As with all other languages, the Japanese language can be understood formally as a set of lingusitic characteristics or subjectively as a way of experiencing and ordering the world. However, unlike other languages, Japanese is unique to both linguists and to the people speaking the language. The Japanese by and large believe their language to be a highly unique language—some believe it to be unlike any other language in existence. Western linguists believe that Japanese is a language clearly related to other, Northern Asian languages, but there is a fair amount of disagreement among them. Suffice it to say that Japanese is the only human language where we can't quite decide where it came from or what other languages it's related to.
From the point of view of the Japanese, the experience of this language is based on two, widely held beliefs about the language. First, the Japanese believe that the language is somehow highly unique—almost a language unto itself. Second, the Japanese believe that their language is extremely difficult for non-Japanese to read or understand. In fact, the Japanese have a name for non-Japanese who can speak and understand the language: hen gaijin , or "crazy foreigners." So the "experience" of Japanese as a language is an exclusive experience, a sense that one is participating in a language that no others can share or penetrate.
From a Western perspective, Japanese is not an overly difficult language to learn (Chinese and Old Irish are considerably more difficult) nor is it a unique language. There, however, the agreement ends. For it's uncertain exactly what language family Japanese comes from. There are three main theories about the origin of the Japanese language among both Western and Japanese linguists:
1. Japanese is an Altaic language related to Korean, Mongolian, and Turkish.
2. Japanese is an Austronesian language related to Papuan, Malayan and other Pacific languages.
3. Japanese is a Souteast Asian language related to Vietnamese, Tibetan, Burmese or, in one school of thought, the Tamil languages of southern India and Ceylon.
Almost all linguists believe that Japanese
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Japanese languate is clesely related to Hungarian. As even in such elaborate things like "well", "street" and "village" (and many others) are almost the same, historical linguistics states that the group of proto - hungarian people and group of proto - japanese people had to split in times when there were already villages, man made wells and so on. Finnish language is the next in the group of Ugrofinnish languages.
ReplyDeleteIt looks like hungarians come from east to Europe, and Japanese from west - to their islands. Who knows, perhaps the Scythes who used two swords and who dissapeared thousands years ago would be the forefathers of Japanese.
It is real good mystery, sometimes I like to ponder on it.
thank you for wonderful page.
If you know a little about vietnamese vampires, ghosts, demons and the like, even from folklore, not seen by witnesess just this year, I would be very happy.