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Finding Casts New Light on the Origins of the Japanese People - nest0r - 2011-05-14
NYT: Finding on Dialects Casts New Light on the Origins of the Japanese People
“Researchers studying the various dialects of Japanese have concluded that all are descended from a founding language taken to the Japanese islands about 2,200 years ago. The finding sheds new light on the origin of the Japanese people, suggesting that their language is descended from that of the rice-growing farmers who arrived in Japan from the Korean Peninsula, and not from the hunter-gatherers who first inhabited the islands some 30,000 years ago.”
More discussion w/ excerpts: Dating the origin of Japanese languages with Bayesian phylogenetics
Original: Bayesian phylogenetic analysis supports an agricultural origin of Japonic languages
Abstract: Languages, like genes, evolve by a process of descent with modification. This striking similarity between biological and linguistic evolution allows us to apply phylogenetic methods to explore how languages, as well as the people who speak them, are related to one another through evolutionary history. Language phylogenies constructed with lexical data have so far revealed population expansions of Austronesian, Indo-European and Bantu speakers. However, how robustly a phylogenetic approach can chart the history of language evolution and what language phylogenies reveal about human prehistory must be investigated more thoroughly on a global scale. Here we report a phylogeny of 59 Japonic languages and dialects. We used this phylogeny to estimate time depth of its root and compared it with the time suggested by an agricultural expansion scenario for Japanese origin. In agreement with the scenario, our results indicate that Japonic languages descended from a common ancestor approximately 2182 years ago. Together with archaeological and biological evidence, our results suggest that the first farmers of Japan had a profound impact on the origins of both people and languages. On a broader level, our results are consistent with a theory that agricultural expansion is the principal factor for shaping global linguistic diversity.
Finding Casts New Light on the Origins of the Japanese People - yudantaiteki - 2011-05-14
I believe I've heard this from Professor (James) Unger as well, so the idea's been kicking around for a while -- I don't remember the details but he did mention wet-rice farming so it may be along the same lines.
Finding Casts New Light on the Origins of the Japanese People - nest0r - 2011-05-14
Yeah, I think Shibatani makes references to these origin theories also. It's the ‘phylolinguistic’ aspect that's novel; I imagine we'll see a lot more studies using this methodology.
Finding Casts New Light on the Origins of the Japanese People - Kuma01 - 2011-05-14
I doubt the Japanese will be happy with this find. They tend to view themselves as the 'Aryans of the East' if you will. From what I've heard they don't like to be compared to the Chinese or Koreans.
Finding Casts New Light on the Origins of the Japanese People - bodhisamaya - 2011-05-15
Japanese are Jewish
Finding Casts New Light on the Origins of the Japanese People - Blahah - 2011-05-15
bodhisamaya Wrote:Japanese are JewishI can't tell if that video's a joke, but the nose on that mask has clearly been added after the fact.
Finding Casts New Light on the Origins of the Japanese People - liosama - 2011-05-16
nestor do you have twitter?
if you do could you pm me your account, i'd like to follow you
--
That is if you actually tweet this sort of stuff
Finding Casts New Light on the Origins of the Japanese People - nest0r - 2011-05-16
No, but I should have a nest0r twitter account, given I've gone on about it being useful for comprehensible output, but meh. Or do I, but I forgot? Pretty sure I don't. Hard to keep track of my online identities and I've been consumed by other pursuits lately.
Finding Casts New Light on the Origins of the Japanese People - ViolentDeathProvider - 2011-05-21
bodhisamaya Wrote:Japanese are JewishI don't know how much of that video is bullshit, and I'd like to see some discussion about it, but it doesn't surprise me that there could be some connection between the two nations because they are so similar.
As for the the opening post (God, I've been using 'as for' a lot since studying 日本語), that is very interesting. I'd like to read more about it.
Finding Casts New Light on the Origins of the Japanese People - IceCream - 2011-05-21
@ violentdeathprovider:
That's just pure racism. Please don't post things like that.
Finding Casts New Light on the Origins of the Japanese People - vonPeterhof - 2011-05-21
ViolentDeathProvider Wrote:...they are second to only white people as a whole for imperialism)Ever heard of Genghis Khan?
Finding Casts New Light on the Origins of the Japanese People - ViolentDeathProvider - 2011-05-21
IceCream Wrote:@ violentdeathprovider:I disagree. But I edited it out anyway, I'm not trying to offend anyone. My apologies.
That's just pure racism. Please don't post things like that.
vonPeterhof Wrote:He was good at what he did, the conquering and all, but when I said "white people" I meant European nations and America as a collective. It's hard to compare one man and his army versus a continent of different Empires.ViolentDeathProvider Wrote:...they are second to only white people as a whole for imperialism)Ever heard of Genghis Khan?
Also, I don't want to derail this thread and it's gotten a little off track already. Sorry, OP!
Finding Casts New Light on the Origins of the Japanese People - nest0r - 2011-05-21
@VDP - Don't worry, I didn't get a chance to read yours, but I'm sure it was superior to Kuma01's.
Finding Casts New Light on the Origins of the Japanese People - vonPeterhof - 2011-05-21
ViolentDeathProvider Wrote:My point was not to compare the Mongol Empire to the "white people", it was specifically about your claim that Japanese imperialism is only second to white people as a whole, when there was a perfectly non-white empire that was larger, lasted longer (when exactly it collapsed is debatable, but it is generally agreed that it lasted for more than 50 years) and was arguably even more brutal than the 大日本帝國.vonPeterhof Wrote:He was good at what he did, the conquering and all, but when I said "white people" I meant European nations and America as a collective. It's hard to compare one man and his army versus a continent of different Empires.ViolentDeathProvider Wrote:...they are second to only white people as a whole for imperialism)Ever heard of Genghis Khan?
Finding Casts New Light on the Origins of the Japanese People - ViolentDeathProvider - 2011-05-21
vonPeterhof Wrote:Oh. Well then, point taken.ViolentDeathProvider Wrote:My point was not to compare the Mongol Empire to the "white people", it was specifically about your claim that Japanese imperialism is only second to white people as a whole, when there was a perfectly non-white empire that was larger, lasted longer (when exactly it collapsed is debatable, but it is generally agreed that it lasted for more than 50 years) and was arguably even more brutal than the 大日本帝國.vonPeterhof Wrote:Ever heard of Genghis Khan?He was good at what he did, the conquering and all, but when I said "white people" I meant European nations and America as a collective. It's hard to compare one man and his army versus a continent of different Empires.
Finding Casts New Light on the Origins of the Japanese People - IceCream - 2011-05-21
ViolentDeathProvider Wrote:ok, thanksIceCream Wrote:@ violentdeathprovider:I disagree. But I edited it out anyway, I'm not trying to offend anyone. My apologies.
That's just pure racism. Please don't post things like that.
the reason it's racism is that you're making stereotypical generalisations about 2 nations people.
Even where that wasn't the case / supposing for a minute those things you said were in actual fact all true, you have to think about how these things are transmitted.
Either you're going to hold that they come through this supposed genetic link between ancient Jews and the Japanese, or that they were transmitted culturally through their supposed emigration. (or some combination of the two).
In the genetics case, there's absolutely no evidence suggesting that those kinds of traits are genetically transferrable. Logically, most of them couldn't possibly be. It's just not how genetics works, as we know it. But even if it were, the history of Japanese DNA suggests that there were two main waves of emmigration to Japan... one around 30,000BC, which were the Joumon. The second around 300BC which were the Yayoi. DNA links the Yayoi to the province of China called Jiangsu through Korea. Japanese DNA has no semitic markers, apparently.
In the cultural transmittion case, it's entirely likely that some Jewish influence has spread to Japan at some point in time. After all, most countries in the world can find cultural transmition of some Jewish ideas and habits. But Japan is well known for it's large number of other cultural influences, and the taking in of different ideas and sort of Japanese-ising them. I'm sure you could come up with a good few instances of cultures that have had much more widespread and deep cultural influence on the Japanese. There's again no good reason to suppose that those traits (if they existed) came from ancient israel and weren't much more closely connected to more recent historical events and larger cultural influences in Japan.
Apparently, this idea that the Japanese are related to a lost tribe of Israel comes from some small japanese sect who love israel. Many of those ideas in that program are extremely forced connections. It's basically a historical entertainment program.
If you're interested, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Japan#Japanese_prehistory http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yayoi_period
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese-Jewish_Common_Ancestor_Theory