Contrasting Korean and Japanese grammar

edo   Fri Oct 12, 2007 5:26 pm GMT
I studied Japanese a number of years ago. There were a lot of Korean kids in the class. I asked one if she could help me learn Korean. She used our Japanese text, translated the dialogues, and recorded them: WORD-FOR-WORD from the Japanese. I don't know about the fine points, but the basic grammar seemed awfully similar.
guest   Fri Oct 12, 2007 5:54 pm GMT
<<Native Korean, can you think of an example offhand where Korean carries a sound between two separate words? >>

Okay, I've had lunch and can think better now...

I know that in compond words (noun + noun; and adjective + noun) the carryover is present as in 'gochhuss garu' (pronounced "gochhukk-garu" {red-pepper paste}) and 'kojiss mal' (pronounced "kojim-mal" {lie, lit. 'false word/saying/speech'}) so yes, it does.
furrykef   Fri Oct 12, 2007 11:28 pm GMT
Hmm, the two languages really are that similar grammatically? That's really odd... right now it sounds to me that Japanese and Korean are more grammatically similar than English and Spanish! Yet, English and Spanish are demonstrably related, if distantly, while Japanese and Korean are not.
Native Korean   Sat Oct 13, 2007 6:18 am GMT
<That's really odd... right now it sounds to me that Japanese and Korean are more grammatically similar than English and Spanish!>

Yes. From my understanding, Korean and Japanese are much more grammatically similar than English and Spanish or even English and German.

<Yet, English and Spanish are demonstrably related, if distantly, while Japanese and Korean are not.>

I thinks this is because both languages' basic words(core vocabulary) are little in common. If the two languages are related, their basic words should sound very similar.
For example, (English/German) I/Ich; come/kommen; house/haus; hand/hand; mother/mutter etc.
(Korean/Japanese) na/watashi; oda/kuru; jib/ie; son/te; eomma/okkasan etc.
Guest   Sat Oct 13, 2007 11:55 am GMT
<<Also, English and other European languages have had about 150 years of modern linguistic study, as well as a few hundred of pseudo-linguistics before that, whereas I suspect Japanese and Korean have had no more than about 50 to 75 (in the Western academic world; I'm not sure about any native linguistic studies).>>

How comes it that your insult people as ''pseudolinguistics'' just because they studied languages before the adventure of modern linguistics, Josh?
furrykef   Sat Oct 13, 2007 1:07 pm GMT
It's not an insult, it's merely the truth. Most of linguistics until fairly recently was not very scientific or rigorous. For example, the word "island' has an "s" in it because it was mistakenly thought it derives from Latin "insula", and somebody thought it'd be a good idea to copy the French and add silent letters that show etymology.

Anyway, the comparative method is the basis of modern linguistics on which much of the rest of it is built, and it wasn't even invented until the 1800s.

- Kef
Guest   Sat Oct 13, 2007 3:59 pm GMT
Even modern linguists can make mistakes or have rather odd ideas. See the discussion of Chomskyism and the Sapir-Whorf thesis. And see the odd things some third class linguists have done to our classical german orthography. And, the other way round, consider the technical terms of linguistics, which often go back to greek grammaticians. A admit, I don't know much about it, but I read that a couple of years ago. There was also a grammatician named Panini who made a famous grammar on Sanskrit several hunderds of years ago.

Why shouldn't it be a good idea to add silent letters to show etymology? Wouldn't it look odd when island would be written differently?

Of course, the comparative methode is important to linguistics, but that should not lead to diminuishing the effort of former scholars.
Guest   Sat Oct 13, 2007 4:56 pm GMT
<<Second, why should the spelling show the etymology? I'm not saying that it shouldn't necessarily, but I see no reason to change a word's spelling, adding silent letters, just to show where it comes from.>>

But obviously, it was accepted by the people. Maybe they felt a need to stuff up the tiny i letter?

<<'Iland' wouldn't look weird if that's how you always saw it.>>

Yes maybe, but then it would be 'iland'. In German, there is also ''Eiland'' for ''Insel'' but it would sound a little odd. Normally, we'd say ''Insel''.

How about the word either? You can pronounce it with i as in ''sing'' or with i as in time, right?

Nowadays, if someone would spent time to figure out what language Adam spoke, then that would bee odd and weird! But at that time, it was ''state of the art''. Other scientists -- or better to say scholars? -- quarraled about how many angles can dance on the top of a needle.
guest   Mon Oct 15, 2007 12:44 pm GMT
Can the similarities in grammar between Korean and Japanese then be thought of a resulting from a kind of Sprachbund? Especially since it is known from history that migration from Korea to Japan was rife in previous centuries?
furrykef   Mon Oct 15, 2007 7:40 pm GMT
<< Can the similarities in grammar between Korean and Japanese then be thought of a resulting from a kind of Sprachbund? >>

That's the prevailing theory, yes. I'm just surprised that a sprachbund could have that great an effect on grammar, especially for languages that are geographically separated by water. Although the distance over the water wasn't insurmountable, interaction still wasn't as simple as walking over an invisible line and saying "hi".

Not to mention that China and Korea are right next to each other -- so such walking over and saying "hi" is perfectly possible -- and yet their grammars are very different.

- Kef
guest   Mon Oct 15, 2007 7:53 pm GMT
<<Not to mention that China and Korea are right next to each other -- so such walking over and saying "hi" is perfectly possible -- and yet their grammars are very different. >>

Well, kinda... *Manchuria* and Korea are right next to each other, not China and Korea. Remember, to us the Han are Chinese.
guest   Mon Oct 15, 2007 7:57 pm GMT
...cont.

not till the Ming and Qing dynasties (recent in terms of Chinese history) did the majority of Manuchuria belong with the rest of China.

I wonder how similar Korean grammar is to Manchu...

anyone know?
Guest   Mon Oct 15, 2007 9:07 pm GMT
To Josh: Where can I buy M Pei's books? Here in Spain I can't find his works in libraries nor in Amazon or local similar sites.
guest   Mon Oct 15, 2007 10:27 pm GMT
I found some examples of the Manchu language in Wikipedia:

1).
bi tere niyalma+i emgi gene+he
I that person+GEN with go+PAST [or >] "I that person's with go-did"
[English: I went with that person ]

In Korean the same sentence would read:
Naneun jeo saramgwa(hamgke) kassda
I that [<that over there/yonder] person-with(together) go-did

2).
tere sargan boo ci tuci+fi, hoton de gene+he
that woman house ABL go.out+PAST.CONVERB, town DAT go+PAST.FINITE [or>] "that woman house-from out-go-did-having, town-to go-did"
[English: That woman, having come out of the house, went to town]

In Korean, this would read:
Jeo yeojaneun, jibul naogi isseoseo, dosie kassda
That woman, house out-coming-have, town-to go-did

Here, the similarity with Korean is blurred somewhat by Manchu's use of the genitive case in example 1).; and also by the Korean verb 'naoda' which means 'to come out of'. This verb causes the object being left, in this case 'the house', to take the accusative of the verb rather than the ablative. Normally, expressions involving 'out of' or 'from' use the particle '-eseo' which would make a literal word for word translation from Manchu seem more plausible.

This demonstrates that Manchu and Korean are very similar in their structures as well. Perhaps older forms of Korean might come even closer since contact with Manchu is less recent than contact with Japanese.

What would these sentences be in Japanese for comparison?
maxiewawa   Wed Oct 31, 2007 9:16 am GMT
In Japanese, "I went with that person (over there)" would be

Ano hito to ikimashita.

The grammar is the same (note:ikimashita is the past form of 'to go'.)

I'm not so sure about the second sentence...

Ano onna, uchi kara dete, machi ni ikimashita.
The English would be closer to "that woman, came out of the house, then went to town."

But the point is that one can directly carry a lot of the grammar from Korean (and Manchurian? I'm undecided!) to Japanese.

The "Chinese" counting system in Korean is actually taken from the Manchurian dialect. I can't elaborate on any other Manchurian influences in Korean, my Korean isn't so good, and don't speak any Manchurian (other than than counting to ten!)

I can say, though, that Korean and Japanese seem very similar. I've only been learning since koreanclass101.com started, but I have to say that many grammar points are almost exactly the same. Many a Korean lesson ends with me saying "oh, so it's just like Japanese, right?"

Chinese (standard Chinese) has been helpful in learning Korean. Not as much as Japanese though!