboriginal Taiwan. It starts now to make sense
that all the Japanese foundation myths regarding
shamanistic priestesses, Korean tiger claw
amulets,swords, mirrors and sacred mountains,
derive from much earlier Korean foundation myths
and notions of ethnic origin. Now it starts to
make sense why Japanese folktales are virtually
identical to the much older Korean folktales. (The
Koreans were not mere "immigrants" to Japan who
happened to bring the Tungusic grammar, writing
system, shamanism (shintoism), Buddhism, ceramics,
temple architecture, etc., etc. No immigrant group
can overwrite the dominant culture's foundation
myths and folktales, leaving only minor traces of
the dominant and --we have been led to believe--
"superior culture." It starts now to make sense
why Japanese grammar is said to be nearly
identical with Korean (but unrelated to Chinese).
It starts to explain why the words are
consonant-vowel-consonant-vowel like the Malay
languages and why the staccato stress often is
like the Malay language stress. (Listen to the way
a Japanese says "yokata" and the way a Javanese
says "Jakarta" and you will see what I mean). It
starts to explain why so many Japanese look Korean
and have Korean mannerisms but why their
traditional clothing motifs might look more like
batiks or why practices such as tatooing are
traditional.
The huge diversity of Japanese dialects (and their
nonintelligibility) suggest that Japan was
conquered and settled by all different Malay
tribes and then Korean Kayas and Paekches, and
that, due to a highly uncentralized and weak
political structure, different Korean-Malay hybrid
creoles were created.
The Ainu, ordinary and perfectly normal
shamanistic Siberian peoples not too distantly
removed ethnically from neighboring Ulchi, Koryak,
Evenki, are not so distinct physically from
Koreans and so their hybrid descendants do not
stand out as noticeably in today's Japan as does
the Korean-Filipino hybrid "look." Contrary to
legend, the Ainu are as "Proto-Caucasoid,"
Caucasian or Caucasoid as are Aleuts, Inuit
(Eskimos), Navajos, Mayans, Mapuche, Yanomomi,
Cherokee, Algonkians, Haidda, Goldi, Manchus or
Koreans. The Japanese are terrified about
discussing their Korean origins because they have
been telling themselves and the world that the
Koreans were nothing before the Japanese
imperialist occupation in the 20th Century. They
are probably even less inclined to discuss their
Malay origins because Malays have darker skin, and
if your militaristic underpinnings are racial and
nazilike, being brown or tan is might seem to be
an easy reason NOT to be hateful of darker
peoples. The Ainu had been attacked for hundreds
of years by the Japanese, whose Korean-Malay
homeland was in Kyushu, then onto western Honshu.
The conquest of the Ainu on Honshu ended only
several hundred years ago, and the conquest of the
Ainu on Hokkaido ended only in the 19th Century.
So much for "ancient and mysterious origins."
The purpose of the site is not to glorify Koreans
or Filipinos or aboriginal Taiwanese or Ainu at
the expense of the Japanese. It is to ultimately
show how interrelated all the peoples are on
earth, and how we should cherish our common
origins as well as our diversity. The problem is
that Shintaro Ishihara (former jackass rightist,
now Governor of Tokyo), the History Departments of
Tokyo University (that in 1998 concluded that the
Nanjing Massacre was really a Chinese fraud), and
a vast legion of highly placed Western "Asia
hands" and "Asia scholars" are still pumping out
militaristic lies and policies that can lead to
wars, bloodshed and a destruction of Japanese
democracy (such as a 1-party control of government
is). I would be satisfied if all the insanity and
lies had ended in 1945, but they go on, they
intensify, they get worse. History tells us that
nationalistic lies and myths gone unaddressed
usually lead to war and the destruction of
liberty.
My hope is that the Japanese will be able to be
brothers and sisters of the Koreans and Filipinos
and other Asians, rather than looking at
themselves as the unique ancient descendants of
unknown great horseriding races, essentially bred
to conquer their neighbors. In my own semi-crude
way, I hope to embarrass the "polite" thinkers in
the West, Japan and in Asia, to actually raise
their standards of analysis regarding Japanese
history, culture and ethnic origins.
Read the debates on a variety of topics related to
Japan's ancient history, ethnicity, language,
culture, and yes, conquest. See:
http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Parliament/21
42/truthnet/truthnet.html
-The Questioner
------------------------------------
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Share what you know. Learn what you don't.
thequest...@my-deja.com
thequest...@my-deja.com
Prophet of the way
thequest...@my-deja.com wrote:
> Rules of historical analysis that could not be violated
> for the study of any nation and be taken seriously are waived in the
> cause of maintaining the dangerous myth that the Japanese are unrelated
> to their neighbors, are special beings deserving of mythical history
> rather than historical facts about their past and themselves.
When the Japanese set up a puppet regime in Manchuria, they justified
their existence there by claiming that the Manchurians and Mongolians
were ethnically closer to the Japanese than the Chinese.
The Japanese started making the myth that theirs was a special race when
European imperialism was at its height.
> Emperors live 200 or 400 years.
Please give us an example of a Japanese emperor that lived at least 200
years.
> (The
> Koreans were not mere "immigrants" to Japan who
> happened to bring the Tungusic grammar, writing
> system, shamanism (shintoism), Buddhism, ceramics,
> temple architecture, etc., etc. No immigrant group
> can overwrite the dominant culture's foundation
> myths and folktales, leaving only minor traces of
> the dominant and --we have been led to believe--
> "superior culture." It starts now to make sense
> why Japanese grammar is said to be nearly
> identical with Korean (but unrelated to Chinese).
Why do the Japanese pronounce kanji like the Wu Chinese dialect?
> It starts to explain why the words are
> consonant-vowel-consonant-vowel like the Malay
> languages and why the staccato stress often is
> like the Malay language stress. (Listen to the way
> a Japanese says "yokata" and the way a Javanese
> says "Jakarta" and you will see what I mean). It
> starts to explain why so many Japanese look Korean
> and have Korean mannerisms but why their
> traditional clothing motifs might look more like
> batiks or why practices such as tatooing are
> traditional.
A mission of the Chinese state of Wei records the practice of tatooing.
> The huge diversity of Japanese dialects (and their
> nonintelligibility) suggest that Japan was
> conquered and settled by all different Malay
> tribes and then Korean Kayas and Paekches, and
> that, due to a highly uncentralized and weak
> political structure, different Korean-Malay hybrid
> creoles were created.
'Hybrid creole' is a funny term. By this theory the Japanese are more
like murats.
Hendrik
Dear "questioner", you provide many good ideas and questions, and i
enjoyed reading your post.
As a linguist i would like to caution you, however, that the linguistic
arguments you present are mostly not useful. For example: you pointed to
a similarity between the "staccato" pronunciation of some dialect(s) of
Malay and Japanese. But that says actually nothing about how these
languages could be related - i could provide information about other
languages using the "same" staccato that are on another continent and
clearly unrelated to either Malay or Japanese. Languages change in many
ways over time, and, to give just one example, none of the Korean
dialects spoken anywhere 1500 years ago could be understood by a Korean
today, and the same is true for Japanese dialects. But we need to look
for linguistic contacts 1500 ago *and before that* to be able to
establish hypotheses about the origin of the Japanese language. So, what
is needed, is a considerably more sophisticated approach, something like
doing linguistic archaeology.
Subsequenbtly there are other (and better) linguistic arguments that
support various hypotheses on the origin of the Japanese language
(please note that this is not the same as the "ethnic origin" of the
Japanese). Why did i write "hypotheses"? Well, because there is not
(yet) enough evidence to strengthen *one* hypothesis to the point where
the others would have to be discarded. Too much is unknown and unclear
at this time.
To be specific, the postulated relationship of Japanese with Malay is as
yet as unproven as that with Hawaiian, Maori, or other Pacific island
languages. The relationship bwtween Japanese and Korean cannot be
doubted, but, from a linguistic point of view (again, this has nothing
to do with ethnicity), it is an *unusual* relationship insofar syntactic
similarities that amply support a relationship are not matched by
phonetic similarities. Take any other two languages with such a high
degree of syntactic similarity as Korean and Japanese, and where the
areas where the two languages are spoken are as close (pretty well
adjacent) to each other, and you will invariably find also a high degree
of phonetic relationship. The evidence we have in the case of Japanese,
however, points to a linguistic development that *may be* unparalleled
in the world - and there is no convincing hypothesis yet to account for
the linguistic reality we know.
As to the question of ethnic background of the Japanese, it is plainly
obvious to even a casual observer that there is no such thing as "a
Japanese race". Aside from the biologically untenable concept of race
based on skin colour (still widely peddled even among otherwise educated
people), even the colloquial use of the term "race" makes little sense
when one looks at the Japanese in their totality without preconceptions
about ethnicity. There is, among the Japanese, a diversity in size,
physiognomy, and skin colour which is comparable to that one finds in
Europe - one of the best known genetic melting pots of modern humanity.
When one takes into account Japan's geographic location, the ocean
currents in the Pacific, wind (and storm) patterns, and the fact that
coastal people all over the world have been venturing out into the seas
in a highly competent manner, then it should be obvious that Japan would
have been visited by people from other parts of Asia and the Pacific
islands on plenty more than just one occasion. Perhaps we may find out
one day whether such visits, before the currently known history, would
have been mostly accidental or usually deliberate, and who the visitors
(or settlers) on those occasions might have been.
In any case, if there truly was such a thing as common sense, then
people would accept the ample evidence that history, genetics,
archaeology, etc. provide, namely that whereever there is contact
between cultures through trade, travels or war, there is also an
exchange of genetic material, peaceful or accompanied by violence. And
the present is, by the way, not one iota different from the past in
regards to "all of the above", rather "more so": today's mongrelisation
of the human species is surely unprecedented in scale - but i am not
holding my breath that this fact will eradicate the scourge of racism
any time soon.
More later...
Hendrik
--
My real address: BU-2 "at" YourPartnerInJapan "dot" Com
--
tom...@my-deja.com
thequest...@my-deja.com wrote:
> (I am not sure if I posted this right the first
> time on Dejanews. Sorry for the repetition.)
>
> Japanese nationalists since Meiji times at least
> have done a great job of clouding over the obvious
> ethnic origins and ancient history of the Japanese
> people. Sometimes, absurd myths involving
> Scythians, Normans or races never heard of, seen
> or commented on by other nations in Asia are
> freely bantered about in Japanese and Western
> "academic circles" as virtual truths. Rules of
> historical analysis that could not be violated for
> the study of any nation and be taken seriously are
> waived in the cause of maintaining the dangerous
> myth that the Japanese are unrelated to their
> neighbors, are special beings deserving of
> mythical history rather than historical facts
> about their past and themselves.
>
japanese imperialists emphasised kindredness with
their neibours to justify their invasion and
occupation of their neibours land. much serious
studies on the ethnicity of the yamato race had been
made in the era of empire. even a leading right-winger
like ookawa shuumei believed the ainu as indigenous to
the mainland.
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Before you buy.
Yamane Kazuo
It appears that no amount of scientific reports
will convince this fellow that he really don't have a case?
His claim was that Japan's ancient people were
Malays of Southeast Asian group, yet recent report after
another points to Japanese being on the north east Asian
genetic cluster, including the Ainu and Ryukyuans.
Now when you have sooo many reports contradicting yours then
don't you think you should stop and think a bit?
I'm hoping that you would.
Here are one of the recent ones, July 1999 to be exact,
also reporting to us that Japan's Jomon era people had had
a strong North East Asian genetic affinity.
"ANCIENT INDIVIDUALS POSSESSED THE DRB1 and DQA1 alleles[Genes]
WHICH ARE HIGHLY PREVALENT AMONG THE MODERN NORTH ASIAN
AS WELL AS JAPANESE POPULATIONS"
1) "the three Japanese populations including Ainu and
Ryukyuan
CLEARLY belong to a northeast Asian cluster group."
"modern Ainu and Ryukyuan (Okinawa) populations
ARE DIRECT DESCENDANTS of the Jomon people..."
(American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 1997 April,
pp. 437-446)
2)"HLA genotyping of 5,000- and 6,000-year-old ancient
bones in Japan.
Anzai T, Naruse TK, Tokunaga K, Honma T, Baba H, Akazawa
T, Inoko H
Department of Genetic Information, Tokai University
School of Medicine,
Isehara, Kanagawa, Japan.
We used polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-based DNA typing
to identify HLA class II
alleles of two individuals from ancient human remains.
Genomic DNAs were isolated
from two ancient human skeletons excavated from the
Sanganji and Kitakogane sites
in the main and northern islands of Japan, respectively.
They were archaeologically
estimated to be approximately 5,000 and 6,000 years old
respectively, representing
the remnants from the Jomon era. High molecular weight
DNA was extracted by the
standard proteinase K-phenol extraction method followed
by purification with a
Centricon-30 micro concentrator. Several rounds of PCR
successfully gave rise to
amplification of the HLA-DRB1 and-DQA1 genes. The PCR
restriction fragment length
polymorphism (PCR-RFLP) and sequencing based typing
(PCR-SBT) methods revealed that
THOSE ANCIENT INDIVIDUALS POSSESSED THE DRB1 and DQA1
alleles WHICH ARE HIGHLY PREVALENT
AMONG THE MODERN NORTH ASIAN AS WELL AS JAPANESE
POPULATIONS>"
(Tissue Antigens July 1999 edition)
Hendrik
> Good lord. We went through this last year. It appears that no
> amount of scientific reports will convince this fellow that he
> really don't have a case? His claim was that Japan's ancient
> people were Malays of Southeast Asian group, yet recent report
> after another points to Japanese being on the north east Asian
> genetic cluster, including the Ainu and Ryukyuans.
That's what one should expect when looking at the geography: Sakhalin
and the adjacent continental areas, as well as the area of what today is
Korea, would have to be considered first and foremost.
> Now when you
> have sooo many reports contradicting yours then don't you think
> you should stop and think a bit? I'm hoping that you would.
>
> Here are one of the recent ones, July 1999 to be exact, also
> reporting to us that Japan's Jomon era people had had a strong
> North East Asian genetic affinity.
A question that comes up frequently and that i had started to address in
my previous post is the question of the origin of the Japanese language
and the language family it may belong to. In this context one needs to
keep in mind that genetic relationship and linguistic relationship are
not necessarily the same (see for example the Finns: genetically they
are close to their neighbours, but their language is unrelated to that
of their neighbours).
As for a Malayan connection: it appears that neither genetics nor
linguistics provides supporting evidence, so i don't consider it a
viable hypothesis at this time.
The Questioner
not appear obvious to a speaker of a European language, but in this very
newsgroup in 1998, at my request, several Filipinos and Guamanians (the
Chamorro language of Guam is Filipino-originated)who have lived in Japan
or studied Japanese offered numerous SPECIFIC examples of Japanese-Malay
language relationships. Check www.deja.com "Power Search" for messages
responding to The Questioner in 1998. Some people gave clear Tagalog and
Ilocano analogs to common Japanese phrases. This was an unscientific
sampling, but it was as obvious a relationship as "Wilkommen" or "Wie
geht's?"(German) is to "Welkom" or "Hoe gaat het?"(Dutch) is to
"Welcome" or "How goes it?"(English).
We could all say everything is an unrelated coincidence, but when we are
talking about neighboring countries like Taiwan and the Philippines,
which also are served by northerly currents flowing up to the Japanese
islands, isn't it, how shall we say this politely, INCREDIBLY IDIOTIC,
to not pay attention to Malay/Austronesian influences from pre-Chinese
Taiwan and the Philippines?
About Filipino-Japanese analogs, Chris Robato wrote:
"Here are some coincidences or connections, depending on your viewpoint.
>>In Tagalog, to strike is "tira". In Japanese, it's "ataru".
>>In Japanese, something high or tall is "takai". In Tagalog, it's
"tangkad".
>>In Japanese, to ask is "tanomu". In Tagalog, it's tanong.
>>In Japanese, sincerely, really is "honto". In Tagalog it's "toto-o",
spoken with a very similar sound and inflection. Listen to how a
Japanese say and use honto and note the same how Filipinos use toto-o.
>>In Japanese, they scream "itai" in pain. Note how Filipinos scream
"aray" in pain. Same style, even the same inflection.
>>In Japanese, "ano" is like refering this in a questioning way. It
sounds much like the way Filipinos use "ano" too. "Ano ba ito?"
(NOTE: TAGALOG IS NOT A NORTHERN PHILIPPINE LANGUAGE. Tagalog is from
the central part of Luzon. Imagine how much closer northern Filipino
languages and Taiwanese languages must be to Japanese! And remember,
this is a comparison to "standard modern" Tokyo dialect Japanese. In the
hundreds of local Japanese dialects and vocabularies and in now defunct
lexicons undoubtedly the relationships between Japanese and its
Taiwanese and Filipino ancestor languages would show themselves to be
closer --if any "scholar" cared to investigate these possibilities.)
My usual statement is that these things are all obvious, except when
nobody cares to ask the principal parties. No Westerner or Japanese ever
cared to ask educated Malay aboriginals in Taiwan or Filipino if there
are similarities in vocabulary (not grammar) between Japanese and their
languages. Until this decade, no Westerner or Japanese ever cared to ask
educated Koreans if there are similarities in vocabulary and grammar
between Japanese and Korean, so the Japanese nationalist's dream
scenario --that the world regard the Japanese as "unique" --gets to be
fulfilled, not because of evidence or the lack of evidence, but purely
due to the laziness and complacent racist assumptions of Western
"scholars" who are willing to swallow Japanese fictions whole.
We understand that the Japanese have severe mental problems about coming
to understand their simple history --imagine a British person being
terrified to hear that the ancestors of today's British were Picts,
Celts, Romans, North Germans, Frisians, Danes, Norwegians, Norman
French-- but what is the excuse of the Western "scholars" who palm
themselves off as experts on Japan, Japanese history, Japanese language,
and who do a tremendous disservice to academia and their students? Is it
just that they are so dim and that there are just so few of them? Is it
that their department endowments are funded in part by Japanese
corporations or by the Japanese government and that they fear
"offending" fascist liars by using reasoning, logic and comparative
linguistic and historical analysis?
I think it is funny that, like rats on a sinking ship, some of the
Japanese nationalists and their paid mouthpieces in the West are
starting to come around to acknowledging Japan's Korean roots. Of
course, it has to be called "Northeast Asian," rather than Korean. I
would like to urge Filipinos and speakers of aboriginal Taiwanese
languages to contribute their thoughts about similiarities between their
languages and traditional cultures and Japanese. Probably just as some
Westerners are discovering that Japan is only a few rocks south of
Korea, they will see that the aboriginal Taiwanese and Filipinos were
only a few rocks south of the Ryukyuus and Japan. In the academic world,
such concepts often take decades, even though a school child could see
it in two seconds in any atlas. The blindness about Korean history and
the existence of Korea as the parent of the Japanese is starting to
clear up. It will take some work, but not much, for the southern parents
to be recognized. Then we will see the Japanese in the correct
historical and linguistic and cultural perspective.
The Questioner
4th October, 1999
------------------------------------------------------------
In article <1dz3zpb.1fi83pg1j5itq8N@[192.168.0.227]>,
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Before you buy.
Hendrik
thanks for your comments. I will send a few comments back and hope they
will advance the discussion.
The Questioner <thequest...@my-deja.com> wrote:
> Hendrik: The "evidence" of Malay influences in the Japanese language may
> not appear obvious to a speaker of a European language
Sorry, that's a "red herring": linguists from all over the world are
trained to recognise the kind of evidence we are talking about. Any
postulated similarity in the pronunciation of a few words is not good
evidence for something that purpotedly happened a few hundred or
thousand years ago.
And if indeed a postulated similarity (according to your informants)
were to exist between, say a phrase in Japanese and one of Tagalog, why
would that constitute evidence for a Malay influence on Japanese rather
than the other way around?
> We could all say everything is an unrelated coincidence, but when we are
> talking about neighboring countries like Taiwan and the Philippines,
> which also are served by northerly currents flowing up to the Japanese
> islands, isn't it, how shall we say this politely, INCREDIBLY IDIOTIC,
> to not pay attention to Malay/Austronesian influences from pre-Chinese
> Taiwan and the Philippines?
As i pointed out before: given the geography i consider it highly likely
that Pacific people have at times visited the islands that today are
Japan. However, such speculation, as reasonable as i think it is, does
not constitute *linguistic* evidence, it can only be a starting point
for further research. Again, you will hear from me that i find the
suggestion that there *could be* Malay influences in Japanese not an
unreasonable one, but i am cautioning you that the language related
arguments you have offered here are not acceptable linguistic evidence
to base a viable hyptothesis on.
> (NOTE: TAGALOG IS NOT A NORTHERN PHILIPPINE LANGUAGE. Tagalog is from
> the central part of Luzon. Imagine how much closer northern Filipino
> languages and Taiwanese languages must be to Japanese!
Sorry... :-) There is no "must be" in this discussion, only an "is
there?" - and what evidence is there that the Northern Philippine
languages *are* closer to Japanese than you say Tagalog is?
And remember,
> this is a comparison to "standard modern" Tokyo dialect Japanese.
Yes... and as i told you, the fact that you compare modern words weakens
any hypothesis about what supposedly ahppened a long time ago. For
starters, why don't you look for comparisons among the oldest extant
records of Japanese and Tagalog?
> In the
> hundreds of local Japanese dialects and vocabularies and in now defunct
> lexicons undoubtedly the relationships between Japanese and its
> Taiwanese and Filipino ancestor languages would show themselves to be
> closer --if any "scholar" cared to investigate these possibilities.)
So far all i hear from you is speculation (not unintersting, certainly,
but nothing more than that either). Don't you have *one* bit of evidence
to support the above paragraph?
> My usual statement is that these things are all obvious, except when
> nobody cares to ask the principal parties.
If they are obvious, please deliver the details. And since you asked (i
presume) what questions did you ask and what answers did you receive?
> No Westerner or Japanese ever
> cared to ask educated Malay aboriginals in Taiwan or Filipino if there
> are similarities in vocabulary (not grammar) between Japanese and their
> languages.
No Westerner or Japanese ever cared to ask? Have you really read all the
available papers and books that relate to those languages so that you
can be sure about that?
> Until this decade, no Westerner or Japanese ever cared to ask
> educated Koreans if there are similarities in vocabulary and grammar
> between Japanese and Korean
I don't know whether it is true that such questions have only been
investigated for 10 years, but even if it was true, how does this
absence of research support your claim that Japanese is related to
Malay? Wouldn't you, at best, be able to say that "there is a question
but we have not yet investigated it"?
The subject line you chose for this thread mentions a "Korean-Malay-Ainu
Hybrid" - this reflects, at the current stage, speculation, not a sound
scientific hypothesis. The Malay part, in particular, is undocumented as
of yet. Even if it a few dozen Malay words had, at some time, entered
into Japanese (something i don't find unreasonable to assume), it still
would not make Japanese a "Korean-Malay-Ainu Hybrid" anymore than the
introduction of English words has made the Japanese language a
"Korean-Ainu-English Hybrid". :-)
Although i find the direction that your comments point to interesting in
terms of further research that people could do, i would, again, like to
caution you that what you have at hand at this time is insufficient or
irrelevant when it comes to formulating a solid hypothesis. I have
implicitly indicated what kind of research you could (and would have to)
do to advance beyond the presented speculation. The question "is there a
historic relationship between Malay and Japanese" has not yet been
answered either way, but i am intersted in a scientifically supportable
answer only.
As to your comments on Japanese nationalism and other political and
social aspects of Japanese culture: i am not commenting on them simply
because i am, at this time, not interested in discussing such topics,
not because i agree or disagree with you on anything you wrote in that
regard. Suffice it to say that even if Germany's population had been of
a pure genetic stock, different from all other European stock, and if
Germans had spoken a language unrelated to any other language in the
world, i would still think Hitler was morally wrong. Perhaps this will
let you sleep better... :-)
Best regards: Hendrik
The Questioner
You are correct, but a distinction must be made in this schizophrenic
behavior of Japanese militarists and their offspring, who are probably
people you know or have met, and who harbor some variant of their
parent's sick ideas.
When taking over Korea, the "Mimana Fiction" of "Ancient Japanese" rule
over parts of Korea was utilized, and there were indeed statements made
of the Japanese and Koreans sharing the "same root."
Undoubtedly someone said that before there was Mt. Fuji there was Mt.
Paektu. Manchuria was similarly referred to as a brethren people when
the Japanese wanted to claim Manchuria.
But, remarkably, when the tables are turned in peacetime, and people ask
the Japanese "What is the Japanese race?" suddenly amnesia overtakes
politicians, historians, linguists, moviemakers, journalists, educators,
and the man in the street. The Japanese are children of Korea when it
serves Japan's purpose to claim their (common) parents' throne, but when
everyone is equal and at peace, connections to Korea disappear
mysteriously. It seems amazing that in 1800 AD, 1200AD, 700AD,(and even
not long ago when Prime Minister Nakasone referred to the Koreans as
Japan's "Elder Brother" and was excoriated by Japanese rightists),
Japanese understood clearly the ancestral parent-child relationship in
Korea to Japan, but in this modern era of universal education,
international travel, TV and the internet, the obvious fact of the
Korean ancestry of the Japanese "race" is something that has to be
tipptoed around, dickered about (remarks like "there likely were SOME
Korean IMMIGRANTS to early Japan, but the real ancient Tungusic Japanese
themselves remains unknown"), hidden in phrases like "Northeast Asian,"
"Manchurian," "Mainland Asian," "Continental influences," "Chinese,"
"Puyo," "Puyeo," "Altaic Horseriders," or just outrightly denied as a
challenge that the Japanese (call them Wa or Jomon) just freaking sprang
out of the earth spontaneously on these islands.
The Ainu are brought in to confuse. I'll give two analogies, both would
be equally sick. A comparable crime would be for the Americans, who,
let's imagine, were so insanely unwilling to claim that their ancestors
came from England that they theorized that the founders of the
"American Race" were Pequots. (The Pequots were once a great
aboriginal nation that spread across much of southern New England
until their military defeat and genocide in the 1670's. Now, only
several hundred remain as Pequots, most appearing either entirely
Caucasian or African, all without their national language.)Another
example, nearly contemporaneous to the Korean Paekche conquest of Japan
and establishment of the Yamato throne, would be Britain. Imagine if the
English hated the Germans so much that instead of saying the Angles and
Saxons came from northern Germany, that the "English race" came from
the Cornishmen, a Celtic people also basically overrun and destroyed by
the invaders. The Germanic English language, the north Germanic
homesteading and cattle-raising culture and poor dowdy old Mrs.
Liz Windsor (surname used to be German Saxe-Coburg-Gotha) and her
husband, Mr. Philip Mountbatten (surname used to German Battenberg)would
all have to be covered up. Gee, it seems like they might have even
tried this. Hmmm. Just a thought: Could it be possible for a foreign
monarch to try to naturalize his or her identity in order to gain
control of the alien race that is the masses? Why, could The Questioner
be suggesting that, like William the Conqueror's Norman French
horesriding race (cavalry, knights, etc.)the local institutions and
language could be altered, almost like a cultural collision between the
French Latin and Germanic Saxon to produce a language that seems neither
pure Latin nor pure German such as modern English, and... could this
horrible person The Questioner, be suggesting that on the virginal
islands of Japan, similar historical, linguistic, political and cultural
processes could possibly have occurred?
NO! THE QUESTIONER WOULD NEVER DO THAT, so great is his belief that the
Japanese are unique among nations. Besides, there's no proof of
anything. Those Paekche Korean sculptures, those Paekche Korean temples,
the pictures of ancient Japanese court dress that look like their
earlier Korean counterparts, the Korean horserider relics found in
Emperor Nintoku's grave when a storm (GOD) forced it open, hey- there is
no proof. Keep repeating it: there is no proof. And Japanese and Koreans
don't look at all alike! And even if they did, that would be no proof
either.
Back to the original insanity. Aren't you guys tired of being taken for
fools by a handful of people who are keeping the birthright of all
Japanese --knowledge of the parents-- away from them? Anyway, the
classification of the Ainu as "Proto-Caucasoid" is also used in Japanese
racist propagandizing, subtle and not subtle, historic and present, as
another schizophrenic double-edged sword. The Ainu are described often
as "the hairiest people on earth." What does that make you think of?
Apes. The Japanese want you to think this, and the Western
"scholars" allow this language to be circulated because Western
anthropologists are, scientifically, a only a few pegs away from
outright Nazis. (What is the National Geographic Magazine but a
subtle juxtaposition of "depraved naked savages" and "normally dressed"
Europeans and Americans happy, smiling and photographed flatteringly,
like "civilized" people. You can see photos of bloodthirsty New Guinea
cannibals sitting around the campfire, but, oddly, you don't see
convicted bloodthirsty U.S. cannibal Jeffrey Dahmer sitting watching
prime time TV in his jail cell.) Apes are animals. Animals are not
entitled to rights, certainly claims over their own land. It is
suggested that the Ainu are Caucasoid or Proto-Caucasoid. To Westerners,
this is intriguing or maybe flattering, but in the racist and
nationalist/ militarist Japanese context, it also carries a connotation
of "barbarian" and "enemy." It's OK to hate the Ainu and it's OK to let
them disappear quietly into history, we are led to believe.
Oddly, and bizarrely, the Japanese also have a very sick and warped
notion of themselves. Why do you think all the Japanese cartoon
characters for the last 40 years have these big saucer eyes? Some
college-educated Japanese I have met have actually told me to my face
that Japan is a European country. Why? Because it borders on Russia
(siberia) and since Russians are European, so are the Japanese. Yes,
even while believing the Ainu are subhuman, the "Proto-Caucasoid" label
on the Ainu allows the twisted self-hating Japanese to say, "The
Japanese are really part European." If none of this makes sense to you,
you might want to read wartime Japanese fascist propaganda (and its
unbroken race theories still used today)based on German Nazi race
theory. This is another weird one but, yes, even though the Nazis
thought the Japanese were an inferior race, many Japanese
enthusiastically believed Aryan race theories. And, of course, if this
isn't ironic enough, let us not forget that Hitler was not blond and
blue-eyed but dark brown haired and brown-eyed,as are most Germans, and
that a large percentage of the Germans do not have "white" skin, but
rather sallow skin. Sallow, as our dictionary will tell us, is another
word for yellow. So much for the "white" race or any definition of
"race."
ALL THIS STUFF IS SICK, SICK, SICK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The Questioner
6th October, 1999
In article <7sh0nk$sgd$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>,
tom...@my-deja.com wrote:
> In article <7s1359$l31$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>,
> thequest...@my-deja.com wrote:
> > (I am not sure if I posted this right the first
> > time on Dejanews. Sorry for the repetition.)
> >
> > Japanese nationalists since Meiji times at least
> > have done a great job of clouding over the obvious
> > ethnic origins and ancient history of the Japanese
> > people. Sometimes, absurd myths involving
> > Scythians, Normans or races never heard of, seen
> > or commented on by other nations in Asia are
> > freely bantered about in Japanese and Western
> > "academic circles" as virtual truths. Rules of
> > historical analysis that could not be violated for
> > the study of any nation and be taken seriously are
> > waived in the cause of maintaining the dangerous
> > myth that the Japanese are unrelated to their
> > neighbors, are special beings deserving of
> > mythical history rather than historical facts
> > about their past and themselves.
> >
>
> japanese imperialists emphasised kindredness with
> their neibours to justify their invasion and
> occupation of their neibours land. much serious
> studies on the ethnicity of the yamato race had been
> made in the era of empire. even a leading right-winger
> like ookawa shuumei believed the ainu as indigenous to
> the mainland.
>
> Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
> Before you buy.
>
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Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
The Questioner
Before I get all agitated, I want to say first that I appreciate your
compliments, and believe you are a good person, even though you want to
avoid remarks about Japanese nationalism as irrelevant, but then again,
I don't have a yourpartnerinjapan.com email address.
You are far more polite than I in these matters, and that can be a
problem when the Japanese, we are told, are the politest nation on
earth, even when they were bayoneting infants in Korea or China. My
problem, is that this is not a parlor game. The 2nd largest economy in
the world, a very important and powerful nation, that cannot remotely
adddress its history honestly and that is given to fictionalizing
ancient races and ancient conquests that never existed is a threat to
its own people and its neighbors. As we know from Hitler, and even from
Milosevic in Serbia of late, if a nation has not been prepared to
understand its history, it can find ready justification for genocide
when a dictator chooses to inflame the masses for his own gain.
So, when you see fascist commentators selling books in Japan and then
being elected Governor of Tokyo, I start thinking, Bruno Haider in
Austria and Shintaro Ishihara in Japan, hmmm, what does this remind me
of? I guess in Europe in 1934 or so there was plenty of time to relax
and chat about linguistics and race theory and everyone could leave the
room as gentlemen. I don't like to see a slow-motion repeat history like
this, so I am really serious about this topic that some people think is
really trivial.
Caution, even in linguistics, plays into the hands of Japanese rightists
and their grander racial-military theories. Hendrik, if left to caution,
Western linguists would still be putting Korean and Japan as question
marks on the Tungusic-Altaic map of Eurasia, even though most Koreans
and Japanese clearly saw connections. To the great European linguists,
it was very tough to draw conclusions that K and J even had a common
linguistic parent.Many still refuse to see Korean and Japanese as a
"proven relationship of some kind," although nobody can deny the
near-identical Korean grammar in Japanese. Is it that these languages
are so unpenetrable? No, it is politics. The westerners who learn
Japanese do not learn Korean. The westerners who learn Chinese do not
learn Korean. The westerners who learn J or C do not learn other Asian
languages. There are very few exceptions. So the Sinophiles and
Japanophiles spend most of their academic lives trying to create niches
for Japan or China in their university departments. Their allies are not
in their universities or nations, who frankly are racist and anti-Asian
and are almost feudalistically very provincially bound to Eurocentric
studies. (When we speak of, for example, Art History, are we in
the West referring to World art history, or just really western
European Art History, with Greece and Rome and Egypt thrown in to
suggest a linkage between Cheops and Aristotle and some unwashed
blue-painted pagan in ancient Britain, whose decendant might be a
member of the faculty at Oxford?) Asians, Asian-Americans,
Asian-Canadians, Asian-Australians, Asian-Europeans, etc. in these
faculties are given second class status and they themselves might also
be more interested in one country versus another, as opposed to a
regional approach to language and culture.
So how does the work of Truth get done? Who writes the homework
assignment: tell the truth today about Japanese history?
There is no aid for Truth from Japan. Only not so subtle advisements to
toe the line or be cut off. (On the American TV networks this is the
strategy: if a network is running a show that has ANY potentially
anti-Japanese element- it could be a news report on war atrocities or
problems with a Toyota's seatbelt-- the Japanese sponsors politely
ask, "Please inform us in advance so that we can pull our advertising
off the air for the night." The polite request speaks loudly and
criticism of Japan gets very muffled. Oddly, bad stories about Korea,
invariably coming out of Tokyo news bureaus, always seem to be
found and scrupulously be reported from the Japanese perspective,
often with only Japanese authorities being cited. )
In Western universities, Japanese "sensitivities" are always taken
under consideration. This, Hendrik, is why we all dance around "looking
for proof" about Korean-Japanese linguistic relationships rather than
analyze them the way we endlessly do in freedom over Occitan, Provencal,
Catalan, Rhaeto-Romansch, Frisian, Dutch, Luxembourgeois,
Dano-Engish,Yorkshire dialect, Franconian, Polish, Sorbian,
Proto-Baltic, etc., etc., etc. But there just never is any way to
catalog all the dialects of Japanese, new, old, defunct and relate them
to new, old, defunct Korean dialects. Somehow, wealthy Japan with NEC
supercomputers cannot accomplish what the Icelanders and Norwegians can
do just tinkering with old word-lists. We are always told that the
Chinese writing system is such as problem with linguistics, but wouldn't
it be simple enough to render dialect in a standard way, such as with
the international phonetic alphabet? So, for example, if we were to
render an English word the way a person in Alabama says it, drawl and
all, we could render that phonetically. Same for a Scotsman or a New
Yorker or an Australian. Japanese is, like all languages, just sounds
and tones. We could compile a really true dialect map of Japan by the
true sounds, not what someone reading Chinese characters would want to
hear or would think it should sound like. We could do that for Osaka,
Okinawa, Kyushu dialects, Honshu, even including slang and class
dialects. What is a lofty word in modern Tokyo dialect could be exactly
the same as a low class dialect in a rural area of Cholla Province in
Korea, the home of the Paekche kingdom. A word for a certain kind of
tree in Naha, Okinawa might not exist in current Japanese dialects, but
might surface as a word for "stick" in an old dialect of Pusan, Korea,
in the old Kaya kingdom. A slang word for finger in Fukuoka might be the
same as a word for hand among the Ami in Taiwan. Yes, this is
conjecture, but has anyone ever cared to do this?
Some linguists in Europe and America still are squeamish about including
Korean and Japanese among Tungusic-Altaic languages alongside Manchu,
Mongol and Turkic. Most of this is political and out of fear of
offending the Japanese. An Arabic or Celtic linguist is not likely to be
the best contributor to the analysis of Korean-Japanese relationships,
so since the Japanese are willing to drag the reputation of their
academics into the antediluvian muck, it might be up to Korean scholars,
knowledgeable in Japanese and publishing in English to finally end this
absurd blotch on linguistic history. Will this be yet another case where
the Japanese will have to be spoon-fed their culture from the Koreans?
If any Japanese scholars had the guts to end their nation's
psychological warfare against the Koreans and instead join hands with
them, what a nice place Northeast Asia could be!
Hendrik, while I fully agree with you that a few phrases in themselves
don't mean anyting in real linguistic study, I gave a few examples of
Filipino-Japanese relationships because only a few were readily at my
disposal. That a few were provided does not mean that a wealth of
phrases, words, place-names, etc. could not be or have not yet been
found on the dialect maps of Japan past and present. But, once again,
would it likely be a Westerner who could know both Malay linguistics AND
a myriad of Japanese dialects? Even alone in their offices going down a
standard modern Japanese dictionary, teams of Filipino and aboriginal
Taiwanese scholars could probably compile some substantial data, but
the real evidence would have to come from a joint
Filipino/Taiwanese/Ryukyuan and Japanese team, plowing over the dialect
maps of Kyushu and Shitoku and Honshu and the Ryukyus. As I know that
the Japan Current carries rafts north, I know that Malay languages
influenced the base of Japanese, but it would take the conscious and
unimpeded effort of Japanese university scholars to do this.
But, seeing the crap the University of Tokyo history department puts
out, such intellectual curiosity and intelligence and guts should not be
expected for some time. In the mean time, westerners who are intrigued
about this, might contact Filipino Universities and even Filipino
student centers in Japan. Even casual wordlists and compilations of
phrases, over time could add up.
It must be remarked that there isn't a whole lot of written words in
Tocharian, but because Europeans were very excited to believe that
Indo-Europeans lived within the borders of present-day China, they
busted their butts to see "clear and obvious" patterns when the evidence
they had was little better than our few Japanese-Tagalog word pairs. We
say that Tocharian is an Indo-European language, but given more than the
pittifully little evidence that antiquity left us with, perhaps we might
have seen a language that was a bridge between Indo-European and
Tungusic-Altaic, but... wouldn't that have been embarassing to all those
great Western European linguists in the 19th Century, learning that the
Europeans and the Turks and the Mongols -the great "Oriental" enemies of
Europe --were their cousins! If they had found such evidence, I bet
Turkey would be in the European Union and they'd be figuring out how
soon to line up Mongolia, too.
Linguistics, History, Art, Philosophy, Literature, Science - they all
seem so pure and self-contained, but they really are always just pawns
to politics and the evil-hearted, aren't they? Let's not talk science
when we speak of linguistics. Let's speak of political agendas.
Let's be honest with ourselves, Hendrik. This is all a matter of will.
You are able to admit that "Pacific" people likely visited Japan, maybe
even settled there. Can't you mention the places by name closest to
Japan and the Ryukyuus "in the Pacific," namely, Taiwan and the
Philippines? But when it comes to those "visitors," you doubt that
they could have left their language in Japan. Hell, if the Japanese
could use the Portuguese word for bread and a version of the German word
for beer, couldn't these people Jomon/Yayoi/Cipangan/Nihon/Japanese
easily mix Malay and Korean and Ainu dialects to create something that
doesn't quite seem perfectly Malay or perfectly Korean?
I know this is another "lack of evidence" or "vague generality" but,
doesn't it seem a national characteristic of the Japanese that they very
readily accept different cultural influences? While this isn't at all
unique to the Japanese, it certainly is amazing, even since 1945, how
many English words have been readily assimilated into the
language. It is understood, even by Japanese Rightist sources,
that Japan "assimilated" wholesale Korean and Korean-Chinese
civilization for centuries. The Japanese were and are like
cultural sponges. This could be seen as a positive, for not every
nation is so open-minded as to do this on such a scale. Before that, I
would say Korean and Korean-Chinese words readily were assimilated.But
before the Koreans came, what was the base language or, more properly,
what were the base languages that "Koreanized?"
The Malay/Austonesian/Malayo-Polynesian/Taiwanese/Filipinos (pick your
favorite phrase).
There are some Japanese who, sadly, have taken my postings as an insult
when I speak of Japan as a hybrid nation, because they have been formed
by notions of "blood purity" equalling greatness or uniqueness --some
special status under heaven. What I'm trying to say in my way, is that
Japan is a crossroads nation that has taken some great things from both
the Malays in the south and from the Koreans in the north. In this mix
there are many subtle blendings of tones, motifs and song. There is
greatness in every one of God's creations, and when God makes the dry
land and the very wet ocean, between them God creates a mix of water and
land: life-bearing tidal pools and moist,sand, that, if the tide is on
your side, can hold the impression of a unique bare foot.
If you cut off the island from the water and from the people on the
other side of the water you only create a dark musty bunker in which
only mold and scorpions thrive. You wait in the bunker, with your
machine guns pointed out at the waters. But the enemy is not out there.
The Koreans do not hate you. The Filipinos and aboriginal Taiwanese do
not hate you. But you hate them, and when you hate them, your brothers
and sisters, you are hating only yourself.
Well, I'm done for 1999. I hope this year's innoculation against idiocy
will last this newgroup through a tough year 2000. For me, I'm off to
the beach.
-'Tot ziens, Hendrik
The Questioner
6th October, 1999
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option at www.deja.com and enter "The Questioner"
In article <1dz95r4.uknffap19nigN@[192.168.0.227]>,
The Questioner
Japanese-Filipino cultural and linguistic similarities.
I believe his contributions help demonstrate the Malay origins of the
original non-Ainu languages of Japan prior to the Korean invasions,
conquest and settlement under Kaya and then Paekche rulers.
Sorry about my error regarding the origins of Guamanian Chamorro.
I would not share Chris S's concern about Japanese occupation of the
Philipines possibly originating the Filipino children's game of "hide
and go seek" ("Diyak en Poy") or naming it after a similar Japanese
game. Japanese occupation soldiers weren't the greatest models for
children. I do not have proof either way on this, but one would only
have to ask a Filipino who was born in the early 30's or earlier if the
Japanese introduced this common human game or caused the nation to use
the Japanese name. In addition to various linguistic footprints from
Korean and Filipino, children's games shared by neighboring countries
can at least suggest contact if not blood ties. I think this shared J-F
name for the same game is at least as significant as the fact that
nearly every Korean folk tale typically told to children appears nearly
unchanged in Japanese. Considering that Japan's only close and navigable
neighbors in ancient times were Korea and Malay pre-Chinese Taiwan and
the Philippines, we should consider that these common cultural
traditions were the result of permanent settlement and conquest rather
than what some permanent historical denyers might wish to suggest, that
they were mere "borrowings" from random immigrants, artisans, shipwreck
survivors.
The Japanese ancestors, being on islands, had to come from somewhere to
get to the islands of Japan and the Ryukyuus. They came from the
neighboring lands, and lived in Japan as they had in their former
countries, changing as needed by contact with foreign people or other
dialect groups of the same linguistic/cultural family. This is why Japan
is culturally, racially and linguistically a mix of Korean and Malay. It
is natural, logical and obvious.
But the obvious is to be denied by the racist and historically twisted
Japanese Right and their fellow travellers in Academe. The correct way
to pursue this discussion would be for enthusiastic and dedicated
Japanese linguists, working honestly and enthusiastically and
openmindedly with Korean, Ryukyuuan, Filipino and aboriginal Taiwanese
linguists to create dialect maps and correlate slang, dialects, ancient
words, etc. But since the Japanese Right delay and block this as
decisively and as cowardly as they delay and block foreign imports, it
might be another generation before a large body of relationships is
emassed. In the mean time, it will be up to amateurs to be the pioneers
when the "experts" have all been bought off. I would like to see more
Filipino comments on J-F linguistic or cultural relationships.
The Questioner
17 October, 1999
http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Parliament/2142/
-----------------------------------------------------
In article <7ua42l$d85$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>,
The Questioner <thequest...@my-deja.com>
wrote:
> and Guamanians (the Chamorro language of Guam is
Filipino-originated)
> who have lived in Japan or studied Japanese
offered numerous SPECIFIC
Actually, Chamorro is not a Filipino language. It
has its own branch
West-Malayo Polynesian languages (along with the
languages of the
Philippines). Like Tagalog, it has borrowings from
Spanish. And I've read
somewhere in this NG that it has borrowed words from
the
Philippines as well.
> sampling, but it was as obvious a relationship as
"Wilkommen" or "Wie
> geht's?"(German) is to "Welkom" or "Hoe gaat
het?"(Dutch) is to
> "Welcome" or "How goes it?"(English).
Well those three languages are Germanic languages,
you know.
> "Here are some coincidences or connections,
depending on your
> viewpoint.
> >>In Tagalog, to strike is "tira". In Japanese,
it's "ataru".
"Tira" most likely comes from the Spanish word
"tirar" meaning to throw... But
IIRC, it has a broader meaning.
> >> In Japanese, something high or tall is "takai".
In Tagalog, it's
> >> "tangkad". In Japanese, to ask is "tanomu". In
Tagalog, it's
> >> tanong.
That takai/tangkad part, I dunno... But that tanomu
and tanong is really
interesting. I've learned Japanese too and never
really thought about it.
> >>In Japanese, sincerely, really is "honto". In
Tagalog it's
> >> "toto-o", spoken with a very similar sound and
inflection.
> Listen to how a Japanese say and use honto and
note the same how
> Filipinos use toto-o.
That doesn't mean anything, really. You can have
the same
inflection/intonation in one language and another in
a completely unrelated
language.
> >> In Japanese, they scream "itai" in pain. Note
how Filipinos scream
> >> "aray" in pain. Same style, even the same
inflection.
Interesting.
> >> In Japanese, "ano" is like refering this in a
questioning way. It
> >> sounds much like the way Filipinos use "ano"
too. "Ano ba ito?"
In Japanese, ano is used as a hesitating word.
Similar to "ummmmm..." in
English. In Tagalog, ano means "what." People who
speak Tagalog may say
"E..."
A less formal way of saying "ano" in Japanese is
"E.. to..." and there's a
"heto" (here) in Tagalog........ Hmmmm!
There's a game in the Philippines which finds out
who will be "it." It's called
"Diyak en Poy" (I thought it was Jack & Poi). In
Japan there's a game much
similar to that called "ja ken pon" <sp?>
You have to remember though that Japan occupied the
Philippines. So these
words may have entered during that time.
> languages and Taiwanese languages must be to
Japanese! And remember,
Well the Chinese words found in Tagalog have origins
in Hokkien and possibly
Cantonese. I just borrowed a Bicol dictionary which
says some words are
from Cantonese... Some examples of Chinese words in
Tagalog: Buwisit,
kuya, lumpia...
> blah blah..
--Chris
--
...Mabuhay...
Visit / Visitez http://www.game-master.com
Hendrik
> > I know that Malay languages influenced the base of Japanese
To which i had replied:
> ... possible - but unproven. And i do not see anything in your recent
> post that would change my agnostic attitude.
Someone sent me a message asking for information on what was meant by
"Malay languages" and "Pacific languages" and whether we were not
talking about the same languages, actually.
As it stands, there exists a concept of a Malayo-Polynesian family of
languages that exist *today* which is conceptually divided into four
branches:
- the Indonesian branch which is represented by Indonesian, Malay, and
Tagalog and includes about 20 other languages;
- the Micronesian branch which includes the languages spoken on the
Marshall and Gilbert Island, as well as Yap, Palau, Truk, and Nauru;
- the Melanesian branch which covers Fijian, Motu, and Yabim;
- and the Polynesian branch which includes Maori and the languages of
Samoa, Tonga, and Hawaii
I used the term "Pacific languages" with reference to those languages
that would have been spoken thousands of years ago in the areas we
nowadays call Indonesia, Micronesia, Melanesia, Polynesia, etc., etc.
Interpreting the Questioner's use of the term "Malay" as generously as i
used the term "Pacific, the answer to the second part of the questions
would be that, yes, we were speaking about the same languages.
The issue of contention was not the question of which languages have
contributed to Japanese but of what constitutes proof of such a process.
As i explained in a previous post, i not only think that it is
*possible* that Pacific people have brought their language(s) to Japan
but that it is *likely*. In that regard the Questioner and i would
appear to agree. However, my perspective does not constitute evidence or
proof any more than the Questioner's perspective - at present the origin
of the Japanese language is substantially not yet known, and no
political agenda, regardless of its merits, can change that fact.
Regards: Hendrik
Chris S.
Add...@The.End (Hendrik) wrote:
> - the Indonesian branch which is represented by Indonesian, Malay, and
> Tagalog and includes about 20 other languages;
Just *20*? The languages (not dialects..) of the Philippines number to
over _EIGHTY_! There's: Tagalog, Cebuano, Hiligaynon, Waray-Waray,
Ilocano, Bikol, Kapampgangan, Pangasinan, Ibanag, Palawano, Maranao,
Maguindanao, Manobo, Tausug, Tagbanwa, Agta, Ibaloi, Isiney, Mansakan,
Ayta, Tiuray, Aklanon, Ifugao, and many others....The one's I listed
number over 20.... and each of them have regional variants; or
dialects...
And I think the languages of the Philippines are not considered
Indonesian languages anymore.... But Philippine languages, after all
they're not in Indonesia are they? :) You probably were looking at
Kenneth Katzner's book, which classifies them that way.
--Chris
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Chris Robato Yao
>The Questioner had asserted:
>> > I know that Malay languages influenced the base of Japanese
>
>To which i had replied:
>
>> ... possible - but unproven. And i do not see anything in your recent
>> post that would change my agnostic attitude.
>
>Someone sent me a message asking for information on what was meant by
>"Malay languages" and "Pacific languages" and whether we were not
>talking about the same languages, actually.
>
>As it stands, there exists a concept of a Malayo-Polynesian family of
>languages that exist *today* which is conceptually divided into four
>branches:
>Tagalog and includes about 20 other languages;
>Marshall and Gilbert Island, as well as Yap, Palau, Truk, and Nauru;
>- the Melanesian branch which covers Fijian, Motu, and Yabim;
>- and the Polynesian branch which includes Maori and the languages of
>Samoa, Tonga, and Hawaii
>
>I used the term "Pacific languages" with reference to those languages
>that would have been spoken thousands of years ago in the areas we
>nowadays call Indonesia, Micronesia, Melanesia, Polynesia, etc., etc.
>
>Interpreting the Questioner's use of the term "Malay" as generously as i
>used the term "Pacific, the answer to the second part of the questions
>would be that, yes, we were speaking about the same languages.
Questioner does not have a very good structure about Austronesian
languages and wishes to deny using the word "Austronesian" for his
political purposes.
Malayo-Polynesian or MP is but one of the four to ten possible branches
of the Austronesian family. The others are not as popularly spoken and
localized in Taiwan and thus and regarded as "Taiwanian", such as Atayal
and Paiwan.
If there is any Austronesian connection to Japan, it is far more likely
because of oceanic geography that it would be the Taiwanian languages
rather than Malayo-Polynesian. Certainly there is no movement of MP
into Taiwan. One must note that the ocean current from Taiwan and the
southern Chinese coasts heads north, actually following the Ryukuran
chain.
Furthermore, it is now suggested that since Malayo-Polynesian or MP did
not pass through Taiwan unlike the Taiwanian languages, the PAN or
Proto-Austronesian homeland would have to be somewhere in the coasts of
China, most likely the Fujian coast.
PAN itself could have branched from a larger language superfamily, which
we may simply call Austric. There are many non-Sinic/Han Austric
languages that are spoken by the aboringinals that used to spread much
of China south of the Yangtze. They would include Hmien Mong,
Miao-Yao, Austro-Tai, Daic, etc,. Among them are the first developers
of wet rice culture civilization. In fact, Questioner failed to even
note the possibility of Yuet/Viet Austro-Tai contributions, in
particular to wet rice cultivation in Japan, which was suggested by
Alexander Vobin. For example, the native (non-Sinic) Japanese word for
rice "kome" is cognate to the Vietnamese word for rice "cam".
From the archeological evidence in the coasts of China, the aboringines
are already a sea faring people, which not only developed large canoes,
but can be credited with the invention of the catamaran and trimaran
sailing ship designs. Chronicles of the Warring States period already
indicate that the barbarian Wu and Yuet kingdoms along coasts (Wu along
Shanghai area and Yuet along Fujian area) have extensive navies, which
they constantly use for both trade and battle. Nihonshiki also makes
mention of the "Go" people, which in Chinese means the Wu, and there
seems to be many links between Old Japan and the Go-Wu area as well,
such as walnuts.
However, southern links only constitute a source of loan words into the
current Japanese language; it does not have much to do with the core
formation of grammatic features of the language which is much more
connected with Korean.
What Japanese words that may be possibly Austric loan words? The
Philippine "inom" for drinking may be one, possibly cognate with
Japanese "nomu", or even the Hokkien "lim" or "jim" (denasalized from
"nim") which has no Mandarin connection. The words "chi-chi" and
"ha-ha" for father and mother maybe austric, since the Old Japanese of
these may be "ti-ti" and "pa-pa", which sounds like a coincidence with
the Filipino words for sexual organs like "ti-ti" (male) and "pe-pe"
(female). The Japanese "nani" for what sounds like the Filipino
"ano" or the Pampangan "nanu". The Old Japanese "na" for name (now
na-mae) can come from the Austric "nga" for name. The Japanese "kuroi"
for black is a weird one, since the most obvious suspect is "kara" which
is black in Mongolian and Turkish (but not in Korean). However,
proto-Polynesian has "kele" for black, which becomes "kur" in some
Polynesian tribes.
>
>The issue of contention was not the question of which languages have
>contributed to Japanese but of what constitutes proof of such a process.
>
>As i explained in a previous post, i not only think that it is
>*possible* that Pacific people have brought their language(s) to Japan
>but that it is *likely*. In that regard the Questioner and i would
>appear to agree. However, my perspective does not constitute evidence or
>proof any more than the Questioner's perspective - at present the origin
>of the Japanese language is substantially not yet known, and no
>political agenda, regardless of its merits, can change that fact.
>
>Regards: Hendrik
Questioner does not have a good structural concept of possible Austric
influences into proto-Japanese culture. It is unlikely that MP is a
factor, but rather PAN, Taiwanian and Austro-Tai are much better bets.
You don't look into the Pacific, but rather around the coasts of Taiwan,
Fujian and the Shanghai region.
Rgds,
Chris
>
>--
>My real address: BU-2 "at" YourPartnerInJapan "dot" Com
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Hendrik
> In article <1e030tr.1p6qwa11hdto0qN@[192.168.0.227]>,
> Add...@The.End (Hendrik) wrote:
>
>
> > - the Indonesian branch which is represented by Indonesian, Malay, and
> > Tagalog and includes about 20 other languages;
>
Hi... in retrospect that looks to me like a casual mistake: there were
probably about 20 languages mentioned on the list that i looked at while
writing that note, but i think they may only have represented what one
would call "major" languages (based on the number of speakers
respectively). In any case, i don't have that list before me and have
also no other detailed information at hand right now, but the number 20
is certainly unreasonably small, and what you mention about the
Philippines also goes for New Guinea, etc.
> And I think the languages of the Philippines are not considered
> Indonesian languages anymore.
Hm... there are varying opinions on that issue... and whatever name one
may use for the grouping, there will be some generalisations that are
bound to be rough and in need of modification over time. The grouping i
showed does not appear to me to be an unreasonable one, but i have no
particular investment in it - so i may accept any well-supported
argument for an alternative grouping of the languages we are talking
about... :-)
Regards: Hendrik
Hendrik
[...]
> If there is any Austronesian connection to Japan, it is far more likely
> because of oceanic geography that it would be the Taiwanian languages
> rather than Malayo-Polynesian. Certainly there is no movement of MP
> into Taiwan. One must note that the ocean current from Taiwan and the
> southern Chinese coasts heads north, actually following the Ryukuran
> chain.
Yes, i'd say, that island hopping from Taiwan to Kyushu would seem to be
a natural process even for modestly skilled seafarers...
[...]
> From the archeological evidence in the coasts of China, the aboringines
> are already a sea faring people, which not only developed large canoes,
> but can be credited with the invention of the catamaran and trimaran
> sailing ship designs. [...]
Well, since the ancestors of all the "native" inhabitants of the small
islands in the Pacific would have had to come from somewhere, preferably
in seaworthy boats, the coast of Asia would seem to me a likely place...
[...]
> However, southern links only constitute a source of loan words into the
> current Japanese language; it does not have much to do with the core
> formation of grammatic features of the language which is much more
> connected with Korean.
That's what the Questioner tries to downplay, but there is, as of yet,
no satisfactory alternative explanation, although Japanese does present
a puzzle in view of established theories about the development of
phonetic inventory and syntax when one language overlays another.
Well... there's obviously room for more research... :-)
Regards: Hendrik