Re: [tied] Japanese as a creole language?

The key is vowel harmony, which first was a "contra" as modern standard Japanese has a 5 vowel suit and now, when it has been proved that ancient Japanese had an eight vowel suit it has become a "pro", together with vowel lenght, lack of gender, agglutination, etc.

----- Original Message -----

From: Glen Gordon

To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com

Sent: Tuesday, March 25, 2003 2:41 PM

Subject: Re: [tied] Japanese as a creole language?

>That's why I like you, Glen. You're an irreverent S.O.B. :-) Damn right. Now lick my boots. >In any case, if Japanese is not 100% proven to have anything to do with the >Altaic language family, Clarification. Japanese may or may not be related to the rest of Altaic depending one what your criteria on relationship happens to be. However regardless, it most certainly has something "to do with the Altaic language family" because of transparently Altaic words in Japanese vocabulary. Japanese can be said to be at least **partly** Altaic, even if it isn't an "Altaic" language per se. There is a sizeable enough vocabulary in Japanese that is, without doubt, connectable to other Altaic languages. However, the issue is whether they are merely loans from prehistoric contact, or whether Japanese honestly inherited them directly from the proto-language. Personally, I suspect that part of the reason why there is this issue of classification at all is because Proto-Altaic might have been spread out over a very large area amongst a group of very nomadic people with dialects smoothly graduating from west to east like a spectrum of light. Long term areal contact and only partial absorption of neighbouring dialects would result in a not-so-easily classifiable family of languages. Imagine if a language split up and then remerged many times over a couple thousand years -- Get your head around THAT, I tell ya! >Or, are you saying, that the positioning/classification of (Proto-) >Japanese doesn't factor into said reconstruction? Yes. - gLeN _________________________________________________________________ Protect your PC - get McAfee.com VirusScan Online http://clinic.mcafee.com/clinic/ibuy/campaign.asp?cid=3963

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