Re: Languages Evolve in Punctuational Bursts

From: Rick McCallister
Message: 52479
Date: 2008-02-07

I have seen a wide range given for native Japanese
words --between 10% and 50%. I read somewhere about
200-400 words.
Despite claims of an Austronesian substrate, I've seen
about 4 or 5 Japanese words attributed to
Austronesian, although I wouldn't be surprised if
there were more.
Sasha Vovin, I believe, postulated a link between Ainu
and Austro-Asiatic, which would be the source for
Austro-Asiatic.

--- "fournet.arnaud" <fournet.arnaud@...>
wrote:

>
> I have expressed an interest in learning more about
> the idea that a majority
> of words in Japanese are from any other language.
> I asked for the source of your pronouncement unless,
> of course, you are an
> expert on Japanese yourself.
> Patrick
> ================
> There are very few "japanese" words.
>
> Words that are neither Chinese, nor Dutch, nor
> Portuguese,
> are few
> and many of these words are from Austro-asiatic
> like hara "belly" from *parat,
>
> In the end, when loanwords are cleared,
> Japanese has about as many inherited words
> as Albanese.
>
> Arnaud
> ============
>
>
>



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