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96-663: The Japanese Polled ( Japanese : 無角和種 , Mukaku Washu) is a critically-endangered breed of small Japanese beef cattle . It is one of six native Japanese cattle breeds, and one of the four Japanese breeds known as wagyū , the others being the Japanese Black , the Japanese Brown and the Japanese Shorthorn . All wagyū cattle derive from cross-breeding in the early twentieth century of native Japanese cattle with imported stock, mostly from Europe. In
192-559: A pure vowel system, phonemic vowel and consonant length, and a lexically significant pitch-accent . Word order is normally subject–object–verb with particles marking the grammatical function of words, and sentence structure is topic–comment . Sentence-final particles are used to add emotional or emphatic impact, or form questions. Nouns have no grammatical number or gender , and there are no articles . Verbs are conjugated , primarily for tense and voice , but not person . Japanese adjectives are also conjugated. Japanese has
288-409: A subject–object–verb (SOV) normal word order, important systems of honorifics (however, the two languages' systems of honorifics are different in form and usage; see Japanese honorifics and Korean honorifics ), besides a few lexical resemblances. Factors like these led some historical linguists to suggest a genetic relationship between the two languages. William George Aston suggested in 1879 in
384-576: A Japanese–Korean relationship overlaps the extended form of the Altaic hypothesis (see below), but not all scholars who argue for one also argue for the other. For example, Samuel Martin, who was a major advocate of a Japanese–Korean relationship, only provided cautious support to the inclusion of these languages in Altaic, and Talat Tekin , an Altaicist, includes Korean, but not Japanese, in Altaic (Georg et al. 1999:72, 74). The Japanese–Koguryoic proposal dates back to Shinmura Izuru 's (1916) observation that
480-637: A benefit from the in-group to the out-group) means "[I/we] explained [it] to [him/her/them]". Such beneficiary auxiliary verbs thus serve a function comparable to that of pronouns and prepositions in Indo-European languages to indicate the actor and the recipient of an action. Japanese "pronouns" also function differently from most modern Indo-European pronouns (and more like nouns) in that they can take modifiers as any other noun may. For instance, one does not say in English: The amazed he ran down
576-768: A common origin including several numerals such as 5 and 10. Martine Robbeets and Remco Bouckaert from the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History used in 2018 for the first time a Bayesian phylogenetic inference analysis about "Transeurasian". Their study resulted in a "high probability" for a "Koreano-Japonic" group, but has not gained acceptance among mainstream linguists. This theory has been criticized for serious methodological flaws, such as rejecting mainstream reconstructions of Chinese and Japanese, for less accepted alternatives. Other critics, like Alexander Vovin and Toh Soo Hee , argued that
672-594: A complex system of honorifics , with verb forms and vocabulary to indicate the relative status of the speaker, the listener, and persons mentioned. The Japanese writing system combines Chinese characters , known as kanji ( 漢字 , ' Han characters') , with two unique syllabaries (or moraic scripts) derived by the Japanese from the more complex Chinese characters: hiragana ( ひらがな or 平仮名 , 'simple characters') and katakana ( カタカナ or 片仮名 , 'partial characters'). Latin script ( rōmaji ローマ字 )
768-457: A discussion of ten reconstructed Proto-Japanese agricultural terms, Vovin (1998) proposes an Austroasiatic origin for three of these terms: According to him early Japanese assimilated Austroasiatic tribes and adopted some vocabulary about rice cultivation . On the other hand, John Whitman (2011) does not support that these words were loanwords into proto-Japonic, but that these words are of Japonic origin and must be rather old. Another theory
864-414: A distinct language of its own that has absorbed various aspects from neighboring languages. Japanese has five vowels, and vowel length is phonemic, with each having both a short and a long version. Elongated vowels are usually denoted with a line over the vowel (a macron ) in rōmaji , a repeated vowel character in hiragana , or a chōonpu succeeding the vowel in katakana . /u/ ( listen )
960-564: A genetic relation between Japanese and the Austro-Tai languages , which include Kra-Dai and Austronesian. He proposes that Kra-Dai and Japanese form a genetic mainland group while Austronesian is the insular group. Vovin (2014) says that there is typological evidence that Proto-Japonic may have been a monosyllabic, SVO syntax and isolating language; which are features that the Kra-Dai languages also exhibit. He notes that Benedict's idea of
1056-419: A glide /j/ and either the first part of a geminate consonant ( っ / ッ , represented as Q) or a moraic nasal in the coda ( ん / ン , represented as N). The nasal is sensitive to its phonetic environment and assimilates to the following phoneme, with pronunciations including [ɴ, m, n, ɲ, ŋ, ɰ̃] . Onset-glide clusters only occur at the start of syllables but clusters across syllables are allowed as long as
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#17327795787061152-834: A great amount of similar vocabulary, phonology, similar grammar, and geographical and cultural connections, he and Takeshi Umehara suggested that Japanese was closely related to the Ainu languages, and was influenced by other languages, especially Chinese and Korean. A linguistic analysis in 2015 proposed that the Japonic languages were related to the Ainu languages and to the Austroasiatic languages. However, similarities between Ainu and Japonic are also due to extensive past contact . Analytic grammatical constructions acquired or transformed in Ainu were likely due to contact with Japanese and
1248-874: A hypothetical migration of proto-Japanese to the Korean Peninsula and the Japanese archipelago . Miyamoto suggests a homeland further north, around modern day Liaoning . Koreanic speakers, then established in Manchuria , expanded southward to the Korean peninsula, displacing Japonic speakers that had been living there and causing the Yayoi migrations into Japan. Vovin suggests that Japonic languages were spoken in parts of Korea, especially southern Korea, and were then replaced and assimilated by proto-Korean speakers. Similarly, Whitman (2012) suggests that Japonic
1344-484: A listener depending on the listener's relative social position and the degree of familiarity between the speaker and the listener. When used in different social relationships, the same word may have positive (intimate or respectful) or negative (distant or disrespectful) connotations. Japanese often use titles of the person referred to where pronouns would be used in English. For example, when speaking to one's teacher, it
1440-402: A relation between Japanese and Kra-Dai should not be rejected out of hand, but he considers the relationship between them not to be genetic, but rather a contact one. According to him, this contact must be quite old and quite intense, as the borrowed words belong partially to a very basic vocabulary. He further says that this evidence refutes any genetic relations between Japanese and Altaic. In
1536-408: A sentence need not be stated and pronouns may be omitted if they can be inferred from context. In the example above, hana ga nagai would mean "[their] noses are long", while nagai by itself would mean "[they] are long." A single verb can be a complete sentence: Yatta! ( やった! ) "[I / we / they / etc] did [it]!". In addition, since adjectives can form the predicate in a Japanese sentence (below),
1632-428: A single adjective can be a complete sentence: Urayamashii! ( 羨ましい! ) "[I'm] jealous [about it]!". While the language has some words that are typically translated as pronouns, these are not used as frequently as pronouns in some Indo-European languages, and function differently. In some cases, Japanese relies on special verb forms and auxiliary verbs to indicate the direction of benefit of an action: "down" to indicate
1728-407: A source of fertiliser . Milk consumption was unknown, and – for cultural and religious reasons – meat was not eaten. Cattle were highly prized and valuable, too expensive for a poor farmer to buy. Japan was effectively isolated from the rest of the world from 1635 until 1854; there was no possibility of intromission of foreign genes to the cattle population during this time. Between 1868, the year of
1824-624: Is compressed rather than protruded , or simply unrounded. Some Japanese consonants have several allophones , which may give the impression of a larger inventory of sounds. However, some of these allophones have since become phonemic. For example, in the Japanese language up to and including the first half of the 20th century, the phonemic sequence /ti/ was palatalized and realized phonetically as [tɕi] , approximately chi ( listen ) ; however, now [ti] and [tɕi] are distinct, as evidenced by words like tī [tiː] "Western-style tea" and chii [tɕii] "social status". The "r" of
1920-448: Is also seen in o-medetō "congratulations", from medetaku ). Late Middle Japanese has the first loanwords from European languages – now-common words borrowed into Japanese in this period include pan ("bread") and tabako ("tobacco", now "cigarette"), both from Portuguese . Modern Japanese is considered to begin with the Edo period (which spanned from 1603 to 1867). Since Old Japanese,
2016-423: Is also used in a limited fashion (such as for imported acronyms) in Japanese writing. The numeral system uses mostly Arabic numerals , but also traditional Chinese numerals . Proto-Japonic , the common ancestor of the Japanese and Ryukyuan languages , is thought to have been brought to Japan by settlers coming from the Korean peninsula sometime in the early- to mid-4th century BC (the Yayoi period ), replacing
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#17327795787062112-440: Is appropriate to use sensei ( 先生 , "teacher"), but inappropriate to use anata . This is because anata is used to refer to people of equal or lower status, and one's teacher has higher status. Japanese nouns have no grammatical number, gender or article aspect. The noun hon ( 本 ) may refer to a single book or several books; hito ( 人 ) can mean "person" or "people", and ki ( 木 ) can be "tree" or "trees". Where number
2208-701: Is associated with comedy (see Kansai dialect ). Dialects of Tōhoku and North Kantō are associated with typical farmers. The Ryūkyūan languages, spoken in Okinawa and the Amami Islands (administratively part of Kagoshima ), are distinct enough to be considered a separate branch of the Japonic family; not only is each language unintelligible to Japanese speakers, but most are unintelligible to those who speak other Ryūkyūan languages. However, in contrast to linguists, many ordinary Japanese people tend to consider
2304-466: Is better documentation of Late Middle Japanese phonology than for previous forms (for instance, the Arte da Lingoa de Iapam ). Among other sound changes, the sequence /au/ merges to /ɔː/ , in contrast with /oː/ ; /p/ is reintroduced from Chinese; and /we/ merges with /je/ . Some forms rather more familiar to Modern Japanese speakers begin to appear – the continuative ending - te begins to reduce onto
2400-504: Is black; both sexes are naturally polled , without horns. Japanese language Japanese ( 日本語 , Nihongo , [ɲihoŋɡo] ) is the principal language of the Japonic language family spoken by the Japanese people . It has around 123 million speakers, primarily in Japan , the only country where it is the national language , and within the Japanese diaspora worldwide. The Japonic family also includes
2496-509: Is correlated with the sex of the speaker and the social situation in which they are spoken: men and women alike in a formal situation generally refer to themselves as watashi ( 私 , literally "private") or watakushi (also 私 , hyper-polite form), while men in rougher or intimate conversation are much more likely to use the word ore ( 俺 "oneself", "myself") or boku . Similarly, different words such as anata , kimi , and omae ( お前 , more formally 御前 "the one before me") may refer to
2592-674: Is disagreement over the protohistorical or historical period during which this expansion occurs, ranging from the Korean Bronze Age period to the Three Kingdoms of Korea period. As there is disagreement among experts when the expansion of Koreanic languages started, there is room for interpretation on the proto-historical and historical extent of the Japonic language presence in the central and southern Korean peninsula. Japanese and Korean languages also share some typological similarities, such as an agglutinative morphology,
2688-417: Is important, it can be indicated by providing a quantity (often with a counter word ) or (rarely) by adding a suffix, or sometimes by duplication (e.g. 人人 , hitobito , usually written with an iteration mark as 人々 ). Words for people are usually understood as singular. Thus Tanaka-san usually means Mx Tanaka . Words that refer to people and animals can be made to indicate a group of individuals through
2784-755: Is less common. In terms of mutual intelligibility , a survey in 1967 found that the four most unintelligible dialects (excluding Ryūkyūan languages and Tōhoku dialects ) to students from Greater Tokyo were the Kiso dialect (in the deep mountains of Nagano Prefecture ), the Himi dialect (in Toyama Prefecture ), the Kagoshima dialect and the Maniwa dialect (in Okayama Prefecture ). The survey
2880-518: Is not related to Korean but that Japonic was present on the Korean peninsula during the Mumun pottery period ( Yayoi people ). According to him, Japonic arrived in the Korean peninsula around 1500 BC and was brought to the Japanese archipelago by the Yayoi at around 950 BC. In this scenario, the language family associated with both Mumun and Yayoi culture is Japonic. Koreanic arrived later from Manchuria to
2976-420: Is often called a topic-prominent language , which means it has a strong tendency to indicate the topic separately from the subject, and that the two do not always coincide. The sentence Zō wa hana ga nagai ( 象は鼻が長い ) literally means, "As for elephant(s), (the) nose(s) (is/are) long". The topic is zō "elephant", and the subject is hana "nose". Japanese grammar tends toward brevity; the subject or object of
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3072-498: Is preserved in words such as matsuge ("eyelash", lit. "hair of the eye"); modern mieru ("to be visible") and kikoeru ("to be audible") retain a mediopassive suffix - yu(ru) ( kikoyu → kikoyuru (the attributive form, which slowly replaced the plain form starting in the late Heian period) → kikoeru (all verbs with the shimo-nidan conjugation pattern underwent this same shift in Early Modern Japanese )); and
3168-539: Is related to Japanese. The Altaic language family is a theoretical group composed of, at its core, languages categorized as Turkic , Mongolic , and Tungusic . G.J. Ramstedt's Einführung in die altaische Sprachwissenschaft ('Introduction to Altaic Linguistics') in 1952–1957 included Korean in Altaic. Roy Andrew Miller 's Japanese and the Other Altaic Languages (1971) included Japanese in Altaic as well. The most important recent work that favored
3264-536: Is that the Japonic languages (sometimes also "Japanic") are their own primary language family , consisting of Japanese and the Ryukyuan languages . The Hachijō language is sometimes classified as a third branch of the Japonic language family, but it is otherwise seen to be a very divergent dialect of Eastern Japanese . It has been suggested that the linguistic homeland of Japonic may be located somewhere in southern , south-eastern , or eastern China prior to
3360-402: Is the version of Japanese discussed in this article. Formerly, standard Japanese in writing ( 文語 , bungo , "literary language") was different from colloquial language ( 口語 , kōgo ) . The two systems have different rules of grammar and some variance in vocabulary. Bungo was the main method of writing Japanese until about 1900; since then kōgo gradually extended its influence and
3456-471: Is used for the present and the future. For verbs that represent an ongoing process, the -te iru form indicates a continuous (or progressive) aspect , similar to the suffix ing in English. For others that represent a change of state, the -te iru form indicates a perfect aspect. For example, kite iru means "They have come (and are still here)", but tabete iru means "They are eating". Questions (both with an interrogative pronoun and yes/no questions) have
3552-405: Is why some linguists do not classify Japanese "pronouns" as pronouns, but rather as referential nouns, much like Spanish usted (contracted from vuestra merced , "your ( majestic plural ) grace") or Portuguese você (from vossa mercê ). Japanese personal pronouns are generally used only in situations requiring special emphasis as to who is doing what to whom. The choice of words used as pronouns
3648-604: The "Japanese-hierarchical society" , and identifies 82 plausible cognates between Austronesian and Japanese. The morphology of Proto-Japanese shows similarities with several languages in South East Asia and southern China. However, Kumar's theory was criticized for archaeological, genetic, and linguistic contradictions. Itabashi (2011) claims that similarities in morphology, phonology and basic vocabulary point towards "a strong genealogical connection between Japanese and Austronesian". Paul K. Benedict (1992) suggests
3744-482: The Dravidian languages . The possibility that Japanese might be related to Dravidian was raised by Robert Caldwell (cf. Caldwell 1875:413) and more recently by Susumu Shiba , Akira Fujiwara , and Susumu Ōno (n.d., 2000). The Japanese professor Tsutomu Kambe claimed to have found more than 500 similar words about agriculture between Tamil and Japanese in 2011. The Japanese linguist Kanehira Joji believes that
3840-462: The Japonic language family, which also includes the Ryukyuan languages spoken in the Ryukyu Islands . As these closely related languages are commonly treated as dialects of the same language, Japanese is sometimes called a language isolate . According to Martine Irma Robbeets , Japanese has been subject to more attempts to show its relation to other languages than any other language in
3936-493: The Japonic languages were already present within the Japanese archipelago and coastal Korea, before the Yayoi period, and can be linked to one of the Jōmon populations of southwestern Japan, rather than the later Yayoi or Kofun period rice-agriculturalists. Japonic-speakers then expanded during the Yayoi period, assimilating the newcomers, adopting rice-agriculture, and fusing mainland Asian technologies with local traditions. There
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4032-773: The Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society that Japanese is related to Korean. A relationship between Japanese and Korean was endorsed by the Japanese scholar Shōsaburō Kanazawa in 1910. Other scholars took this position in the twentieth century (Poppe 1965:137). Substantial arguments in favor of a Japanese–Korean relationship were presented by Samuel Martin , a leading specialist in Japanese and Korean, in 1966 and in subsequent publications (e.g. Martin 1990). Linguists who advocate this position include John Whitman (1985) and Barbara E. Riley (2004), and Sergei Starostin with his lexicostatistical research, The Altaic Problem and
4128-514: The Philippines , and various Pacific islands, locals in those countries learned Japanese as the language of the empire. As a result, many elderly people in these countries can still speak Japanese. Japanese emigrant communities (the largest of which are to be found in Brazil , with 1.4 million to 1.5 million Japanese immigrants and descendants, according to Brazilian IBGE data, more than
4224-464: The Ryukyuan languages and the variously classified Hachijō language . There have been many attempts to group the Japonic languages with other families such as the Ainu , Austronesian , Koreanic , and the now-discredited Altaic , but none of these proposals have gained any widespread acceptance. Little is known of the language's prehistory, or when it first appeared in Japan. Chinese documents from
4320-738: The United States (notably in Hawaii , where 16.7% of the population has Japanese ancestry, and California ), and the Philippines (particularly in Davao Region and the Province of Laguna ). Japanese has no official status in Japan, but is the de facto national language of the country. There is a form of the language considered standard : hyōjungo ( 標準語 ) , meaning "standard Japanese", or kyōtsūgo ( 共通語 ) , "common language", or even "Tokyo dialect" at times. The meanings of
4416-806: The de facto standard Japanese had been the Kansai dialect , especially that of Kyoto . However, during the Edo period, Edo (now Tokyo) developed into the largest city in Japan, and the Edo-area dialect became standard Japanese. Since the end of Japan's self-imposed isolation in 1853, the flow of loanwords from European languages has increased significantly. The period since 1945 has seen many words borrowed from other languages—such as German, Portuguese and English. Many English loan words especially relate to technology—for example, pasokon (short for "personal computer"), intānetto ("internet"), and kamera ("camera"). Due to
4512-448: The standard dialect moved from the Kansai region to the Edo region (modern Tokyo ) in the Early Modern Japanese period (early 17th century–mid 19th century). Following the end of Japan's self-imposed isolation in 1853, the flow of loanwords from European languages increased significantly, and words from English roots have proliferated. Japanese is an agglutinative , mora -timed language with relatively simple phonotactics ,
4608-462: The "Sinitic" origin theory. The "Proto-Asian hypothesis" (Larish 2006) argues for a relation between languages of Southeast and East Asia. Japanese is grouped together with Korean as one group of the descendants of Proto-Asian. The proposal further includes the Austric languages , Kra-Dai, Hmong-Mien and Sino-Tibetan A more rarely encountered hypothesis is that Japanese (and Korean) are related to
4704-527: The 1.2 million of the United States ) sometimes employ Japanese as their primary language. Approximately 12% of Hawaii residents speak Japanese, with an estimated 12.6% of the population of Japanese ancestry in 2008. Japanese emigrants can also be found in Peru , Argentina , Australia (especially in the eastern states), Canada (especially in Vancouver , where 1.4% of the population has Japanese ancestry),
4800-465: The 3rd century AD recorded a few Japanese words, but substantial Old Japanese texts did not appear until the 8th century. From the Heian period (794–1185), extensive waves of Sino-Japanese vocabulary entered the language, affecting the phonology of Early Middle Japanese . Late Middle Japanese (1185–1600) saw extensive grammatical changes and the first appearance of European loanwords . The basis of
4896-463: The Goguryeo corpus . They mostly occur in place-name collocations, many of which may include grammatical morphemes (including cognates of the Japanese genitive marker no and the Japanese adjective-attributive morpheme - sa ) and a few of which may show syntactical relationships. He postulates that the majority of the identified Goguryeo corpus, which includes all of the grammatical morphemes,
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#17327795787064992-539: The Japanese archipelago. She lists the following agricultural vocabulary in proto-Japonic with parallels in Austronesian languages: Several linguists have proposed that the Japonic languages are genetically related to the Austronesian languages . Some linguists think it is more plausible that Japanese was instead influenced by Austronesian languages, perhaps by an Austronesian substratum . Those who propose
5088-486: The Japanese language is of particular interest, ranging between an apical central tap and a lateral approximant . The "g" is also notable; unless it starts a sentence, it may be pronounced [ ŋ ] , in the Kanto prestige dialect and in other eastern dialects. The phonotactics of Japanese are relatively simple. The syllable structure is (C)(G)V(C), that is, a core vowel surrounded by an optional onset consonant,
5184-497: The Japanese language is related to the Uralic languages. He based his hypothesis on some similar basic words, similar morphology and phonology. According to him early Japanese was influenced by Chinese, Austronesian and Ainu. He refers his theory to the "dual-structure model" of Japanese origin between Jōmon and Yayoi. The Japanese linguist Tatsumine Katayama (2004) found many similar basic words between Ainu and Japanese. Because of
5280-441: The Japonic languages The classification of the Japonic languages and their external relations is unclear. Linguists traditionally consider the Japonic languages to belong to an independent family; indeed, until the classification of Ryukyuan and eventually Hachijō as separate languages within a Japonic family rather than as dialects of Japanese, Japanese was considered a language isolate . Among more distant connections,
5376-525: The Korean peninsula at around 300 BC and coexisted with the descendants of the Japonic Mumun cultivators (or assimilated them). Both had influence on each other and a later founder effect diminished the internal variety of both language families. Most linguists today see the Japonic languages as their own distinct family, not related to Korean, but acknowledge an influence from other language families (and vice versa). Vovin (2015) shows evidence that
5472-493: The Koreanic languages on the Korean Peninsula . The linguists Yurayong and Szeto in 2020 analyzed the stages of convergence between Japonic and other languages. They concluded that "our results indirectly speak in favour of a "Paleo-Asiatic" origin of the Japonic languages". Chaubey and van Driem (2020) propose that the Japonic languages may have already been present in Japan during the early Jōmon period . They suggest that
5568-722: The Meiji Restoration, and 1887, some 2600 foreign cattle were imported. At first there was little interest in cross-breeding these with native stock, but from about 1900 it became widespread. It ceased abruptly in 1910, when it was realised that, while the cross-breeds might be larger and have better dairy qualities, their working capacity and meat quality was lower. From 1919, the various heterogeneous regional populations that resulted from this brief period of cross-breeding were registered and selected as "Improved Japanese Cattle". Four separate strains were characterised, based mainly on which type of foreign cattle had most influenced
5664-736: The Old Japanese sections are written in Man'yōgana , which uses kanji for their phonetic as well as semantic values. Based on the Man'yōgana system, Old Japanese can be reconstructed as having 88 distinct morae . Texts written with Man'yōgana use two different sets of kanji for each of the morae now pronounced き (ki), ひ (hi), み (mi), け (ke), へ (he), め (me), こ (ko), そ (so), と (to), の (no), も (mo), よ (yo) and ろ (ro). (The Kojiki has 88, but all later texts have 87. The distinction between mo 1 and mo 2 apparently
5760-563: The Origins of the Japanese Language (Moscow, 1991). A Japanese–Korean connection does not necessarily exclude a Japanese–Koguryo or an Altaic relationship. The two languages are thought to not share any cognates (other than loanwords ), for their vocabularies do not phonetically resemble each other. However, a recent 2016 paper proposing a common lineage between Korean and Japanese claims to trace around 500 core words that show
5856-488: The Ryūkyūan languages as dialects of Japanese. The imperial court also seems to have spoken an unusual variant of the Japanese of the time, most likely the spoken form of Classical Japanese , a writing style that was prevalent during the Heian period , but began to decline during the late Meiji period . The Ryūkyūan languages are classified by UNESCO as 'endangered', as young people mostly use Japanese and cannot understand
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#17327795787065952-543: The addition of a collective suffix (a noun suffix that indicates a group), such as -tachi , but this is not a true plural: the meaning is closer to the English phrase "and company". A group described as Tanaka-san-tachi may include people not named Tanaka. Some Japanese nouns are effectively plural, such as hitobito "people" and wareware "we/us", while the word tomodachi "friend" is considered singular, although plural in form. Verbs are conjugated to show tenses, of which there are two: past and present (or non-past) which
6048-563: The attested Goguryeo numerals —3, 5, 7, and 10—are very similar to Japanese. The hypothesis proposes that Japanese is a relative of the extinct languages spoken by the Buyeo-Goguryeo cultures of Korea , southern Manchuria , and Liaodong . The best attested of these is the language of Goguryeo , with the more poorly attested Koguryoic languages of Baekje and Buyeo believed to also be related. A monograph by Christopher Beckwith (2004) has established about 140 lexical items in
6144-626: The case of the Japanese Polled, the principal foreign influence was from the Scottish Aberdeen Angus breed. Cattle were brought to Japan from China at the same time as the cultivation of rice , in about the second century AD, in the Yayoi period . Until about the time of the Meiji Restoration in 1868, they were used only as draught animals , in agriculture , forestry , mining and for transport, and as
6240-461: The connections between Japanese and Goguryeo are due to earlier Japonic languages that were present in parts of Korea, and that the Goguryeo language was closer to Sillan, and by extension, Korean. Further studies (2019) deny and criticize a relation between Korean and Japanese. Vovin also argues that the claimed cognates are nothing more than early loanwords from when Japonic was still spoken in southern Korea. Similarly Whitman (2012) concluded that
6336-576: The early Koreans borrowed words for rice cultivation from Peninsular Japonic. According to him, the middle Korean word psʌr (rice) is loaned from Peninsular Japonic *wasar. Juha Janhunen (2003) proposed that the Japonic languages originated on the coast of the Shandong Peninsula , and that they originally had similar typological characteristics to the Sinitic languages before they acquired Altaic typological features through contact with
6432-578: The effect of changing Japanese into a mora-timed language. Late Middle Japanese covers the years from 1185 to 1600, and is normally divided into two sections, roughly equivalent to the Kamakura period and the Muromachi period , respectively. The later forms of Late Middle Japanese are the first to be described by non-native sources, in this case the Jesuit and Franciscan missionaries; and thus there
6528-893: The expanded Altaic family (i.e. that Korean and Japanese could both be included under the Altaic language family) is An Etymological Dictionary of the Altaic Languages (3 volumes) by Sergei Starostin, Anna V. Dybo, and Oleg A. Mudrak (2003). Robbeets (2017) considers Japonic to be a " Transeurasian " ( Altaic ) language that is genetically unrelated to Austronesian, and argues that lexical similarities between Japonic and Austronesian are due to contact. The Altaic proposal has largely been rejected (in both its core form of Turkic , Mongolic , and Tungusic as well as its expanded form that includes Korean and/or Japanese). The best-known critiques are those by Gerard Clauson (1956) and Gerhard Doerfer (1963, 1988). Current critics include Stefan Georg and Alexander Vovin. Critics attribute
6624-609: The genitive particle ga remains in intentionally archaic speech. Early Middle Japanese is the Japanese of the Heian period , from 794 to 1185. It formed the basis for the literary standard of Classical Japanese , which remained in common use until the early 20th century. During this time, Japanese underwent numerous phonological developments, in many cases instigated by an influx of Chinese loanwords . These included phonemic length distinction for both consonants and vowels , palatal consonants (e.g. kya ) and labial consonant clusters (e.g. kwa ), and closed syllables . This had
6720-462: The hybrids, and were recognised as breeds in 1944. These were the four wagyū breeds, the Japanese Polled, the Japanese Black , the Japanese Brown and the Japanese Shorthorn . The Japanese Polled developed in south-western Honshu , in the prefecture of Yamaguchi . The principal foreign influence was from Scottish the Aberdeen Angus . The conservation status of the Japanese Polled
6816-458: The languages of the original Jōmon inhabitants, including the ancestor of the modern Ainu language . Because writing had yet to be introduced from China, there is no direct evidence, and anything that can be discerned about this period must be based on internal reconstruction from Old Japanese , or comparison with the Ryukyuan languages and Japanese dialects . The Chinese writing system
6912-449: The languages. Okinawan Japanese is a variant of Standard Japanese influenced by the Ryūkyūan languages, and is the primary dialect spoken among young people in the Ryukyu Islands . Modern Japanese has become prevalent nationwide (including the Ryūkyū islands) due to education , mass media , and an increase in mobility within Japan, as well as economic integration. Japanese is a member of
7008-427: The large quantity of English loanwords, modern Japanese has developed a distinction between [tɕi] and [ti] , and [dʑi] and [di] , with the latter in each pair only found in loanwords. Although Japanese is spoken almost exclusively in Japan, it has also been spoken outside of the country. Before and during World War II , through Japanese annexation of Taiwan and Korea , as well as partial occupation of China ,
7104-762: The latter scenario suggest that the Austronesian family once covered most of southern Japan. The phonological similarities of Japanese to the Austronesian languages , and the geographical proximity of Japan to Formosa and the Malay Archipelago have led to the theory that Japanese may be a kind of mixed language , with a Korean (or Altaic) superstratum and an Austronesian substratum . Similarly Juha Janhunen claims that Austronesians lived in southern Japan, specifically on Shikoku , and that modern Japanese has an " Austronesian layer" . The linguist Ann Kumar (2009) believes that some Austronesians migrated to early Japan, possibly an elite group from Java , and created
7200-425: The only strict rule of word order is that the verb must be placed at the end of a sentence (possibly followed by sentence-end particles). This is because Japanese sentence elements are marked with particles that identify their grammatical functions. The basic sentence structure is topic–comment . For example, Kochira wa Tanaka-san desu ( こちらは田中さんです ). kochira ("this") is the topic of the sentence, indicated by
7296-579: The other (e.g. due to geographical proximity with Manchuria ). Such factors of typological divergence as Middle Mongolian's exhibition of gender agreement can be used to argue that a genetic relationship with Altaic is unlikely. According to Robbeets (2017) Japanese and Korean originated as a hybrid language around the region of Liaoning in China, incorporating an Austronesian -like language and Altaic (trans-Eurasian) elements. She suggests that proto-Japanese had an additional influence from Austronesian on
7392-470: The out-group gives a benefit to the in-group, and "up" to indicate the in-group gives a benefit to the out-group. Here, the in-group includes the speaker and the out-group does not, and their boundary depends on context. For example, oshiete moratta ( 教えてもらった ) (literally, "explaining got" with a benefit from the out-group to the in-group) means "[he/she/they] explained [it] to [me/us]". Similarly, oshiete ageta ( 教えてあげた ) (literally, "explaining gave" with
7488-415: The particle wa . The verb desu is a copula , commonly translated as "to be" or "it is" (though there are other verbs that can be translated as "to be"), though technically it holds no meaning and is used to give a sentence 'politeness'. As a phrase, Tanaka-san desu is the comment. This sentence literally translates to "As for this person, (it) is Mx Tanaka." Thus Japanese, like many other Asian languages,
7584-443: The possibility of a genetic relationship to languages like Austronesian and or Kra–Dai , are discussed. A relation between Japonic and Koreanic is also considered plausible by some linguists, while others reject this idea. Independent of the question of a Japonic–Koreanic connection, both the Japonic and Koreanic languages are sometimes included in the now largely discredited Altaic family. The currently most supported view
7680-428: The proposed larger Altaic family, or to various Southeast Asian languages , especially Austronesian . None of these proposals have gained wide acceptance (and the Altaic family itself is now considered controversial). As it stands, only the link to Ryukyuan has wide support. Other theories view the Japanese language as an early creole language formed through inputs from at least two distinct language groups, or as
7776-494: The proto-Koreans arrived in the southern part of the Korean Peninsula at around 300 BC and coexist with the native descendants of the Japonic Mumun rice-cultivators (or assimilated them). Both had influence on each other and a later founder effect diminished the internal variety of both language families, making them more similar. Thus Whitman sees a possible relation between Japonic and Koreanic as unlikely. The idea of
7872-459: The same structure as affirmative sentences, but with intonation rising at the end. In the formal register, the question particle -ka is added. For example, ii desu ( いいです ) "It is OK" becomes ii desu-ka ( いいですか。 ) "Is it OK?". In a more informal tone sometimes the particle -no ( の ) is added instead to show a personal interest of the speaker: Dōshite konai-no? "Why aren't (you) coming?". Some simple queries are formed simply by mentioning
7968-499: The similarities in the putative Altaic languages to pre-historic areal contact having occurred between the languages of the expanded group (e.g. between Turkic and Japonic), contact which critics and proponents agree took place to some degree. Linguists agree today that typological resemblances between Japanese , Korean and Altaic languages cannot be used to prove genetic relatedness of languages, as these features are typologically connected and easily borrowed from one language to
8064-817: The state as at the time the constitution was written, many of the elders participating in the process had been educated in Japanese during the South Seas Mandate over the island shown by the 1958 census of the Trust Territory of the Pacific that found that 89% of Palauans born between 1914 and 1933 could speak and read Japanese, but as of the 2005 Palau census there were no residents of Angaur that spoke Japanese at home. Japanese dialects typically differ in terms of pitch accent , inflectional morphology , vocabulary , and particle usage. Some even differ in vowel and consonant inventories, although this
8160-481: The street. (grammatically incorrect insertion of a pronoun) But one can grammatically say essentially the same thing in Japanese: 驚いた彼は道を走っていった。 Transliteration: Odoroita kare wa michi o hashitte itta. (grammatically correct) This is partly because these words evolved from regular nouns, such as kimi "you" ( 君 "lord"), anata "you" ( あなた "that side, yonder"), and boku "I" ( 僕 "servant"). This
8256-537: The topic with an interrogative intonation to call for the hearer's attention: Kore wa? "(What about) this?"; O-namae wa? ( お名前は？ ) "(What's your) name?". Negatives are formed by inflecting the verb. For example, Pan o taberu ( パンを食べる。 ) "I will eat bread" or "I eat bread" becomes Pan o tabenai ( パンを食べない。 ) "I will not eat bread" or "I do not eat bread". Plain negative forms are i -adjectives (see below) and inflect as such, e.g. Pan o tabenakatta ( パンを食べなかった。 ) "I did not eat bread". Classification of
8352-419: The two consonants are the moraic nasal followed by a homorganic consonant. Japanese also includes a pitch accent , which is not represented in moraic writing; for example [haꜜ.ɕi] ("chopsticks") and [ha.ɕiꜜ] ("bridge") are both spelled はし ( hashi ) , and are only differentiated by the tone contour. Japanese word order is classified as subject–object–verb . Unlike many Indo-European languages ,
8448-577: The two methods were both used in writing until the 1940s. Bungo still has some relevance for historians, literary scholars, and lawyers (many Japanese laws that survived World War II are still written in bungo , although there are ongoing efforts to modernize their language). Kōgo is the dominant method of both speaking and writing Japanese today, although bungo grammar and vocabulary are occasionally used in modern Japanese for effect. The 1982 state constitution of Angaur , Palau , names Japanese along with Palauan and English as an official language of
8544-413: The two terms (''hyōjungo'' and ''kyōtsūgo'') are almost the same. Hyōjungo or kyōtsūgo is a conception that forms the counterpart of dialect. This normative language was born after the Meiji Restoration ( 明治維新 , meiji ishin , 1868) from the language spoken in the higher-class areas of Tokyo (see Yamanote ). Hyōjungo is taught in schools and used on television and in official communications. It
8640-407: The verb (e.g. yonde for earlier yomite ), the -k- in the final mora of adjectives drops out ( shiroi for earlier shiroki ); and some forms exist where modern standard Japanese has retained the earlier form (e.g. hayaku > hayau > hayɔɔ , where modern Japanese just has hayaku , though the alternative form is preserved in the standard greeting o-hayō gozaimasu "good morning"; this ending
8736-548: The world. Since Japanese first gained the consideration of linguists in the late 19th century, attempts have been made to show its genealogical relation to languages or language families such as Ainu , Korean , Chinese , Tibeto-Burman , Uralic , Altaic (or Ural-Altaic ), Austroasiatic , Austronesian and Dravidian . At the fringe, some linguists have even suggested a link to Indo-European languages , including Greek , or to Sumerian . Main modern theories try to link Japanese either to northern Asian languages, like Korean or
8832-539: Was based on 12- to 20-second-long recordings of 135 to 244 phonemes , which 42 students listened to and translated word-for-word. The listeners were all Keio University students who grew up in the Kanto region . There are some language islands in mountain villages or isolated islands such as Hachijō-jima island , whose dialects are descended from Eastern Old Japanese . Dialects of the Kansai region are spoken or known by many Japanese, and Osaka dialect in particular
8928-735: Was imported to Japan from Baekje around the start of the fifth century, alongside Buddhism. The earliest texts were written in Classical Chinese , although some of these were likely intended to be read as Japanese using the kanbun method, and show influences of Japanese grammar such as Japanese word order. The earliest text, the Kojiki , dates to the early eighth century, and was written entirely in Chinese characters, which are used to represent, at different times, Chinese, kanbun , and Old Japanese. As in other texts from this period,
9024-463: Was listed by the FAO as "critical" in 2007. In 1978 the total population was reported to be 2242; in 2008 it was 132. Although not at risk of immediate extinction, the breed is in need of emergency measures for its protection. The Japanese Polled Public Corporation has been set up by the administration of Yamaguchi Prefecture to protect and preserve the breed and its genetic resources . The Japanese Polled
9120-474: Was lost immediately following its composition.) This set of morae shrank to 67 in Early Middle Japanese , though some were added through Chinese influence. Man'yōgana also has a symbol for /je/ , which merges with /e/ before the end of the period. Several fossilizations of Old Japanese grammatical elements remain in the modern language – the genitive particle tsu (superseded by modern no )
9216-537: Was raised by the Japanese linguist Īno Mutsumi (1994). According to him, Japanese is closely related to the Sino-Tibetan languages , especially to the Lolo-Burmese languages of southern China and Southeast-Asia. Because of similar grammar rules ( SOV word order , syntax ), similar non-loan basic vocabulary and the fact that some Sino-Tibetan languages (including proto-Sino-Tibetan) were non-tonal, he proposed
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