Lexical Evidence Relating Korean to Japanese

Abstract

1. Linguistic relationships in Northern Asia have been the subject of speculation and controversy for many years. This paper attempts to provide evidence to help prove the relationship of Korean to Japanese; peripheral attention is paid to the other languages spoken across the vast territory that stretches from the Bosporus to Kamchatka.' The relationship of the Altaic group of languages-the three families called Turkic, Tungusic (or Tungus-Manchu), and Mongolian-is widely accepted today, although the evidence has not been marshalled as convincingly as some of us might wish. 'Hyperborean' or 'Paleosiberian' is a term of convenience to refer to some Siberian languages of undetermined lineage; these include the Chukotan group (Chukchi or Luoravetlan, Koryak or Nymylan, and near-extinct Kamchadal), Ainu, and Gilyak (or Nivkh). In addition to Korean (K), Middle Korean (MK), Japanese (J), and Old Japanese (OJ), forms are cited in this paper from Turkish (Tk.); Lamut (L), a Tungusic language also called Even; Dagur (D) Mongolian, as well as Khalkha (the standard language of Outer Mongolia); Ainu (A); and Gilyak (G). There are a very few citations from Kamchadal and Koryak, and an occasional item from Hungarian or Finnish as representatives of the Uralic family, which some scholars believe related to the Altaic languages in a Ural-Altaic family or 'superstock'. The obvious close relationship of the languages of the Ryukyu Islands to standard Japanese has been well established for years, and by proto-Japanese I refer to the ancestor of both Ryukyu and 'Main Islands' Japanese, assuming that it was the speech of the people of what is called (after the name of an archeological site) the Yayoi culture, thought to be responsible for bringing rice farming to the islands about two thousand years ago. Each of the languages of Northern Asia shares certain structural features with Japanese and Korean. The vocabulary typically falls into two major word classes, NOUNS and VERBS (including predicative adjectives), with a smaller class of PARTICLES and/or ENDINGS tacked on the ends of nouns and verbs to specify syntactic and other relationships. Primary adnouns and adverbs are few, since most adnominal and adverbial elements are regularly derived from nominal and verbal phrases. Korean and Japanese are especially similar in syntax, and it is