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JPN494/598: History of the Japanese Language

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)

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JPN494/598: History of the Japanese Language

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  1. JPN494/598: History of the Japanese Language Prehistory of the Japanese Language

  2. 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)

  3. 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.)

  4. cf. • (http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/languagefamilies.html) • (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b4/Human_Language_Families_%28wikicolors%29.png)

  5. 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)

  6. (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?

  7. 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 신문을보십니까? tayk-eyse-nun mwusun sinmwun-ul posimnikka?

  8. 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 super-family that subsumes the Turkic, Mongolian, and Tungusic families) itself is a matter of controversy.

  9. 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.”

  10. 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)

  11. 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

  12. 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

  13. 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.

  14. Mixed-Language Theory (Polianov 1924, Murayama 1973): Japanese is a hybrid/amalgam of Altaic & Austronesian. (“Mixed” languages are not common, but not unattested.)

  15. 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.

  16. Other possibilities • “Tamil (Dravidian)must be counted as one of the origins of Japanese.” (Ono 1980) • “Japanese is a member of the Tibeto-Burman family.” (Parker 1938; Nishida 1978, 1980)

  17. “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);

  18. 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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