On languages
Apr. 7th, 2004 05:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tarigwaemirAd Mundo Exteriore,
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linguaphiles makes my day. Where else can you read through a discussion on the etymology for the word "tea"?
On the other hand, some other communities have frequent posters who "lol" and fail to use proper capitalization and spelling far too often. And I mean...a Mary Sue RPG? >_< My tolerance has limits, you know. I'm sure![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
tryogeru knows what I'm talking about.
Have discovered that I have full-text access to many philosophical and literary works, as well as the letters of Austen, Calvin, Dickens, Pope and others. Oh, and the original French Oeuvres Complètes of Descartes (he of the fourteen-line sentence fame). If my voice wasn't hoarse from practice this afternoon, I'd squeal. Oh, and all the writings of Chesterton! ::gleeful cackling::
So for today's encyclopedia musings, the Britannica says that while Korean and Japanese are popularly considered distant members of the Altaic language family, the connection hasn't been firmly established: "Attempts have been made to demonstrate wider genetic connections of the Altaic languages, but none has been entirely successful. There are structural similarities and some commonalities of vocabulary between the Altaic and the Uralic languages, as well as between Altaic, Korean, and Japanese. On the basis of proposed sound correspondences, the hypothesis of a genetic relationship between Altaic and Korean is regarded by some scholars as proved, but, while most scholars view the relationship as worthy of further investigation, it has not as yet won universal acceptance. The hypothesis that Japanese is genetically related to Altaic has its adherents but is generally considered to be highly speculative."
I was just discussing this yesterday with, yes, one of the seniors in kendo. He takes Japanese and was arguing that despite the grammatical similarities between Korean and Japanese (which are surprisingly close, apparently), the cause may be more geographical than genetic. I personally think the Altaic connection makes a lot of sense because anthropologically speaking, the Neolithic farmers who settled the Korean peninsula were probably a branch of the ancestors of the current Mongolians (ethnically distinct, by the way, from the Chinese Han), and then a few of those crossed over to Japan (and presumably intermarried somewhat with the Ainu tribes). So if you trace back the migrations, it would make sense that Korean and Japanese are related, in a very distorted way, to Mongolian and Manchu languages. I also don't quite buy the geographical argument because Korea interacted much more with China--which has pretty much been involved in Korean politics since the very first Ko Choseon period--and Chinese grammar could not be more different from Korean. Furthermore, I gather that the Altaic languages are agglutinative, which is also characteristic of Korean, and I think, Japanese as well.
Vocabulary-wise however, the similarities between Korean and Japanese are pretty superficial. The words that sound alike are usually the ones borrowed from Chinese. I would imagine the vernacular words are completely different. I mean, for one, verbs tend to have vernacular roots, while nouns have Chinese roots, in Korean (again, don't know if that applies to Japanese, but from my limited exposure, I think it's not such a bad generalization), and Japanese verbs don't sound anything like Korean verbs. The syntactical structure, on the other hand, seems rather similar--verbs at the end, usage of particles for inflection, and oh yes, the never-ending stream of suffixes...
Still, both Korean and Japanese are kind of orphans, linguistically speaking, so I personally like the idea of them being some sort of long-lost children of the Altaic family who grew up on the streets on their own and retained very little of the original family character. Yay, metaphor. Must go to dinner now, though, so farewell, my poor correspondents.
...Tari
linguaphiles makes my day. Where else can you read through a discussion on the etymology for the word "tea"?On the other hand, some other communities have frequent posters who "lol" and fail to use proper capitalization and spelling far too often. And I mean...a Mary Sue RPG? >_< My tolerance has limits, you know. I'm sure
tryogeru knows what I'm talking about.Have discovered that I have full-text access to many philosophical and literary works, as well as the letters of Austen, Calvin, Dickens, Pope and others. Oh, and the original French Oeuvres Complètes of Descartes (he of the fourteen-line sentence fame). If my voice wasn't hoarse from practice this afternoon, I'd squeal. Oh, and all the writings of Chesterton! ::gleeful cackling::
So for today's encyclopedia musings, the Britannica says that while Korean and Japanese are popularly considered distant members of the Altaic language family, the connection hasn't been firmly established: "Attempts have been made to demonstrate wider genetic connections of the Altaic languages, but none has been entirely successful. There are structural similarities and some commonalities of vocabulary between the Altaic and the Uralic languages, as well as between Altaic, Korean, and Japanese. On the basis of proposed sound correspondences, the hypothesis of a genetic relationship between Altaic and Korean is regarded by some scholars as proved, but, while most scholars view the relationship as worthy of further investigation, it has not as yet won universal acceptance. The hypothesis that Japanese is genetically related to Altaic has its adherents but is generally considered to be highly speculative."
I was just discussing this yesterday with, yes, one of the seniors in kendo. He takes Japanese and was arguing that despite the grammatical similarities between Korean and Japanese (which are surprisingly close, apparently), the cause may be more geographical than genetic. I personally think the Altaic connection makes a lot of sense because anthropologically speaking, the Neolithic farmers who settled the Korean peninsula were probably a branch of the ancestors of the current Mongolians (ethnically distinct, by the way, from the Chinese Han), and then a few of those crossed over to Japan (and presumably intermarried somewhat with the Ainu tribes). So if you trace back the migrations, it would make sense that Korean and Japanese are related, in a very distorted way, to Mongolian and Manchu languages. I also don't quite buy the geographical argument because Korea interacted much more with China--which has pretty much been involved in Korean politics since the very first Ko Choseon period--and Chinese grammar could not be more different from Korean. Furthermore, I gather that the Altaic languages are agglutinative, which is also characteristic of Korean, and I think, Japanese as well.
Vocabulary-wise however, the similarities between Korean and Japanese are pretty superficial. The words that sound alike are usually the ones borrowed from Chinese. I would imagine the vernacular words are completely different. I mean, for one, verbs tend to have vernacular roots, while nouns have Chinese roots, in Korean (again, don't know if that applies to Japanese, but from my limited exposure, I think it's not such a bad generalization), and Japanese verbs don't sound anything like Korean verbs. The syntactical structure, on the other hand, seems rather similar--verbs at the end, usage of particles for inflection, and oh yes, the never-ending stream of suffixes...
Still, both Korean and Japanese are kind of orphans, linguistically speaking, so I personally like the idea of them being some sort of long-lost children of the Altaic family who grew up on the streets on their own and retained very little of the original family character. Yay, metaphor. Must go to dinner now, though, so farewell, my poor correspondents.
...Tari
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(no subject)
Date: 2004-04-07 04:32 pm (UTC)(^_^)
You should see the horrible fics that I've found while searching through ff.net. I mean, I know I shouldn't, because I'm just asking for head agony, but I had exhausted elsewhere.
Oh, btw. There's Dynasty Warriors fics on there. Hee! Not quite RotK (hey, same acronym as for LotR:RotK), because they're off the game, after all, but eh.
I mean, these people have no shame. Really. None. Mary Sues, and ones that the author (a 13 year old girl probably) is pretty possesive about how Amystheque is her creation, as if anyone wants her. UGg. And the grammar/spelling/punctuation/format/HORRIBLE JAPANESE!!!
Actually, I see a lot of bad internet fangirl Japanese in Tenipuri fics. Koi means fish! Koibito means lover, but you wouldn't call them that. It's like calling your...lover..."Hey, love partner" >_<#
O.o
(no subject)
Date: 2004-04-07 06:17 pm (UTC)As for fangirl Japanese, ick. It breaks the flow of the writing so much. Luckily I know so little Japanese to begin with that I don't use it unless I'm talking to you or in a really really bizarre mood when I'm writing. >_>;;
And thanks for the Dynasty Warriors fanart link! ::goes to swoon over Three Kingdoms characters:: ^_^;;
...Tari
(no subject)
Date: 2004-04-07 09:54 pm (UTC)Don't worry, there were other people who said the same thing, and you weren't like targeting her or anything.
Besides, she had to post twice about withdrawing from the fandom, which stinks of fishing for pity.
O.o
(no subject)
Date: 2004-04-07 04:47 pm (UTC)http://www.yueying.net/dw/index.php?pid=links.fanart
Hee.
O.o
(no subject)
Date: 2004-04-08 03:00 pm (UTC)O.o