Japonic languages

Japonic
Geographic
distribution		 Japan
Linguistic classification One of the world's primary language families
Subdivisions
ISO 639-5 jpx
Glottolog japo1237[1]

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The Japonic languages

The Japonic language family includes the Japanese language spoken on the main islands of Japan as well as the Ryukyuan languages spoken in the Ryukyu Islands. The family is widely accepted by linguists, and the term "Japonic languages" was coined by Leon Serafim.[2] The common ancestral language is known as Proto-Japonic.[3] The essential feature of this classification is that the first split in the family resulted in the separation of all dialects of Japanese from all varieties of Ryukyuan. According to Shiro Hattori, this separation occurred during the Yamato period (250–710).[4]

Scholarly discussions about the origin of Japonic languages present an unresolved set of related issues.[5] The clearest connections seem to be with toponyms in today's southern Korea, which may be from the ancient isolated Gaya language (Kara) or other scarcely attested languages.[6]

Members

The Japonic (or Japanese–Ryukyuan) languages are:

Beckwith includes toponymic material from southern Korea as evidence of an additional ancient Japonic language there:[7]

It is not clear if "pre-Kara" was related to the language of the later Gaya (Kara) confederacy.

Classification

The relationship of the Japonic (or Japanese–Ryukyuan) languages to other languages and language families is controversial. There are numerous hypotheses, none of which is generally accepted. Japonic is classified as an isolated language family[8] and shows in its proto-form strong similarities to Southeast Asian languages.[9]

A 2015 analysis using the Automated Similarity Judgment Program resulted in the Japonic languages being grouped with the Ainu and then with the Austroasiatic languages.[10] However the similarity of Japonic languages and Ainu languages was also due to the fact that analytic grammatical constructions acquired or transformed in Ainu were properly due to contact with the Japanese and the languages of Japonic had heavy influence on the Ainu languages with large number of loanwords borrowed in the Ainu languages or vice versa.[11]

Notes

  1. ↑ Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin; Bank, Sebastian, eds. (2016). "Japonic". Glottolog 2.7. Jena: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
  2. ↑ Shimabukuro, Moriyo. (2007). The Accentual History of the Japanese and Ryukyuan Languages: a Reconstruction, p. 1.
  3. ↑ Miyake, Marc Hideo. (2008). Old Japanese: a Phonetic Reconstruction. p. 66., p. 66, at Google Books
  4. ↑ Heinrich, Patrick. "What leaves a mark should no longer stain: Progressive erasure and reversing language shift activities in the Ryukyu Islands," First International Small Island Cultures Conference at Kagoshima University, Centre for the Pacific Islands, February 7–10, 2005; citing Shiro Hattori. (1954) Gengo nendaigaku sunawachi goi tokeigaku no hoho ni tsuite ("Concerning the Method of Glottochronology and Lexicostatistics"), Gengo kenkyu (Journal of the Linguistic Society of Japan), Vols. 26/27.
  5. ↑ Blench, Roger M. (2008). Archaeology and language, Vol. 2, p. 201., p. 201, at Google Books
  6. ↑ Christopher I. Beckwith, Empires of the Silk Road: A History of Central Eurasia from the Bronze Age to the Present (Princeton University Press, 2009: ISBN 978-0-691-13589-2), p. 105.
  7. ↑ Christopher Beckwith, 2007, Koguryo, the Language of Japan's Continental Relatives, pp 27–28
  8. ↑ Kindaichi, Haruhiko (2011-12-20). The Japanese Language. Tuttle Publishing. ISBN 9781462902668.
  9. ↑ Alexander, Vovin,. "Proto-Japanese beyond the accent system". Current Issues in Linguistic Theory.
  10. ↑ Gerhard Jäger, "Support for linguistic macrofamilies from weighted sequence alignment." PNAS vol. 112 no. 41, 12752–12757, doi: 10.1073/pnas.1500331112. Published online before print September 24, 2015.
  11. ↑ The Languages of Japan and Korea, edited by Nicolas Tranter

References

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