I was in the bookstore today and came across an interesting text: Japanese and Sumerian - A comparative linguistic study I gave it a quick browse and was surprised of the similarities that were listed. I've yet to find the text anywhere on the internet - obviously this is not exactly a coffee table book or a light read... so it's not exactly flying off the shelves. Frankly I was a bit surprised to see they even carried it. Additionally it was interesting to find that Wikipedia had this to say regarding the possible Japanese/Sumerian connection: source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_language_classification But unfortunately Wikpedia doesn't have a citation to back this up or any reference to the comparison of the two languages. Is there anyone here at MAP that's gone over this material before as perhaps part of your linguistics program at Uni or when you were studying Japanese, pre-Silla Korean... or perhaps even Sumerian? One of the few texts that even touches the subject that I was able to find the title of on the internet was: I haven't had a chance to read it. I don't even know if it's academically sound or not. Another text of his that might touch on the subject is: http://www.amazon.com/quests-dragon-bird-kekai-manansala/dp/1430308990/ Below: source: http://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Sumerian_language
FASCINATING. Sorry, I don't have anything concrete to add to it. I did see a bit of Sumerian writing when I took History of the Ancient world, but I don't read it. I've also seen a picture of some ancient Chinese writing, where their symbol for sun was a dotted circle -- a symbol that is used today, the exact same way, in the Western world (astronomy and astrology both). I've also seen references possibly tying Korean to the Finno-Ugaritic languages (Finnish and Hungarian), and Omniglot seemed to think that the Hangul had similarities to the Teutonic runes and the Ogham. But I don't see an entry on Sumerian at that website.
The Japanese and Sumerian languages are similar in their evolution, but I highly doubt it goes farther than that. Sumerian cuneiform writing was pictorial in nature, just like Japanese. But the similarities end there. Early Japanese and cuneiform look nothing alike. If they were related in some way, then they would look similar in early stages. This is not the case. Also, cuneiform became phonetic roughly 5000 years ago (long before the establishment of Japanese of any kind). Japanese has only had a phonetic alphabet for about a hundred years. It might be useful to look at them as examples of how humans create written language, but they're not related whatsoever.
Actually the similarities between Sumerian and Japanese (at least in terms of linguistic structure) apparently extend beyond the written form. That both Japanese and Sumerian languages are what are known as language isolates would be just one similarity they have in common. Another would be that Japanese is considered and agglutinative language - as is Sumerian. So clearly there are more similarities than what you've presented. I also don't think it's necessary that they'd have to have a similar written script in order for them to be related (as evidenced by the similarities that I've pointed out previously). The picture of the Sumerian cuneiform I posted was more so that the average viewer could have a reference point for Sumerian - not to necessarily draw a comparison between their written scripts. Granted Sumerian is an ancient language... while Japanese is as a language is much more recent. However that doesn't really mean end to the story in comparative linguistics terms. For you to come to a conclusion that they're not related 'whatsoever' (which again isn't actually true) I'm curious what texts you used for a comparative study of Sumerian and Japanese? That's exactly why I started the thread... to my knowledge there aren't that many works out there that take a comparative linguistics approach. I'd even be keen on links to PDF's or abstracts or ISN#'s you may have used to arrive at that conclusion. Do you have any? 54
Hm, interesting... Slip, is there any cultural connections between Japan and ancient Iraq? Trading, migration, anything? If you can't find any connection, then I would guess the linguistic similiarities are merely coincidental.
Here's an article on Sumerian scripts. Which also links to a Sumerian language page. Sorry I don't have time to thoroughly read them. There's also a page for Japanese This site claims that they are both logophonetic, and that Sumerian was first written top-to-bottom before later becoming left-to-right. I also note that the article on Japanese says that the language is highly inflected, and so using the Chinese writing system meant adding suffixes and particles. Whereas the Sumerian article talks about a lot of homophones, which meant that they also added prefixes and suffixes to their written words to distinguish which meaning they intended...
I'm at the public library as I type this post, and five minutes ago I picked up a book called the 'Egyptology Handbook". It said that internal energy/lifeblood in ancient spoken Egyptian is "Ka". I noticed that that is somewhat similar to "Ki" in Japanese. It's a stretch, but who knows but what it might be related. Now, I know virtually nothing about ancient Egyptian, though it is Afro-Asiatic by category (see http://www.omniglot.com/writing/egyptian.htm).
Forgive my use of the superlative (I know it's not really a superlative but you know what I mean). I assumed "relation" to mean one language deriving from the other, which, from what can be readily deduced, I believe did not occur. Granted I'm not a linguistic scholar, but I do speak Japanese and did study Japanese history and the evolution of several languages at a university, including Japonic languages (of which modern Japanese is just one). My knowledge of the Sumerian language is limited to what I learned in various school courses, which is to say it's cursory. For reference, I used a few of my college textbooks, which I assume to be reliable. I'm not saying that I'm 100% right, just that with all the information that I've acquired over the years, it seems pretty unlikely. The Sumerians died out, they did not disperse. The Akkadians succeeded them in Mesopotamia, and subsequently brought their own language (which I believe is not an isolate, though I can't for the life of me remember to which family it belongs). So, unless a handful of Sumerian speakers somehow survived and kept the language alive for thousands of years and then migrated to the Japanese Islands, it seems pretty farfetched to consider that they might be related. EDIT: I would love to give the the ISBN numbers of the books, but I have since packed them up to move to my new apartment. When my move is complete and the books are unpacked, I'd be happy to post the book names and numbers here.
Akkadians=Semites Methinks Ka being referred to as internal energy/lifeblood is a new interpretation through a ch'i filter.Guardian spirit,soul,etc.But nothing akin to a ch'i type interpretation.Sounds like a new interpretation rather than a new translation.
Ki in Japanese is actually written with a Chinese character as are many Japanese words. If the Japanese language has any links outside of Asia I doubt we'll find them in the modern language.
I know a bunch of books talking about similarities between Japanese and Sumerian, unfortunately, I bet none of them are translated in English... It isn't the writing system that is similar for it was later developed to express their sounds. Many words are similar, and so are the meanings, especially the ones used in Japanese mythology. There are non-academic archives most of which were kept privately within certain old families, and they mention of the same stories that they once came from far west, but academics consider all of these archives fake.
