Today I
would like to speak of languages of Japan
Here are
maps which represent the history of spread of different languages of Japan:
well
First
language spoken pon Japanese islands was Ainu (here I use term Ainu just as a
convenient short term to denote Ainu stock in general; as well are “Korean” and
“Austronesian”).
why they decided
that language of Jomon was of Ainu stock? As I said in previous talks there are
firm proves of the fact that Jomon people were direct ancestors of Ainu:
anthropological
similarities of contemporary Ainu/Okinawan and Jomon people, Jomon people
existed in almost the same territory where Ainu exist now, many toponyms of
definitely Ainu origin (words consisted of Ainu roots and which can be clear
interpreted through Ainu language) were found there where never lived so called
“historical Ainu”.
When we
find many localities where site of Jomon epoch exist bearing names traceable to
Ainu roots, we can only assume that persons using the same language as the Ainu
were formerly established in such places.
Ainu
language is considered as an isolated by contemporary linguistics. Ainu
language differ radically from neighboor languages: Japanese, Korean, Nivkh,
Itelmen, Chinese, Tungusic languages and Austronesian languages.
Almost all of
Ainu language genetic relationship hypotheses were made with no care of
structure differences of compared languages but just on the base of coincident
similarities of some random lexemes so it is possible to state that research of
Ainu language in connection to its genetic relationship is in the very
beginning.
There are some
hypotheses trace Ainu to some stock of South-East Asia. One of the most
interesting is that of Alexander Vovin. Despite of lack attention paid to the structures of
compared languages and some serious mistakes of general kind his attempt is
very interesting and profound and is worth paid attention to.
By the
comparison lexis of contemporary Ainu dialects he made a reconstruction of so
called Proto-Ainu. Actually it’s not Proto but Upper-Jomon/Late Jomon language.
It was supposedly spoken in late Jomon (about 1000 – 500BC) Well, so he made a
reconstruction of phonology of that language and then compare it with
phonological systems of different SEA stocks: Hmong-Mien, Proto-Austronesian (Austronesian
stock: Polynesian, Micronesian and so on) and Proto-Austroasiatic stock
(Mon-Khmer). And came to the conclusion that phonology system of Proto-Ainu is
very close to that of Proto-Mon-Khmer, i.e. he stated that Ainu and Khmer are
distant relatives.
The main
critical note is that Vovin pays no attention to structural aspects. Ainu
language may be a distant relative of a certain language of a certain SEA
languages but should be shown more serious prooves of it, not only phonological
and lexical similarities. Should be shown structural similarities such as similarity of type of
linear model of word form, similarity of structure of verb paradigm. cause
language is not a heap of lexemes but is first of all a system of structures. So considering any linguistic
question we are to pay most attention to the structure but not to lexis or
phonology.
Each language is first of
all a structure but not just a heap of lexemes.Because of it we have to pay most attention to structures in any linguistic question but especially while we deal with questions of genetic relationship.
What parameters should be the matter of research is a separated question but the fact that structures/grammar is much more important than lexis is the basement.
After the detecting of structural similarities we should of course find material similarities of exponents.
These two points i.e. structural similarities and material similarities of exponents seem to be necessary and enough to make a conclusion about genetic relationship.
Comparison of lexicon can't be proof of genetic relationship of languages. Still Swadesh himself warned against it. Moreover the term of "basic lexicon" is very questionable 'cause the whole of lexicon is culturally determined as it was shown by Hoyer.
When I
tried to make some reconstruction by myself I made some similar conclusion on
Upper Jomon Ainu as Vovin did and I also I concluded that Upper Jomon Ainu
differed much from the contemporary one. I think that structure of ancient Ainu
was quite similar to that of SEA languages: morpheme is equal to a syllable,
auxiliaries could be placed on nuclear position as well.
Here I
would like to show an example of how it possibly could sounds alike:
Nga Res han
I am Tresi
Ta han pe nga
set han
This is is
my house
(actually
these examples a just a kinda conlang made after the facts of
reconstruction: it was made just to show
how it could be while real reconstruction is in process)
But under
the influence of Korean/Old Japanese ancient Ainu got morphology. I guess that Condition of permanent stress
and war cause the necessity of more economy use of speech. i.e.: make sentence
shorter and express more information in the same piece of speech, express it
more exactly, express all important facts in verb stem, thus appeared
morphology and so in modern Ainu we have:
Tres ku=ne
I am Tresi
And
Tampe
ku=cise ne
This is my
house
As it is
seen in maps
Japanese is
a relative of Korean (more exactly a descendant of Old Korean)
They have very similar
structure of sentence
SOV
And very similar structure
of word-form
(p)+( r ) + R + ( s )
Prefixation ain’t developed
well in Japanese as well as in Korean and most meanings are expressed by
suffixation
When we speak of comparison
of language we are to pay most attention to verbal structure cause verb is
spine of any language and in
verbal structures the most interesting and significant are way of expression of
tenses modality and so on. And in the case of Korean and Japanese we see the
following:
Indefinite forms:
Suru – hada – to do
Kuru “to come” – kada – “to
go”
Sumu – salda – to live
Past tense:
Sita - Hetta/haetta –
did/made
Kita – katta – came/went
(left form is Japanese and right is Korean)
(left form is Japanese and right is Korean)
Mul – midu -water
maɯl – mura – village
mwe – yama – mount
nun mul – na-mida - tear
(left is Korean and right is Japanese)
(left is Korean and right is Japanese)
Numerals of Old Japanese (left) and Goguryeo (right)
Mi mit 3
Itu utu 5
Nana nanɯm 7
Towo tok 10
0 件のコメント:
コメントを投稿