Re: FWD [OT but interesting] Arctic people seek common alphabet

Jacob Schneider writes:
 > > faceloran@JUNO.COM writes:
 > >
 > > >
 > > > Then again, many related languages use the same writing systems, though
 > > > not always. Is Korean related to Chinese [language family]?
 > >
 > > No, Korean is usually said to be a language isolate.
 > According to some, Korean and Japanese share some roots way back when, but
 > not recognizable.
 >
 > > > Domo arigato, sensei.
 > I wonder how to say the same thing in korean? (thank you very much, teacher)
 > Would there be any resemblence at all?
 > > And...I'd said "arigatou gozaimasu sensei"  if I were speaking to my
 > teacher..
 > >
 > > Elliott Lash.
 > >
 > Jake
 >

Campbell says

|Korean has been variously connected with Dravidian, Austronesian,
|Paleo-Asiatic, Chinese, and, most convincingly, with the Altaic
|languages.  How many of these resemblances are areal or typological,
|however, is a moot point, and the exact genetic affinity of Korean
|remains questionable.  The Chinese element is extremely large but
|essentially alien.  Comparison with Japanese yields a surprising
|wealth of morphological and syntactic similarities, but the two
|languages seem to have developed in parallel, rather than to be
|derived from a common genetic source.