Proto-Japonic
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Proto-Japonic
Proto-Japonic, also known as Proto-Japanese or Proto-Japanese–Ryukyuan, is the linguistic reconstruction, reconstructed language ancestral to the Japonic languages, Japonic language family. It has been reconstructed by using a combination of internal reconstruction from Old Japanese and by applying the comparative method to Old Japanese (both the central variety of the Nara area and Eastern Old Japanese dialects) and the Ryukyuan languages. The major reconstructions of the 20th century were produced by Samuel Elmo Martin and Shirō Hattori. Background The Japonic language family comprises Japanese language, Japanese, spoken in the main islands of Japan; Hachijō language, Hachijō, spoken on Hachijō-jima, Aogashima, and the Daitō Islands; and the Ryukyuan languages, spoken in the Ryukyu Islands. Most scholars believe that Japonic was brought to northern Kyushu from the Korean peninsula around 700 to 300 BC by wet-rice farmers of the Yayoi culture and spread throughout the Ja ...
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Japonic Languages
Japonic or Japanese–Ryukyuan () is a language family comprising Japanese language, Japanese, spoken in the main islands of Japan, and the Ryukyuan languages, spoken in the Ryukyu Islands. The family is universally accepted by linguists, and significant progress has been made in reconstructing the proto-language, Proto-Japonic. The reconstruction implies a split between all dialects of Japanese and all Ryukyuan varieties, probably before the 7th century. The Hachijō language, spoken on the Izu Islands, is also included, but its position within the family is unclear. Most scholars believe that Japonic was brought to the Japanese archipelago from the Korean peninsula with the Yayoi culture during the 1st millennium BC. There is some fragmentary evidence suggesting that Japonic languages may still have been spoken in central and southern parts of the Korean peninsula (see Peninsular Japonic) in the early centuries AD. Possible genetic relationships with many other language familie ...
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Eastern Old Japanese
Eastern Old Japanese (abbreviated as EOJ; ) is a group of heterogenous varieties of Old Japanese, historically spoken in the east of Japan, in the area traditionally called ''Togoku'' or ''Azuma''. Classification Eastern Old Japanese constitutes a branch of the Japanese subgroup of the Japonic languages ( Insular Japonic), with the other varieties of Old Japanese, which all descend from proto-Japanese (separate from Proto-Ryukyuan, following the classification used by Kupchik (2011). Attestations Eastern Old Japanese is mainly attested through poems collected in several anthologies written during the 8th century: * ''Man'yōshū'' (万葉集), in the fourteenth and twentieth volumes, as well as some poems from volume sixteen ; * '' Kokin wakashū'' (古今和歌集), of which a poem is written in this dialect (written during the Heian period) ; * '' Fudoki'' (風土記) ; * ''Azuma (asobi) uta'' (東遊び歌) ; * '' Sakimori uta'', however, this one is written with the s ...
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Ryukyuan Languages
The , also Lewchewan or Luchuan (), are the indigenous languages of the Ryukyu Islands, the southernmost part of the Japanese archipelago. Along with the Japanese language and the Hachijō language, they make up the Japonic language family. Just as among Japanese dialects it is hard to understand each other, the Ryukyu and mainland Japanese languages are not mutually intelligible. It is not known how many speakers of these languages remain, but language shift toward the use of Standard Japanese and dialects like Okinawan Japanese has resulted in these languages becoming endangered language, endangered; Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger, UNESCO labels four of the languages "definitely endangered" and two others "severely endangered". Overview Phonologically, the Ryukyuan languages have some cross-linguistically unusual features. Southern Ryukyuan languages have a number of syllabic consonants, including unvoiced syllabic fricatives (e.g. Ōgami Miyako language, Miyako ...
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Japanese Language
is the principal language of the Japonic languages, 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 the Ryukyuan languages and the variously classified Hachijō language. There have been many Classification of the Japonic languages, attempts to group the Japonic languages with other families such as Ainu languages, Ainu, Austronesian languages, Austronesian, Koreanic languages, Koreanic, and the now discredited Altaic languages, 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 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-Ja ...
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Hachijō Language
The small group of , natively called , depending on classification, either are the most divergent form of Japanese dialects, Japanese, or comprise a branch of Japonic languages (alongside mainland Japanese, Northern Ryukyuan languages, Northern Ryukyuan, and Southern Ryukyuan languages, Southern Ryukyuan). Hachijō is currently spoken on two of the Izu Islands south of Tokyo (Hachijō-jima and the smaller Aogashima) as well as on the Daitō Islands of Okinawa Prefecture, which were settled from Hachijō-jima in the Meiji period. It was also previously spoken on the island of Hachijō-kojima, which is now abandoned. Based on the criterion of mutual intelligibility, Hachijō may be considered a distinct Japonic language, rather than a dialect of Japanese. Hachijō is a descendant of Eastern Old Japanese, retaining several unique grammatical and phonetic features recorded in the Azuma (region), Azuma-dialect poems of the 8th-century ''Man'yōshū'' and the ''Fudoki'' of Hitachi Provin ...
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Gusuku Culture
The is an era in the history of the Ryukyu Islands, an island chain now part of Japan. The period corresponds to the spread of agriculture and Japonic culture from Japan alongside increased social organization, eventually leading to endemic warfare and the construction of the namesake fortresses. Following the Shellmidden Period, the Gusuku is generally described as beginning in the 11th century after a dramatic social and economic shift over the previous centuries. The Shellmidden–Gusuku transition has been linked to Japonic-speaking migrants and influence from a Japanese trade outpost on the island of Kikai, leading to the emergence of the Proto-Ryukyuan language, the common ancestor of the modern Ryukyuan languages. The period saw widespread agriculture across the archipelago, including the cultivation of foxtail millet, rice, barley, and wheat. Trade occurred with China, Korea, and Japan, including imports of ceramics and the export of mother of pearl. A unique form of ...
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Old Japanese
is the oldest attested stage of the Japanese language, recorded in documents from the Nara period (8th century). It became Early Middle Japanese in the succeeding Heian period, but the precise delimitation of the stages is controversial. Old Japanese was an early member of the Japonic language family. No genetic links to other language families have been proven. Old Japanese was written using man'yōgana, which is a writing system that employs Chinese characters as syllabograms or (occasionally) logograms. It featured a few phonemic differences from later forms, such as a simpler syllable structure and distinctions between several pairs of syllables that have been pronounced identically since Early Middle Japanese. The phonetic realization of these distinctions is uncertain. Internal reconstruction points to a pre-Old Japanese phase with fewer consonants and vowels. As is typical of Japonic languages, Old Japanese was primarily an agglutinative language with a subject–obj ...
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Okinawan Language
Okinawan (, , , ), or more precisely Central Okinawan, is a Northern Ryukyuan languages, Ryukyuan language spoken primarily in the southern half of the Okinawa Island, island of Okinawa, as well as in the surrounding islands of Kerama Islands, Kerama, Kumejima, Okinawa, Kumejima, Tonaki, Okinawa, Tonaki, Aguni, Okinawa, Aguni and a number of smaller peripheral islands. Central Okinawan distinguishes itself from the speech of Northern Okinawa, which is classified independently as the Kunigami language. Both languages are listed by UNESCO as Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger, endangered. Though Okinawan encompasses a number of local dialects, the Shuri, Okinawa, Shuri–Naha variant is generally recognized as the ''de facto'' standard, as it had been used as the official language of the Ryukyu Kingdom since the reign of King Shō Shin (1477–1526). Moreover, as the former capital of Shuri was built around the royal palace, the language used by the royal court became the reg ...
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Comparative Reconstruction
In linguistics, the comparative method is a technique for studying the development of languages by performing a feature-by-feature comparison of two or more languages with common descent from a shared ancestor and then extrapolating backwards to infer the properties of that ancestor. The comparative method may be contrasted with the method of internal reconstruction in which the internal development of a single language is inferred by the analysis of features within that language. Ordinarily, both methods are used together to reconstruct prehistoric phases of languages; to fill in gaps in the historical record of a language; to discover the development of phonological, morphological and other linguistic systems and to confirm or to refute hypothesised relationships between languages. The comparative method emerged in the early 19th century with the birth of Indo-European studies, then took a definite scientific approach with the works of the Neogrammarians in the late 19th–ear ...
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Japanese Pitch Accent
Japanese pitch accent is a feature of the Japanese language that distinguishes words by accenting particular morae in most Japanese dialects. The nature and location of the accent for a given word may vary between dialects. For instance, the word for "river" is in the Tokyo dialect, with the accent on the second mora, but in the Kansai dialect it is . A final or is often devoiced to or after a downstep and an unvoiced consonant. The Japanese term is , and it refers to pitch accent in languages such as Japanese and Swedish. It contrasts with , which refers to stress. An alternative term is which contrasts with . Standard Japanese Normative pitch accent, essentially the pitch accent of the Tokyo Yamanote dialect, is considered essential in jobs such as broadcasting. The current standards for pitch accent are presented in special accent dictionaries for native speakers such as the ''Shin Meikai Nihongo Akusento Jiten'' () and the ''NHK Nihongo Hatsuon Akusento Ji ...
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Bilabial Consonant
In phonetics, a bilabial consonant is a labial consonant articulated with both lips. Frequency Bilabial consonants are very common across languages. Only around 0.7% of the world's languages lack bilabial consonants altogether, including Tlingit, Chipewyan, Oneida, and Wichita, though all of these have a labial–velar approximant /w/. Varieties The bilabial consonants identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is an alphabetic system of phonetic notation based primarily on the Latin script. It was devised by the International Phonetic Association in the late 19th century as a standard written representation ... (IPA) are: Owere Igbo has a six-way contrast among bilabial stops: . Other varieties The extensions to the IPA also define a () for smacking the lips together. A lip-smack in the non-percussive sense of the lips audibly parting would be . The IPA chart shades out ''bilabial lateral consonants'', wh ...
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