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Isolated Languages... do you believe ther
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Posts: 105 		  Quote phoenix_bladen Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Topic: Isolated Languages... do you believe ther
    Posted: 07-Mar-2005 at 14:09

Japanese and Korean are considered isolated languages.....

 

do you believe that no matter what language it is or how isolated and unrelated it can be .... a language dervied from another ancestoral language?  Or do you believe that isolated languages are just languages formed on its own with no connections?
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Posts: 2187 		  Quote Gubook Janggoon Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 07-Mar-2005 at 18:59
Isn't there proof for some sort of great Mother Language?

Like that's the reason why Father, and mother tend to sound the same in all languages?

For Korean and Japanese, I tend to believe that their a grand mix of many different Language groups and that's why they're so darn screwed up.
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Posts: 1066 		  Quote coolstorm Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 07-Mar-2005 at 19:27

well, except for japanese, mother and father kinda sound the same in all languages.

in chinese or cantonese, it sounds like ba ba (father), ma ma (mother).

i know in german, father also sounds like Pa Pa cause i just watched a german movie.

and why's that? why mother and father sound similar in most languages?
���DZj�~�� ��������
�� �� �C �q �D �� �� �� �� �T �� �� �g �A �� �� �� �� �� �U �N �� ��
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Posts: 6003 		  Quote Cywr Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 07-Mar-2005 at 20:14
Aren't Japanese and Korean both Altaic?
Arrrgh!!"
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Posts: 2187 		  Quote Gubook Janggoon Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 07-Mar-2005 at 21:06
Originally posted by Cywr

Aren't Japanese and Korean both Altaic?


It's one of the many theories..

None of which are accepted internationally by everyone...
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Posts: 28 		  Quote lastbout Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 07-Mar-2005 at 21:09
Japanese and Korean grew greatly out of Chinese, right?
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Posts: 2187 		  Quote Gubook Janggoon Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 07-Mar-2005 at 21:14
Originally posted by lastbout

Japanese and Korean grew greatly out of Chinese, right?


Depends on what you mean...

They didn't grow from Chinese, but borrowed heavily from it.  There's a difference.

Both Languages started out as totally different from Chinese, both still are totally different from Chinese in terms of Grammar and ect..

The two aspect in which Korean and Japanese did borrow heavily were from the catagories of Vocabulary and Written script.  That's about it. 

So no, Japanese and Korean did not grow out of Chinese, as say a dialect would...but they did borrow heavily from it.
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Posts: 287 		  Quote Teup Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 08-Mar-2005 at 16:32
In the linguistic community, real 'language isolation' (id est multiple centuries) is believed nonexistent.
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  Quote Guests Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 10-Mar-2005 at 02:38

Father:"pa","ba"(fa-ther?) or something like that in many languages, but finnish it's "is" or "isi"

Mother: "ma" or something like that in many languages, but finnish it's "iti"

Anyway, Finnish is probably not considered an isolated language, as fenno-ugric languages are its relatives, and there are quite few of them still alive (finnish,estonian,karelian,hungarian and many more near Urals)



Edited by Suurkuningas
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Posts: 287 		  Quote Teup Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 10-Mar-2005 at 12:50

Originally posted by Suurkuningas

Anyway, Finnish is probably not considered an isolated language, as fenno-ugric languages are its relatives, and there are quite few of them still alive (finnish,estonian,karelian,hungarian and many more near Urals)

It's not a matter of having relatives, it's a matter of being influenced by other languages (whether related or not), but yeah, it's not an isolated language as it has borrowed from several other language branches, and is said to have adopted a subject verb object word order analogous to some indo-european languages like Swedish. I also thought that when the Finnish writing was invented by Agricola, it was partly based on Swedish. Anyway, it's not nearly an isolated language

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Posts: 204 		  Quote Kuu-ukko Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 11-Mar-2005 at 02:08
Actually in Finnish iti is a germanic loanword, from *eithi. The indigenous name for "mother" in Finnish is "em", still used in words like emo (means mother generally in the animal knigdom), emtin (means vagina).

Yup Teup, the original word order in proto-Finnish was subject-object-word, but in Finnish it isn't important, since the word order is fairly free in Finnish. And yes, the earliest written Finnish was influenced heavily by Swedish, but also German and Latin, right until to the 19th century.

coolstorm, the reason why nearly everywhere the words for mother and father are like "mama" and "papa" (like Finnish em), is thought to be because they are easy for little children say and remember.

Edited by Kuu-ukko
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  Quote Guests Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 11-Mar-2005 at 07:38

Originally posted by Kuu-ukko

Actually in Finnish iti is a germanic loanword, from *eithi.

Of course, didn't think that too long, as I wrote that while I had IT-lesson...

And I knew about the fact that Finnish has been influenced, quite much actually, by German, Swedish and Russian, and I started thinking: how fiinish has been influenced by German, as nowadays they're far from each other. Because of trade of course, but they've must've closer to each other sometime in the history. Then I found a web-page, where one guy claimed that (some) Finns have lived as far in west as Poland. And I knew that Germans (ok, again probably) have lived farer in the east than they nowadays do. So, if someone knows more about this I would be eager to learn more, thanks already!

And if this is considered to start an new threat, moderators can move this!



Edited by Suurkuningas
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Posts: 2810 		  Quote Styrbiorn Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 11-Mar-2005 at 11:24
Swedish borrowed heavily from German in the later Medieval Age and up to the 17th century, so it wouldn't be too unimaginable to think Finnish borrowed as well during the same period. I don't think it has anything to do with earlier contacts at all.
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  Quote Guests Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 17-Mar-2005 at 21:25
If the cross-linguistic similarity between various words for "mother" and "father" was due to genetic relationship, then there'd be little or no linguistic diversity at all -- had they all been derived from one 'Mother Tongue' etymon, they would have diverged far too much to have any noticeable similarity at all. But it's not because of genetic relationship, it's because of phonaesthesia. Like Kuu-okko said.

Originally posted by Teup

In the linguistic community, real 'language isolation' (id est multiple centuries) is believed nonexistent.

Just what do you mean by that? The only sense I can get is that no language can survive with no living relatives for more than several centuries, but that makes no sense. How many relatives a language has has little effect on the language's longevity. Just look at Basque.
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Posts: 0 		  Quote Tlaloc Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 17-Mar-2005 at 23:10
According to F.W Mote's 'Imperial China: 900-1800", pg. 34 concerning the Japanese language

"The Tungusic division of the Altaic family of languages includes Jurchen, the later Manchu language, and other remnants of what historically have been large and sometime powerful tribal confederations originating in the easternmost part of Inner Asia. The languages of the Bohai, the Koreans and, according some scholars, even the Japanese belong to the Tungusic wing of the Altaic family. [...]"

Unfortunately it doesn't go further into the subject. Perhaps one needs to dig deeper into the subject, eh? If not Tungusic, which invalidates Japan's closest asian neighbour of Korea, what other possibilities are there?
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Posts: 287 		  Quote Teup Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 20-Mar-2005 at 09:22

Originally posted by Cevlakohn


Just what do you mean by that? The only sense I can get is that no language can survive with no living relatives for more than several centuries, but that makes no sense.

No that's indeed not what I meant; it makes no sense to think a language has no influence at all from any other language. All languages are influenced by other languages. Again; don't confuse relatives with contact. Contact can happen between any language, the relative concept is irrelevant.



Edited by Teup
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  Quote Guests Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 24-Mar-2005 at 09:00

1.

Originally posted by lastbout

Japanese and Korean grew greatly out of Chinese, right?

       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*______Japanese___________Korean

valley_________tan_______________tani_______________goljjagi

rabbit_________osaham___________usagi______________tokki

lead(Pb)_______naemool__________namari_____________nap

peak(of Mt.)____dal______________dake_______________bong uri

spring(water)___uh eul____________iri_________________saem

three__________mil______________mi_________________set

five___________woocha__________itsu_________________dasut

seven_________naneun__________nana________________ilgob

ten___________deok_____________tou_________________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___________________guru (da)______________goro (bu)

to be parallel_____________naran (hada)___________nara (bu)

to shut one's mouth________damool (da)___________dama (ru)

to believe________________mit (da)_______________mito (mu)

glaring___________________busi (da)______________bushi (i)

to whisper________________sok sak (ida)___________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)", and "ga = am, are, is, possitive assertion of an action that comes after noun in the sentence"

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_________Turkish

father___________abi______________ aba________________ abai

mother__________uhmi_____________eme________________eme

down____________arae_____________alla________________ alt 

water___________ mool_____________moo-uh_____________moo-

with_____________irang____________ irada_______________ iru

string___________ sil_______________sirkek______________ siren

five_____________dasut____________ tat_________________ dash

ten_____________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__________________ ssal_______________________mssal

grain of rice____________byeo______________________biya

egg___________________al________________________ ari

seed__________________ssi________________________bicci

grass_________________ pool______________________ bool

ear___________________ gwi_______________________gibi

body__________________ mom_____________________ mei

rain___________________bi_________________________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



Edited by jamesse
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  Quote Guests Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 24-Mar-2005 at 19:51
Originally posted by Teup

Originally posted by Cevlakohn

Just what do you mean by that? The only sense I can get is that no language can survive with no living relatives for more than several centuries, but that makes no sense.


No that's indeed not what I meant; it makes no sense to think a language has no influence at all from any other language. All languages are influenced by other languages. Again; don't confuse relatives with contact. Contact can happen between any language, the relative concept is irrelevant.




Ah, I see what you mean now, but it's still puzzling. Of course languages like to borrow from prestige languages and lingua francas, but that doesn't eliminate their "isolate" status. A language is isolate if it has no known genetic relatives, vocabulary notwithstanding. Only when languages borrow *heavily* from neighboring languages (i.e. much more than English has from Romance languages) do linguists reconsider their contemporary identity, if not forgetting its phylogenic origin.

Edited by Cevlakohn
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Posts: 1066 		  Quote coolstorm Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 26-Mar-2005 at 01:47
Originally posted by jamesse

1.

Originally posted by lastbout

Japanese and Korean grew greatly out of Chinese, right?

       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

different chinese dialects sound differently.

for school, it sounds like "hor hau" in cantonese...
���DZj�~�� ��������
�� �� �C �q �D �� �� �� �� �T �� �� �g �A �� �� �� �� �� �U �N �� ��
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Gubook Janggoon View Drop Down
Sultan
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Posts: 2187 		  Quote Gubook Janggoon Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 26-Mar-2005 at 02:22
Great post Jamesse!

One thing I'd like to point out...

They think Modern Korean evolved from the language of Shilla which in turn evolved from the language of the Samhan.  The language of the Samhan, IIRC was different from that of Buyeo, Goguryeo, and Baekje..
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