Re: Old Japanese

Jeff Jones wrote:

> >It is the source for the Japanese-Altaic hypothesis. The data is not very
> >convincing though.
> >
>I read it quite a few years ago. IIRC, the proposed sound changes were all
>reasonable, but there weren't enough examples of each to show regular
>correspondences.
IMHO, that is the problem with all attempts to show that Japanese is
related to anything - including Korean. Personally, I believe that Jananese
and Korean are related. I don't believe that Ainu fits in the same picture
though. If there is a Japanese-Korean / Ainu connection, it is very remote,
like one of the first splits in Altaic. (Assuming of course that Altaic is
a real family, which I have minor doubts about, but not enough to argue
over since I'm no specialist in the area).



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Marcus Smith
AIM:  Anaakoot
"When you lose a language, it's like
dropping a bomb on a museum."
   -- Kenneth Hale
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