Isolated Languages... do you believe ther

1.

       Korean and Japanese are linguistically totally different from Chinese, but there are about 50~70% of borrowed words in the vocabulary words. They both have a different sentence structure, grammar, phonetics, etc., from Chinese. Korean and Japanese both have a sentence structure of,  S + O + V. While Chinese has S + V + O.

      Also Korean and Japanese are considered as agglutinative languages while Chinese language is considered an analytic language. Agglutinative languages have root words stuck with prefixes and suffixes. Analytic languages have every words isolated. Usually similar languages have same language types.

      Take the English sentence "I went to school" for example. In Korean it would be "naneun hakgyo-e gatda".
na=I, neun=(suff.)(affirmation), hakgyo=(Chinese loanword) school, e=(suff.) to, ga=(root) go, t=(infix)(shows that it happened in the past), da=(suff.)(affirmative ending after a verb).

In Chinese it would be "wo shang le xue xiao"
wo=I, shang=go, le=(past), xue xiao=school

In this case "hakgyo" is the only loanword and it corresponds to "Xuexiao". "xue" transformed to "hak". and "xiao" to "gyo". Well in this case they dont really sound alike but in some words they sound noticeably alike and in rare cases the same.

      So the conclusion is, no, Korean and Japanese didn't grow out of Chinese. They were just influenced by Chinese in the way that English was also influenced by Latin. Well at least English and Latin both belong in the same (Indo-European) family. Korean and Japanese (not exactly but most likely) belong in the Tungusic Branch of Altaic family. Chinese belongs in the Sino-Tibetan family.

From now on, what I'm writing is based on a documentary I watched on KBS(Korean TV channel), about the origin of Korean language.

2.    Korean is related to Japanese. Some scholars even consider Korean and Japanese as languages of one language group. However, that doesn't mean they're similar to each other like the European languages, like Italian, Spanish, etc. Modern Korean and modern Japanese are really DIFFERENT. But language changes and it did. And it changes really differently. It might have been similar once.  Consider the following table below. (All the words below are non-Chinese. Korean Chinese loanwords and Japanese Chinese loanwords basically sound similar and I think there are many times they are the same so it will be stupid to compare and talk about them. What we want to compare are pure Korean and pure Japanese words.)

*Goguryeo = an ancient kingdom that was located in Manchuria and Northern Korean Peninsula. 37 BC ~ 668 AD. The Goguryeo words below are read from Chinese characters.

English          ; ;    Goguryeo*        &am p;nb sp;  Japanese        & ;nbs p;  Korean                

valley               tan         &am p;nb sp;         &am p;nb sp;  tani         &a mp;n bsp;        Goljjagi        & ;nbs p;         & ;nbs p;     

rabbit               osaham                usagi         & amp; nbsp;      tokki

lead(Pb)        & ;nbs p; naemool          ; ;     namari               nap

peak(Mountt.)  dal         &am p;nb sp;         &am p;nb sp;  dake         &a mp;n bsp;       bong uri

spring(water)   uh eul         &am p;nb sp;       iri         &am p;nb sp;         &am p;nb sp;  saem

three         & amp; nbsp;     mil         &am p;nb sp;         &am p;nb sp; mi         & ;nbs p;         & ;nbs p; set

five         &a mp;n bsp;       woocha                itsu         &a mp;n bsp;         dasut

seven         & amp; nbsp;    nan eun         &am p;nb sp;    nana         &a mp;n bsp;       ilgob

ten         &am p;nb sp;        deok         &a mp;n bsp;         tou         &am p;nb sp;         yeol

You have to understand that, in ancient times, the Hangul(Korean writing) wasn't invented yet and we recorded everything in Chinese characters using how they sounded like. But Chinese writing is very unphonetic and is not capable of containing the right sound. So the pronounciation might have been distorted a bit, actually a lot. Nevertheless, there are quite a few words that even a non-linguist could view the similarity, of course between the languages of Goguryeo and Japanese. On the other side, it is wise to say that among the above words , there is absolutely no relationship between Korean and Japanese. This can mean either the modern Korean has changed while Japanese didn't. Or, that the modern Korean derived its words from a different source, other than from Goguryeo.

However consider the next set of words.

English          ; ;           ;           ; Korean                               Japanese

to roll         &a mp;n bsp;         &a mp;n bsp;         &a mp;n bsp;  guru (da)         &a mp;n bsp;         &a mp;n bsp;    goro (bu)

to be parallel        & ;nbs p;         & ;nbs p;  naran (hada)                    nara (bu)

to shut one's mouth         & amp; nbsp; damool (da)         &a mp;n bsp;         &a mp;n bsp; dama (ru)

to believe          ; ;           ; ;       mit      (da)         &a mp;n bsp;         &a mp;n bsp;  mito (mu)

glaring          ; ;           ; ;           ; ; busi (da)         &a mp;n bsp;         &a mp;n bsp;      bushi (i)

whisper          ; ;           ; ;         sok sak (ida)         & amp; nbsp;          sasayak (u)

words between ( ) are suffixes. outside ( ) are root words. But im not sure with the Japanese ones. Please correct me. But i think theyre quite right. we are going for the roots anyways. you might wonder why i didnt just put roots only but, you have to understand in agglutinative languages, roots alone can not make a word. so in dictionaries it would always accompany the basic regular suffix.

Speaking of suffixes, some Korean and Japanese have the exact same suffixes. Like "e = to, in", "ka = used in the end of questions", "da =  be, do (in the way that it shows existence and action. but i would say they dont really have a meaning. theyre just positive assertion)"

Also the accent of Modern Japanese sounds so much like the accent of Gyeongsang Province dialect of Southeastern Korea.

In fact, history supports all this. Many scholars believe that modern Japanese people are a mixture of two groups. The Jomons and the Yayoi people. The Jomons are the indigenous people. Nobody knows where they are from but most likely it would be somewhere Southeast Asia. The Yayois are also called Doraijin(= people who arrived(?)) because they appeared suddenly out of nowhere in the Japanese history and became the dominant power. Geographically there is a high possibility that they must have came from Korean Peninsula. Or you can just look at a Korean and a Japanese because they don't look so different. Even few Japanese archaeologists say that the Yayois are from Korea. Even if all this isn't true. The Korean Peninsula was major cultural influence for Ancient Japan, which must also have influenced the language.

3. The Korean language is often times considered(even by Koreans themselves) to be related to Tungusic branch, and belongs in the Altaic languages. (Tungusic languages are spoken throughout Manchuria, Russian Manchuria, East Siberia). This was first proposed by the Finnish linguist Ramstedt, who is probably the most renowned linguist for Altaic languages. However he later stated that we can't just simply put Korean in the Altaic languages and also that Korean language is a very mysterious language that needs further research. (1950)

The next linguist who studied Korean even deeper was Poppe in 1960. He stated that even if the Korean-Altaic relationship is unclear, it is definite that Altaic languages are the *substratum of Korean language. He set out 3 possibilities: 1) Korean and Altaic maybe intimate languages. 2) Ancient Korean might have diverged long before the Altaic unity existed. This means that Korean and the Altaic languages have common parent language. The time of Korean divergence is expected to be very early considering the irrevelance of the two languages. 3) Altaic is the only substratum of Korean. The Original Korean was non-Altaic. But either it absorbed Altaic, or built itself on top of Altaic language.

*Substratum = When a different group invades one group and invaders become dominant, the language of the invaders also becomes dominant however the indigenous language affects the new language. This influence is substratum. 

By now, you probably have noticed that the origin of Korean language is very much screwed upThen let's compare Korean with other Altaic languages.

English          ; ;           ;  Korean                Mongolian        &am p;nb sp;        Turkish

father                        abi      &am p;nb sp;         &am p;nb sp;     aba         &am p;nb sp;         &am p;nb sp;      abai

mother                       uhmi         &a mp;n bsp;        eme         &am p;nb sp;         &am p;nb sp;      eme

down         &a mp;n bsp;         &a mp;n bsp;   arae         &a mp;n bsp;         alla         &a mp;n bsp;         &a mp;n bsp;       alt 

water         & amp; nbsp;         & amp; nbsp;  mool      &am p;nb sp;         &am p;nb sp;  moouh         & amp; nbsp;         & amp; nbsp;  moo-

with         &a mp;n bsp;         &a mp;n bsp;    irang         & amp; nbsp;         irada         & amp; nbsp;         & amp; nbsp;    iru

string                        sil         &am p;nb sp;         &am p;nb sp;   sirkek                        siren

five         &a mp;n bsp;                dasut         & amp; nbsp;        tat         &am p;nb sp;         &am p;nb sp;       dash

ten         &am p;nb sp;                yeol  ;           ;           ;  ;           ;           ;         ol

Although some words are similar, there are more different words than similar words. Korean isn't relevant enough to be put in Altaic family.

Was Altaic Korean's only influence? no. Surprisingly some of Korean words have derived from Dravidian language, not Altaic.

English          ; ;           ;           ; Korean                        Dravidian

rice         &a mp;n bsp;         &a mp;n bsp;         &a mp;n bsp;     ssal   & ;nbs p;         & ;nbs p;         & ;nbs p;   mssal

grain of rice         &a mp;n bsp;         &a mp;n bsp;   byeo         &a mp;n bsp;         &a mp;n bsp;     biya

egg         &am p;nb sp;         &am p;nb sp;         &am p;nb sp;     al         & ;nbs p;         & ;nbs p;         ari

seed         &a mp;n bsp;         &a mp;n bsp;         &a mp;n bsp;   ssi       ; ;           ; ;           ; ;  bicci

grass         & amp; nbsp;         & amp; nbsp;         & amp; nbsp;  pool         &a mp;n bsp;         &a mp;n bsp;      bool

ear         &am p;nb sp;         &am p;nb sp;         &am p;nb sp;     gwi         &am p;nb sp;         &am p;nb sp;       gibi

body         &a mp;n bsp;         &a mp;n bsp;         &a mp;n bsp;   mom         &am p;nb sp;         &am p;nb sp;    mei

rain         &a mp;n bsp;         &a mp;n bsp;         &a mp;n bsp;     bi         & ;nbs p;         & ;nbs p;        pei

Notice all these words are related to farming. This must be, because rice cultivation originated from India and spread northeast.

It is said that genetically Koreans are 80~90% Northern, like Altais in Mongolia, Siberia, and 10~20% Southern, maybe Southern China and Southeast Asia, Pacific. So maybe Korean also has Southeastern influence.

So overall, Korean is not a language isolate in the way that it is totally isolated from all other languages, but it is a language isolate in the way that it cannot be put in any language group and has various influences.

And for Japanese, errrrrrrr, it might be in a similar situation or more complicated since they have more Southeast Asian influences. I dont know but if you go to http://www.ethnologue.com Japanese is considered already as one language family, while Korean is still under isolated languages.

Languages of New Guinea and many of Native Americans are also considered language isolates. But I personally think all of them must have some ancestors and influences, within the premise that mankind have originated from a common acestor.

Sources: KBS, Kangwon University