| Comparing Korean and Japanese - which are the original roots? |
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Posted by: Petter on Aug. 7, 2017, 12:13
Hi! Good work on this site! It's very interesting to see. I would just like to point at some inconsistencies in the comparison between Japanese and
Korean. I understand that the words are the same in each comparison, but looking at these two makes the points clearer, I think.
"namae" (name) gets a match with korean "ireum", but "mae" in "namae" is a suffix, it is the "na" that means "name" The Japanese word for tooth chosen is the native "ha", but in korean the sino-korean word "sikseong" is used, and not the also commonly encountered native "i". In Japanese, the sino-japanese word "ni" is chosen, while in Korean, the native "tul" is chosen. Why not use the native Japanese futa(tsu)? For "you", several forms are listed in Japanese, while for "I", only one form is listed. Also, the Korean transliteration seems to be off at some places: You write "son" and "sikseong", but also hyo (should be hyeo), and "no" (should be neo). You also write pam, kwi, but it should be "ko"(k'o) and baram (param) (or you could write: bam, gwi, ko, baram). tchugum -> chugeum or jugeum. (Although most literature on Korean linguistics uses a different transcription system altogether). Ideally when comparing these two, Middle Korean and Old Japanese should be used, of course, but the result is usually not much better than what your site gives! Sincerely, Petter |
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Posted by: Vincent on Aug. 10, 2017, 14:49
Hello Petter,
Thank you very much for your remarks. I will correct this asap. I am really grateful to become such qualified Information. It is difficult to chose the right roots when you are not a specialist and it is also crucial to exclude any root which results from borrowing. I have chosen These 18 words among other criteria for their resistance to borrowing, but as I have to confess, Chinese seems to have been a frequent source of borrowing even for core vocabulary in many Asian languages - this to an even bigger extend than Arabic in Africa and in the middle east, where core vocabulary (apart from numbers) is seldom impacted. I will send you an other mail when I make the update. As you say, unfortunately, it is not to expect that it will bring Korean and Japanese closer to each other in this System - their possible relatedness - if valid - is too far to be recognized from this small amount of core vocabulary alone. Here the Korean to Japanese language comparison Thanks again! |
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Posted by: Petter on Aug. 13, 2017, 14:09
Thank you for your reply! It is indeed very difficult! Yes, Chinese has had a profound influence of East Asia, and some times one has to look at quite obscure words to find potential candidates.
If you would like me to elaborate on any of the points, just let me know.
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