Globalizing the Prehistory of Japan: Language, Genes and Civilisation by Ann Kumar

Author:Ann Kumar [Kumar, Ann]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Ethnic Studies, Emigration & Immigration, Technology & Engineering, Agriculture, Japan, Social Science, Political Science, Asia, History, Regional Studies, General
ISBN: 9781135784720
Google: f_aQAgAAQBAJ
Goodreads: 17524470
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2008-11-24T00:00:00+00:00

We can perhaps eliminate some theories, such as the relationship with Tamil, as having little support either from linguists or from supporting evidence from other fields such as archaeology. However, even with regard to Altaic and Austronesian, the two ‘front runners’ in these theories about the relationships of Japanese, there are extremely divergent views, ranging from a genetic relationship with one or both of these families, to an Austronesian substratum and an Altaic superstratum, or an Altaic substratum and an Austronesian superstratum.

Furthermore, Shibatani has rightly criticized all theories claiming a relationship between Japanese and another language or language family on the grounds of the inability of any of the proponents to provide recurrent sound correspondences between the two languages/families (Shibatani 1990: 112–17). This problem has become so acute in the case of Altaic that former adherents of the theory of the Altaic status of Japanese have renounced this position, notably Vovin in his recent trenchant critique of the ‘evidence’ (Vovin 2005; for his former position see Vovin 1994a and 1994b). Here, I will show that there was a specific input from one particular Austronesian language, for which one can draw up the best set of sound correspondences ever produced for any putative prehistoric relationship of the Japanese language, whether genetic or contact.

Given this situation, it is not surprising that I received some advice to keep out of the linguistic area. Though I knew the problems were daunting, I also felt that no radically new truth is won without risk and, as noted above, I had strong reasons for needing to know the linguistic element in the contact. Despite the confusion generated by these theories proposing so many different scenarios, I realized that there was at least one certainty that could be established. This is set out in the following section.

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