What makes Korean and Japanese separate languages?
Many linguists believe that both Korean and Japanese language are isolated languages and they are not related at all.
However, in terms of grammar, syntax and morphology, Korean and Japanese are EXTREMELY similar.
When translating Korean into Japanese (and vice versa), we can simply translate it word by word; just changing on every word.
Therefore, the online translator(machine-translating) works almost perfect even if the text is a news article. (We may get some awkward translations but they all make sense!)
Korean and Japanese are grammatically more similar than English and German. English and German belong to the same language family - Germanic, but Korean and Japanese are not even related.
How can this be possible?
Unrelated languages can be grammatically more similar than the languages that are in the same group.
What makes Korean and Japanese unrelated?
What makes them separate and isolated languages?
Well, you can translate Russian to English word by word and get some excellent translation work. Russian-to-English automatic translations (via Babelfish or another automatic translator) are much more readable than French-to-English or Norwegian-to-English translation...Does that mean Russian is closer to English than Norwegian or French are? No.
If you compare the grammars of Old English and Old High German you would find that they were very similar. They are more different now because the grammars of both languages have simplified but to different extents, which is evident moreso when looking at English.
Are Korean and Japanese classed as language isolates because of a lack of cognates?
The prevailing hypothesis is that the grammatical similarity is a sprachbund effect. Japan and Korea are geographically near each other; therefore, they are likely to develop similarities. That does not mean that one evolved from the other, or that they had a common ancestor.
- Kef
<<The prevailing hypothesis is that the grammatical similarity is a sprachbund effect. Japan and Korea are geographically near each other; therefore, they are likely to develop similarities. That does not mean that one evolved from the other, or that they had a common ancestor.
>>
Due to large-scale migration of Koreans to Japan over the past 2000 years, with Koreans acquiring the Japanese language, the probability of the Korean language, especially its grammar, having a significant impact on Old and Middle Japanese is extrememly high.
Does anyone know whether the syntactical similarity between Korean and Japanese is a relatively recent development, or does the similarity also appear in Old forms of the languages?
"Does that mean Russian is closer to English than Norwegian or French are? No. "
well, french is not close at all to English... at least not more than Russian. why taking it in your exemple?
<<well, french is not close at all to English... at least not more than Russian. why taking it in your exemple? >>
well, in a way it is...
Both English and French are 'Centum' languages within IE, where Russian is 'Satem'
now, there is a lot of similarity between Germanic and Balto-Slavic due to prehistoric proximity of the two groups, but that is not 'genetic'...Italic is still closer to Germanic than Slavic.
<<What makes Korean and Japanese unrelated?
What makes them separate and isolated languages? >>
To return to the original questions:
They are unrelated because they have different assumed origins.
They are "language isolates" because their families are relatively small, and do not show relation to other language families.
<<Korean and Japanese are grammatically more similar than English and German. English and German belong to the same language family - Germanic, but Korean and Japanese are not even related.
>>
English and German are extremes within their family. English:Scots, English:Frisian and Dutch, and English:Scandinavian grammars are not so far off.
Korean and Japanese do not show cognates in the way that, for instance, the Indo-European family shows.
For example:
English: I
Old English: ic
Gothic: ek
Latin: ego
Greek: ego
Sanskrit: aham
Korean: nanun/naega
Japanese: watashi
--Korean:Japanese--no relation
English: father
Latin: pater
Sanskrit: pitr
Korean: aboji
Japanese: otoosan
--Korean:Japanese--no relation
English: one two three four five six seven eight nine ten
Gothic: ainas twai threis fidwor fimf saihs sibun ahtau niun taihun
Latin: unus duo tres quattuor quinque sex septem octo novem decem
Sanskrit: eka dva tri catur pancan sas saptan asta navan dasan
Korean: hana tul ses nes tassos yossos ilgop yodolb ahop yol
Old Japanese: hito huta mi yo itu mu nana ya kokono towo
[need I say it?...hmm, yeah... why not] --Korean:Japanese--no relation!!
<Well, you can translate Russian to English word by word and get some excellent translation work.>
Seriously?
From my understanding, Russian language does not have the verb 'be'(am, are, is) and its word orders(syntax) are quite flexible.
I don't think English-Russian translations can be compared with Korean-Japanese translations.
Russians always have great laugh reading machine translated Russian.
I am John. I like pizza. What is your name? Do you want some food?
Я есть Джон. Я как пицца. Что есть твое имя? Делать вы хотите некоторую пищу?
The opposite way is also very bad.
Menja zovut john. Mne nravitza Pizza. Kak tebja zovut? ty goloden'?
They say they're not related because there aren't native words that would suggest they share a common "root", even if the grammars are similar. That's all.
have a look at
http://www.translationdirectory.com/article527.htm
Be aware that most people with a view on this question do not know either language well, if at all, and this really matters as the ground rules are so different for Asian languages. The stuff online generally repeats the established views of a tiny number of academics who are qualified to comment, or is just speculation. It is astonishingly hard to get good info in everyday language on this fascinating topic, even in Japanese or Korean. The above link is detailed, full of under-the-bonnet examples, but non-academic in approach.
To add to and correct some of the comments here--Japanese and Korean do have strikingly similar grammars (striking as in far beyond the sprachbund effect), and they do have many candidate cognates, though these are usually impossible to prove due to the absence of a proto language like IE to compare with. Proposed links with Polynesian and Tamil Hawaiian etc are just so much codswollop, IMHO. The only languages Japanese and Korean resemble in any meaningful way are each other.