Latest comment: 3 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
It would be good to have some documented explanation of how we are romanizing Proto-Japonic. Things like *mapya make me quite uneasy, when the OJP reflex is Old Japanese前(*mape1), considered to be a compound of Old Japanese目(ma, “eye”, combining form for standalone me2) + 辺・方(pe1, “area, roundabouts; in the direction of”, source of the modern directional particle へ(e)). The table at w:Proto-Japonic#Vowels includes a reconstructed *e that would correspond to word-final OJP e1, so this *mapya romanization is most confusing. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │Tala við mig00:24, 12 November 2021 (UTC)Reply
Nitpicking: I think the tone of this "Therefore, voiced *b and *d should not be reconstructed for Proto-Japonic!" part is a bit problematic. Maybe they should be rephrased to look less contentious. -- Huhu9001 (talk) 00:33, 11 June 2023 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 1 year ago1 comment1 person in discussion
I strongly recommend against the use of strangely upper-cased glyphs like ⟨Ə⟩, which was added recently to WT:AJPX, or the capital ⟨M⟩ that isn't explained anywhere I've found and that has been appearing in a few JPX-PRO entries in the past couple weeks. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │Tala við mig21:49, 21 June 2023 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 1 year ago5 comments2 people in discussion
Is there any evidence for シク活用 adjectives in Ryukyuan, as a class? This might well be an innovation in Japanese. Counterparts in Okinawan, for instance, all have the regular adjectival ending in -san, same as for regular ク活用 adjectives. I don't have access to any references that show conjugation patterns, however, so I do not know if these might show any differences in that way. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │Tala við mig22:12, 21 June 2023 (UTC)Reply
@Chuterix, the question is not whether RYU reflexes for JA -siku adjectives exist -- the question is whether -siku adjectives exist as a distinct class in the Ryukyuan languages, distinct from the reflexes for JA -ku adjectives.
From what limited information I can glean about RYU adjective conjugation patterns, JA -siku adjectives seem to reflect in RYU as adjectives of identical formation to reflexes for JA -ku adjectives.
If so, then this appears to indicate that the -siku paradigm is an innovation within the Japanese branch, and we should not be considering these as separate for the Proto stage. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │Tala við mig22:25, 26 June 2023 (UTC)Reply
I wonder if Ryukyu go onsei database of 2024 will include grammar info for all dialects. Otherwise you may have to scavenge for dialect grammar info (some are in the dialect dictionaries in Japanese).
Latest comment: 10 months ago2 comments1 person in discussion
Where is Vovin's source for the existence of this dialect, apperently containing one short poem? He only mentions the existence in passing, in Vovin (2014).
Latest comment: 9 months ago21 comments3 people in discussion
First paragraph:
Japanese words have an ablaut such as 雨(ame, “rain”) and 雨雲(amagumo, “rain clouds”) (< PJ *amay), which have been thought to have been derived from fusion with an emphatic nominal particle い(i).
We should start by introducing what this is, and in more descriptive detail: for example, we should mention that this phenomenon 1) is specific to nouns, 2) is primarily apparent in compounding forms versus standalone nouns, and 3) involves fronting of the final vowels when the terms appear as standalone nouns.
We should list the specific shifts that occur. A simple table would suffice.
A mention of the Japanese terminology would also be helpful: 露出形(roshutsukei) and 被覆形(hifukukei).
Conjectures about the derivation should happen in a separate paragraph, not least as the origins of this phenomenon are debated.
Second paragraph:
In Proto-Japonic, it's reconstructed as *-i or *-y. The reconstruction *-y appears to be solely based off of Ainu loanword evidence (compare Ainu カムイ(kamuy, “god”) or パスィ(pasuy, “chopsticks”, whence Japanese 箸(hashi, “chopsticks”, < PJ *pasuy))). The final *-y is deleted in ancient compounds (e.g. *may(“eye”) and *mapia(“front”)) and in Eastern Old Japanese (*Oy; compare 月(tuku, “moon”, Eastern Old Japanese) (< PJ *tukuy) and 火(pu, “fire”, Eastern Old Japanese; hapax legomenon found as a suffix) (< PJ *poy via vowel raising)), while monophthongization occurs as a standalone noun.
"In Proto-Japonic, it's reconstructed as..."
Stylistically, we should avoid contractions.
"In Proto-Japonic, it's reconstructed as..."
Grammatically / syntactically, it is unclear what the antecedent is for the "it's" -- what is reconstructed as *-i or *-y?
"The reconstruction *-y appears to be solely based off of Ainu loanword evidence..."
I have no idea what is intended by claiming that a reconstruction as *-y is "solely based off of Ainu loanword evidence". The ⟨y⟩ notation used in written Ainu is specific to agreed-upon romanization standards for Ainu, and is wholly irrelevant to Japanese. If this text is meant to convey that ⟨y⟩ here used as a vowel is meant to indicate a single-mora diphthong (which is how it is used in Ainu), that meaning is completely unclear. And if that is the intended use of ⟨y⟩, then why is "front" rendered as mapia, which implies three morae and a vowel hiatus, rather than mapya, which would be two morae with no hiatus? The notation conventions are unclear and seem to be conflicting.
"...compare Ainu カムイ(kamuy, “god”) or パスィ(pasuy, “chopsticks”, whence Japanese 箸(hashi, “chopsticks”, < PJ *pasuy))"
We have evidence within Japanese of 神 appearing as kamu and kami. However, we have no such evidence for 箸(“chopsticks”) -- this is only ever attested as pasi in Old Japanese, with no Japanese evidence anywhere I can find for any compounding form pasu-. Given the likely derivation from, or otherwise relating to, verb 挟む(hasamu, “to pinch, to tweeze, to make something stick between two other things”), and likely relation to other has- words like 端(hashi, “edge”), 橋(hashi, “bridge”), etc., all of which also lack any pasu- evidence, any pasu- form for 箸(“chopsticks”) seems unlikely.
"The final *-y is deleted in ancient compounds ..."
Japanese sources tend to treat the non-fronted versions as older, if they say anything at all about the relative ages. If this interpretation is correct, then "the final *-y" is not "deleted in ancient compounds" -- instead, the fronting element would be added to these nouns when used as standalones -- indeed, as the current text suggests further above with mention of the emphatic nominalizing particle い(i).
"...compare ... 火(pu, “fire”, Eastern Old Japanese; hapax legomenon found as a suffix) (< PJ *poy via vowel raising)"
The contention here is strange -- the Eastern Old Japanese form pu is irrelevant to this whole section discussing ablaut, and the one term where this is attested -- 葦火(asipu) -- the "fire" component is the latter element in the compound, which presumably would undergo vowel fronting but apparently does not in Eastern Old Japanese.
Also, why on earth would we choose a hapax legomenon as evidence of this ablaut phenomenon, when we have many more well-attested examples to choose from?
If we want to illustrate the 露出・被服 ablaut phenomenon with the word for 火(“fire”), we have ample other examples that are better suited -- standalone Old Japanese火(pi) and compounded 炎(ponopo, from 火 + の + 穂), for instance.
"...while monophthongization occurs as a standalone noun."
We cannot say definitively that the terms "monophthongize" when we do not know with any certainty why this ablaut happens.
This shift might be caused by deletion of a secondary element that was endemic to the base term. -- In this case, a diphthong in the base term monophthongizes.
This shift might be caused by addition of a secondary element that was wholly separate from the base term. -- In this case, a monophthong in the base term diphthongizes.
All we can currently say with any certainty is that these nouns appear to exhibit a reconstructable diphthong in the final vowel when used as standalone words or the final element in a compound, while the same nouns appear to exhibit a monophthong in the final vowel when used as the first element in a compound.
Third paragraph:
Alexander Vovin traces this *-y element to an earlier *-r (see PJ *wasay(“early rice”)).
It is worth noting here that Vovin's contention depends entirely upon the phonetic reconstruction of Late Old Korean spelling 菩薩／菩萨(púsà). He uses the phonetic values /pɦuǝ sar/ for Late Middle Chinese, and /phú sǎ/ for Early Mandarin. The Late Old Korean spelling is apparently from "Kyeyrim #183". This "Kyeyrim" is apparently the Gyerim Yusa in Sino-Korean, also known by its Mandarin-based name Jilin leishi. This was written in 1103, early enough that Late Middle Chinese pronunciations are probably more relevant (considering the second paragraph at w:Middle Chinese, mentioning mid-1100s rime dictionaries) than Early Mandarin (see also w:Old Mandarin, for which rime dictionaries and related phonetic materials don't appear until the mid-to-late-1200s).
With that in mind, I notice that our entries at 菩#Chinese and 薩#Chinese indicate instead a pronunciations of /buo/ + /sɑt̚/.
This gives us Vovin's /pɦuǝ sar/, versus our /buo sɑt̚/.
And herein lies a problem.
Reconstructed Late Old Korean /pɦuǝ sar/, /buo sɑt̚/ -- attested 1103.
Old Japanese wasa- (compounding), wase (standalone) -- attested in the Man'yōshū of 759.
That's a nearly 350-year spread. We have to posit some odd phonological shifts for these two to match up.
In all cases, this assumes:
→ final consonant /r/ or /t/ reflects as /r/ in the Korean branch + shifts to ablaut in the Japonic branch?
Option 1: Proto-Koreo-Japonic had an initial /w/?
→ fortition to initial /p/ in the Korean branch + stays /w/ in the Japonic branch?
→ medial diphthong /uo/ drops out entirely in the Korean branch + shifts to /a/ in the Japonic branch?
Option 2: Proto-Koreo-Japonic had an initial /p/, /b/?
→ lenition to initial /w/ in the Japonic branch + stays /p/ in the Korean branch? This might work, if we assume that Japanese wata ("ocean") is cognate with Korean bada, and that this w ↔ b correlation is consistent.
However, there are a few other potential cognates where Korean initial b seems to match instead with Old Japanese p, raising some doubts about this. There's also that initial vowel value -- more on that below.
→ medial diphthong /uo/ drops out entirely in the Korean branch + shifts to /a/ in the Japonic branch?
Option 3:
Per Vovin's contention on pages 230-231 of his paper, the medial diphthong in the Chinese reconstructed pronunciation might be unimportant, as the later Middle Korean records of this term indicate that the initial vowel was unstressed / low-tone and reducible, leading to its elision by the time we see hangul records in the 1400s.
I don't have access to any references listing ancient pitch-pattern information for Japanese terms. In the modern language, the Japanese term wase and compounds is consistently recorded with a high-low pitch pattern, the opposite of the putative Old Korean low-high pattern. Separately, the schwa /ə/ in reconstructed Proto-Japonic reflects in both Ryukyuan and Japanese branches as /o/, not /a/.
In addition, 菩薩 is attested in Japanese texts from very early on with the importation of Buddhism into Japan. So far as I can tell, this was rendered as something like /bosatu/ in Old Japanese -- quite distinct from /wasa-/ or /wase/.
All taken together, and assuming the ablaut reasoning that Vovin gives here, we would expect any Proto-Koreo-Japonic term /pəsar/ to reflect as Old Japanese /posa-/ (compounding) and /pose/ -- but what we have instead is /wasa-/ and /wase/.
If instead the initial /a/ vowel in the Japanese should be taken as closer to the Proto form, we are left without a clear reason for this to elide in the Korean -- especially if we assume cognacy of OJP wata and KO bada, where the initial /a/ stays as /a/ in both languages.
→ I am not opposed to mentioning Vovin's proposed mechanism for the ablaut in Japanese. However, we should qualify this theory as currently limited to just the one word, and also note that the reconstruction is not without its challenges.
:: I have no idea what is intended by claiming that a reconstruction as *-y is "solely based off of Ainu loanword evidence". The ⟨y⟩ notation used in written Ainu is specific to agreed-upon romanization standards for Ainu, and is wholly irrelevant to Japanese. If this text is meant to convey that ⟨y⟩ here used as a vowel is meant to indicate a single-mora diphthong (which is how it is used in Ainu), that meaning is completely unclear. And if that is the intended use of ⟨y⟩, then why is "front" rendered as mapia, which implies three morae and a vowel hiatus, rather than mapya, which would be two morae with no hiatus? The notation conventions are unclear and seem to be conflicting.
mapia instead of mapya is because there's no evidence for reconstruction *Cya, even in Ainu.
:: We have evidence within Japanese of 神 appearing as kamu and kami. However, we have no such evidence for 箸 (“chopsticks”) -- this is only ever attested as pasi in Old Japanese, with no Japanese evidence anywhere I can find for any compounding form pasu-. Given the likely derivation from, or otherwise relating to, verb 挟む (hasamu, “to pinch, to tweeze, to make something stick between two other things”), and likely relation to other has- words like 端 (hashi, “edge”), 橋 (hashi, “bridge”), etc., all of which also lack any pasu- evidence, any pasu- form for 箸 (“chopsticks”) seems unlikely.
Possibly true; I hypothesize this might've derived from an unattested kami nidan verb *pasu ("to grasp"), with hasamu being a remnant of an ancient yodan verb (< *pas-a-mu; literally grasp-mizenkei-look.like).
:: Japanese sources tend to treat the non-fronted versions as older, if they say anything at all about the relative ages. If this interpretation is correct, then "the final *-y" is not "deleted in ancient compounds" -- instead, the fronting element would be added to these nouns when used as standalones -- indeed, as the current text suggests further above with mention of the emphatic nominalizing particle い (i).
I'm not sure what to do with this one. But it's deleted even in ancient compounds of Proto-Japonic (e.g. *mapia(“front”) and *kankami(“mirror”)). One way is to reject the Japanese sources. But it's still worth mentioning.
:: The contention here is strange -- the Eastern Old Japanese form pu is irrelevant to this whole section discussing ablaut, and the one term where this is attested -- 葦火 (asipu) -- the "fire" component is the latter element in the compound, which presumably would undergo vowel fronting but apparently does not in Eastern Old Japanese. Also, why on earth would we choose a hapax legomenon as evidence of this ablaut phenomenon, when we have many more well-attested examples to choose from? If we want to illustrate the 露出・被服 ablaut phenomenon with the word for 火 (“fire”), we have ample other examples that are better suited -- standalone Old Japanese火 (pi) and compounded 炎 (ponopo, from 火 + の + 穂), for instance.
Eastern Old Japanese (dialects) delete the word-final *-y and raises the vowel. It can also be used in standalone nouns (e.g. 月(tuku, “moon”)). However this is only a hapax. Also, what do you mean "the "fire" component is the latter element in the compound, which presumably would undergo vowel fronting but apparently does not in Eastern Old Japanese"?
We cannot say definitively that the terms "monophthongize" when we do not know with any certainty why this ablaut happens. * This shift might be caused by deletion of a secondary element that was endemic to the base term. -- In this case, a diphthong in the base term monophthongizes. * This shift might be caused by addition of a secondary element that was wholly separate from the base term. -- In this case, a monophthong in the base term diphthongizes. All we can currently say with any certainty is that these nouns appear to exhibit a reconstructable diphthong in the final vowel when used as standalone words or the final element in a compound, while the same nouns appear to exhibit a monophthong in the final vowel when used as the first element in a compound.
You may want to see Vovin (2011) and Vovin (2014). One example is OJ 石(isi, “stone”), from PJ *esoy and derived from 磯(iso1, “rock; rocky shore”); Vovin treats the final *-y as a diminutive, apparently originally meaning "little rock". Then, we must look at Korean (KO) 이(i, “this”) and 이(-i, “nominalizer”), so perhaps nouns with *-y in it originally meant "this (nominalized) NOUN"?
Your argument about Pre-Proto-Japonic *-r:
Too lazy to comment on all of this; but another evidence for Pre-PJ *-r is in Alexander Francis-Ratte's paper: An Interdisciplinary Case for a Peninsular Origin of the Japanese Language. He analyzes Goguryeo *斤(“tree”, gloss of 木) reading as *kər based of the Baxter Old Chinese reconstruction. He compares this to PJ *kəy(“tree”) and traces this to earlier Pre-PJ *kər. The text is available on Wikipedia Library.
斤 also could have a reading *kVn, and there's OJ 木立(ko1dati, “tree stand”), perhaps from an older *kə(C)n (but no scholary evidence exists).
Whatever sounds similar between Korean and Japanese (and some proven), perhaps cognate? A borrowing?
"mapia instead of mapya is because there's no evidence for reconstruction *Cya, even in Ainu."
Ainu is irrelevant.
The issue is notation -- what is the ⟨y⟩ for in other terms? What is this intended to express? The ⟨ia⟩ notation suggests a two-mora structure with vowel hiatus. Vowel + vowel is not allowed in Old Japanese: are you suggesting that pia is itself a compound?
Regarding evidence, there isn't any evidence for mapia either -- this is conjecture. The latter element may well have been pe at the Proto level.
"Possibly true; I hypothesize this might've derived from an unattested kami nidan verb *pasu ("to grasp")..."
Interesting thought. However, if JA pasi "chopsticks" came from a verb pasu, this would have to be the 連用形. Are you positing that the 連用形 itself is formed by addition of this i/y element?
"But it's deleted even in ancient compounds of Proto-Japonic..."
I think you misunderstand me.
I have no argument that 目 can be reconstructed as (something like) may as a standalone, and ma- when used in compounds.
My argument in this thread is that there is currently no consensus regarding whether this vowel-fronting -y element is something that gets added to the standalone form, or deleted from the compounding form.
"Eastern Old Japanese (dialects) delete the word-final *-y and raises the vowel."
A couple issues here.
The current text at Wiktionary:About_Proto-Japonic#Standalone_forms_and_combining_forms brings up Eastern Old Japanese (EOJ) in a section about Western Old Japanese (WOJ) combining forms. This is a confusing non sequitur that does not belong in this section. We should delete this text about EOJ 火(pu).
We cannot say with any certainty that EOJ "raises" the vowel. Yes, in comparing EOJ pu and WOJ po, /u/ is indeed higher than /o/. However, we don't know which is "original" or "older". For all we know, /pu/ is the older pronunciation for 火, and it might be WOJ that innovated by lowering the vowel value.
EOJ evidence of usage patterns for 月(tuku) could instead be evidence that the vowel-fronting i/y element was a WOJ additive innovation. See also the NKD [補注] notes for the つく【月】 entry here at Kotobank (emphasis mine):
"Also, what do you mean "the "fire" component is the latter element in the compound, which presumably would undergo vowel fronting but apparently does not in Eastern Old Japanese"?"
In WOJ, terms that have 露出・被服 vowel shifts exhibit fronting when 1) used as a standalone, or 2) used as the latter element in a compound.
In the EOJ hapax term asipu, the pu element meaning "fire" appears as the latter element in the compound.
If EOJ manifested the same vowel-fronting we see in WOJ, we would expect asipi, not asipu. Compare WOJ pronunciations for 口, appearing as fronted kuti as a standalone or the second element in a compound, and as non-fronted kutu- when used as the first element in a compound.
→ This, combined with the NKD [補注] note above about EOJ tuku, suggests that EOJ did not have vowel-fronting, and that the vowel-fronting we see in WOJ could be an innovative and additive process.
"Vovin treats the final *-y as a diminutive, apparently originally meaning "little rock"."
There's a problem with this -- where isi and iso are distinguished, iso seems to be the smaller of the two.
"Your argument about Pre-Proto-Japonic *-r:"
Great! If we can find many different pieces of evidence for final -r in likely-related terms that clearly correlate with Japanese nouns known to have this vowel-fronting behavior, we can build up a clearer picture for how this 露出・被服 phenomenon likely came to be.
Some other thoughts about vowel fronting in Japanese:
As an alternative hypothesis, nouns with vowel fronting might reflect an ancient noun-class distinction. Many Austronesian languages have two classes of nouns -- separable, and inseparable. Separable nouns in Hawaiian and Maori, for instance, take the -a version of particles like in Maorimā ("for something or someone"), while inseparable nouns take the -o version like in Hawaiiano(“of something or someone”). Separable nouns might include possessions, while inseparable might include body parts, homes, and spiritual elements like gods or vital forces. I had noticed years ago that the Japanese nouns with fronting seem to overlap at least somewhat with the inseparable class in Maori and Hawaiian; I am curious if this would become more or less of a clear correlation (or if we might discover any other semantic relationships) if we could list up all Japanese nouns known to have 露出・被服 vowel fronting.
Looking more specifically at OJP and Early Middle Japanese nominal particle い(i), I just read the paper "A Korean Grammatical Borrowing in Early Middle Japanese Kunten Texts and its Relation to the Syntactic Alignment of Earlier Korean and Japanese", which makes a strong case for the い(i) particle to be a borrowing from early Korean-peninsula languages during the time of Buddhist importation from the mainland. I myself had wondered, if vowel fronting were caused by fusion with a nominal particle i, why would this particle still be distinct in the historical record, even when appended to nouns ending in vowels? I think we may have to discount particle-い(i) as the cause of vowel fronting, as this particle may well be too young in Japanese to be the source of this phenomenon.
The issue is notation -- what is the ⟨y⟩ for in other terms? What is this intended to express? The ⟨ia⟩ notation suggests a two-mora structure with vowel hiatus. Vowel + vowel is not allowed in Old Japanese: are you suggesting that pia is itself a compound? Regarding evidence, there isn't any evidence for mapia either -- this is conjecture. The latter element may well have been pe at the Proto level.
*pia 'direction' could be related to *pi(“sun”), with some element *-a added. In reference to the direction of the sun. Compare also *ani(“older brother”) to *ania(“older sister”); this seems to be a contrasting particle. PJ **anay 'older sister' but PJ **anayi 'older brother', or **ane 'older sister' but **aney 'older brother'; that wouldn't make sense unless they're reconstructed that way. IIRC, the Ryukyuan languages use a mix of words for *ania 'older sister'. Anyways read the diphthong correspondences section; there are two routes for OJ Ce1.
Interesting thought. However, if JA pasi "chopsticks" came from a verb pasu, this would have to be the 連用形. Are you positing that the 連用形 itself is formed by addition of this i/y element?
I don't know. I usually don't do this theory for verbs.
There's a problem with this -- where isi and iso are distinguished, iso seems to be the smaller of the two.
Whatever; the English equivalent could be anything: 'dear rock'?
I think we may have to discount particle-い (i) as the cause of vowel fronting, as this particle may well be too young in Japanese to be the source of this phenomenon.
On 早稲(wase), I believe Tokyo Atamadaka in monosyllables (aka HL-L) is supposed to reflect the 2.4 accent class, who is LH in Kyoto. It also reflects 2.5 (LF), but wase is LH in heian according to Martin. Thus, indeed the Japanese word has low pitch in ancient times, correlating to MK low pitch. (also i wish @荒巻モロゾフ comes back) Chuterix (talk) 17:19, 18 December 2023 (UTC)Reply
On the 斤, I firmly convinced that it is a result of wrong interpretation of researchers and misspelling on the original Samguk Sagi placename.
In conclusion, they confused 文 and 木 by one ancient Korean editor's messy handwriting. In other words, longer vertical dot on the top and pair of oblique slashes started from more inner make 文 into 木. Korea origin theory of Japanese is totally far-fetched and they are utterly ignorant to Korean lexicon.
There are two examples where 斤 appeared as part of /kɨl/ in Samguk Sagi toponyms.
赤木縣（一云沙非斤乙） - 赤 :: 沙非 새ᄇᆞᆰ(saypolk, “morning glow”, obviously native Koreanic word for 東明 and 朝鮮, cf. "赤城縣，本高句麗沙伏忽，景德王改名，今陽城縣", 赤 = 沙伏 = 새ᄇᆞᆰ (Modern Korean: 새밝) according to an opinion of the Academy of Korean Studies[1]) + 木 文 :: 斤乙 (글(kul, “script”))
斤尸 and 斤乙, both of them are read /kɨnɨl/ = 그늘(geuneul, “shade, shadow”), or Middle Korean ᄀᆞᄂᆞᆶ(konolh), according to normal Idu reading, however the upper corresponds with 文: 글(geul, “script”) = /kɨl/. I think 글 and 그늘 are doublets as sense of dark and flat thing which makes patterns/figures.
@荒巻モロゾフ Then where did you think the Japanese/Japonic (倭 (OC *qoːl, *qoːlʔ, *qrol)) came from? What explains the psuedo-Goguryeo/Koguryo element *烏斯含(*osegam)? Textual corruption and thus not related to Proto-Japonic *(w)osanki? Chuterix (talk) 16:10, 28 July 2023 (UTC)Reply
The meaning of the Chinese character "倭" itself includes "dwarf", that is physical characteristics of Jomon people (Old Mongoloids), never Korean people who have taller statue than Japanese in average.
Recent researches revealed that earliest paddy rice cultivation in Japan starts as continuation of Jomon culture using the latest type of Jomon pottery from c. 930 BCE Northern Kyushu (Nabatake Ruins, Karatsu). Also the later Yayoi pottery inherited the patterns of older Jomon pottery while using the firing techniques brought from Korea. As for the tomb system, there are almost no dolmen tombs, which are characteristic in Korea, in Japan; few exceptions are distributed in the north-western Kyushu, but it was revealed that one of the entombed there has Jomon trait (Shinmachi ruins, Itoshima). These things show that Jomon people chose the continental cultures to absorb and immigrants to assimilate by their will.
Ryukyuans haven't experienced Yayoi culture, especially Southern Ryukyuans don't call rice *ine, but *mai derived from SIno-Japanese 米mai.[3] As if to show that rice cultivation in Okinawa was introduced directly from South China, 5 of the 17 indigenous Okinawan rice varieties are Indica and 1 is a crossbreed of Japonica and Indica.[4] Common cultural base with the mainland must date back before 930 BCE. Since Ryukyuans have strong Jomon traits, the theory that their language switched due to mass immigration cannot be used. The fact that their languages are peculiar as Japonic also makes confirm they are indigenous to there. If they were language of immigrant of newer era, they must be innovative and uniform, however in actuality, they are highly variable and preserve older traits which central dialects have lost.
Altaists' arguments are out of date, ignoring Ryukyu by all means and not reflecting latest archaeology.
As for "烏斯含", Itabashi 2003 also shows Nivkh osk, Ainu oske and Old Turkic tabisγan. Japanese usagi is not especially closer to that. I think lexical connection of Korean with Nivkh and Ainu as some substrates is more plausible than with Japanese.--荒巻モロゾフ (talk) 23:12, 28 July 2023 (UTC)Reply
@荒巻モロゾフ: Yeah, *osegam may not be related to Japonic *(w)osaNki after all, but can be compared with Koreanic, Tungusic, and Ainu. See also Goguryeo 忽(*xoR); see the etymology and it might be connected to Ainu コタン(kotan, “village”).
@Eirikr, @荒巻モロゾフ: What explains the presence of the completely obsolete Japanese word くち(kuchi, “hawk”), itself derived from Baekje/Paekche 倶知(*kuti, “hawk”), with no Ryukyuan, Hachijo, or dialectal cognates, and neither Korean 매(mae, “hawk”) nor ӈайс(ŋajs, “hawk”) show any phonetic match to kuti. Chuterix (talk) 23:28, 28 July 2023 (UTC)Reply
No time for much, so I'll keep this brief --
Given that the NKD entry'sNihon Shoki quote basically says right out "kuti is the Baekje word for Japanese taka", I'd call that a borrowing. And, as a borrowing in the historical (textually substantiated) period, it's no surprise at all that this word is not attested in the Ryukyuan branches or even in Hachijo.
As far as I see Lee 2011, “彌勒寺址 木簡에서 찾은 古代語 數詞 (Old Korean Numerals Inscribed on the Wooden Tablet Excavated at the Site of Mireuksa Temple)”, Baekje has purely Koreanic numerals. Even if there were Peninsular Japonic there, they would be post 475, fall of Seoul to Goguryo; Baekje seems to fell into a de facto protectorate of Yamato (like Manchukuo) at that point, and she got some ethnic Japanese officials within according to Nihon Shoki. In archaeologically, the keyhole tombs (specific to Japan and related to Yamato sovereignty) appeared in Jeolla-do in those years.--荒巻モロゾフ (talk) 23:58, 28 July 2023 (UTC)Reply
One last note for today. 😄
Phonetically, Proto-Japonic/wosaNki/, Goguryeo/osegam/, Nivkhosk, and Ainuoske are not all that far apart. Japonic doesn't allow consonant clusters, and also doesn't allow coda consonants, so the /-sk(V)/ we see in Nivkh and possibly Ainu would have to be reflected as /sVkV/ in Japonic.
The voicing in Japonic is a problem, however -- going out of Japonic, a loss of vowel and collapse from /sVɡ/ to /sɡ/ could easily lead to devoicing of the /ɡ/, producing /sk/. However, coming into Japonic, I cannot think of a compelling reason for that /k/ to become /ɡ/. If this came via Goguryeo/osegam/ or something like it, we can perhaps explain the voicing -- but then the vowel values are mismatched.
I think I recall reading somewhere that stop consonants are not consistently voiced or unvoiced in Ainu, that voiced and unvoiced variants are allophones (at least, in certain phonological environments). Might a Proto-Ainic /osuɡe/ conceivably be borrowed and change into Proto-Japonic /wosaNki/?
→ (Side note: From what I can find, Ainuoske is attested as Karafuto dialect オスケㇸ(osukeh) over on the island of w:Sakhalin, and in Batchelor's 1905 dictionary as oshuke or oshukep, the latter aligning with the Karafuto (final -p in Hokkaido Ainu is from ぺ(pe, “thing”), also used as a nominalization suffix, and this reflects as final -h in various Karafuto Ainu terms). Meanwhile, in the Bihoro, Chitose, Horobetsu, and Shizunai dialects in Hokkaido, オㇱケ(oske) is apparently the word for "center, middle", glossed as Japanese中, and the word for "rabbit" is either イセポ(isepo) or イソポ(isopo). Batchelor also lists isepo, but not isopo. I am not sure what region Batchelor's oshuke represents, but I believe it's from somewhere on Hokkaido; the presence in Karafuto Ainu could indicate a borrowing from Nivkh, with suffixation as part of the borrowing process.) ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │Tala við mig00:49, 29 July 2023 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 1 year ago10 comments2 people in discussion
I will hastily reject @荒巻モロゾフ's opinion that Hirayama 1966, 1967's "...book is useless for enquire whether the vowel had been *i or *e / *u or *o". There are Yamatohama and Koniya/Shodon traces of *e/*i, along with Southern Ryukyuan. I will continue to use @Kwékwlos way of Ryukyuan descendants. Chuterix (talk) 14:09, 19 July 2023 (UTC)Reply
I said 現代日本語方言大辞典, that is useless since it doesn't have sufficient number of good dialects to enquire the difference (only works in 4 Miyako and 1 Yaeyama variants, no Yonaguni, 2 Northern Ryukyuan examples are almost merged in the vowels). 荒巻モロゾフ (talk) 18:46, 19 July 2023 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 1 year ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Like @荒巻モロゾフ's threads have been posted before (e.g. see Wiktionary talk:About Japanese#We should fix guidelines of Proto-Japonic), pitch accent is crucial for Proto-Japonic. This helps to explain which is a loanword and which is real (e.g. pJ *sora(“sky; by extension the high place or tip of plants”), which has 2.4a accent class according to accent comparison). While Shuri 空(すら, sura/súɾà/, “sky”, literary) is a loanword not only due to isolated attestation but accent discrepancy, すーら(sūra/sùːɾà/, “treetop”) along with Yonaguni すら(sura/súɾâ/, “treetop”) shows pR *sora(“tip of plants; treetop”) with tone class C. Note the accent in Ruiju Myōgishō is very different from Kyoto pitch accent; while Kyoto is indeed merging some accent, the Myogisho accent is original.
@荒巻モロゾフ: What are the grounds for annotating pJ tone class 2.4a (whence Japanese tone class 2.4 and Ryukyuan tone class C) as ǑÓ/RH. You mentioned this in dialectial Japanese word なば(naba, “mushroom”) where you mentioned *nǎNpá and in Reconstruction talk:Proto-Japonic/sora where you called such accent sǒrá. Can you please explain this?
Backstory to this knowledge: When I got banned from Wiktionary, I couldn't do anything, so I decided to want to make a dictionary for pJ on my own. Then I wonder why accent is reconstructed, so I checked correspondence data and eventually I knew what accent correspondence goes.
Being a high school freshman is tough, so I cannot be online every single hour. At least one day I'll retrieve the Jidai Betsu Kokugo Daijiten from the ILL loan, depending on how busy and willing my mother is. I've also done some serious work in the Japonic field, talking to professors such as Ms. Nakagawa about the Shodon dialect and the production of a dictionary [sic: The dictionary is about the Shodon dialect of Southern Amami-Oshima - Chuterix].
Terms that do not have a status in parentheses indicate that this dialect is lacking data. For Izena, Nago, and Tonaki, I think it will be in RGOD in the future. Chuterix (talk) 23:07, 12 December 2023 (UTC)Reply
@Kwékwlos: OK; I will do that. Please give me a moment.
I will email you a folder of some PDFs of some Ryukyuan dictionaries and Zenkoku Akusento Jiten.
For quick accent class checking, you can look at the .xlsx file here, but there's literally no forms quoted, so take that with a grain of salt; this is why I reconstruct the accent classes on my own (as well as rarely cite that source). Chuterix (talk) 00:41, 4 January 2024 (UTC)Reply
As a side-request, @Chuterix and @Kwékwlos, when adding pitch / tone information to Proto-Japonic and -Ryukyuan entries, could you please link to the relevant information on the Wiktionary:About XYZ pages?
Also, the table currently at Wiktionary:About Proto-Japonic#Pitch accent is a bit confusing: Proto-Japonic accent 2.5 isn't immediately identifiable from here, and the correlation between the number values and the letter values is not at all clear. The text should also explain the "L", "H", and "F" values indicated for Heian-period Kyoto accents.
Separately, the paragraph talking about accent class 2.5 and Vovin's rationale based on adjective-derived verbs ending in -meru is ... strange. There are many adjectives that can be turned into verbs by adding -mu, -meru, and/or -maru to the stems, and some are evidenced with all of these. It seems clear that, historically, the underlying -mu form was simply a productive suffix.
I will try to see what I can do to link readers to the appropriate sections of accent classes.
There is literally a cheat sheet for the accent values in the section. They are based on the initial letter of the meaning.
The -m- must have been some sort of suffix, that during nominalized nouns from adjectives, such as colors, they seem to have it. The -eru (< *-ai-), -u (< *-), and -aru (< *-aru) are the regular conjugation patterns.
Anyways, the word *asa is based entirely off the Korean word for morning (achom), while it only left a trace of class 2.5 LF pitch, where the F pitch must have been a contraction of a LHL syllable (in this case, *asamV). However, such comparison is somewhat shaky at best. Chuterix (talk) 23:06, 5 June 2024 (UTC)Reply
Reviewing the pitch table, I'm puzzled about pattern 2.1 -- this is shown as reflected in Tokyo-dialect pattern HH. I'm not aware of any words that have this? In broadcast-standard Japanese, any word without a downstep would be heiban, which for multi-mora words starts low and ends high. What two-mora words would manifest in Tokyo speech as HH? ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │Tala við mig00:57, 6 June 2024 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 8 months ago2 comments2 people in discussion
However, cross-linguistic evidence within the Japonic grouping rules out these reconstructions, and we do not include */b/ and */d/ in the list of Proto-Japonic consonants.!-- We need refs for this! --}}The pre-nasalized + voiceless consonant cluster was originally written in capital letters as *NC, where C denotes an unknown consonant.!-- Written by _whom_? If this is only describing what we used to do here, this is no longer relevant and should be deleted. -- The nasal will be spelled as *n.!-- Again, by _whom_? If this means that "Wiktionary will spell this as *n", we already say that above — this is needless duplication and should be deleted.--
Refer to Pellard (2023) Ryukyuan and the Reconstruction of Proto-Japanesr-Ryukyuan (https://hal.science/hal-04039079/document) for why the voiced stops should not be reconstructed.
For *N, it denotes an pre-nasalized of uncertain origin (internally it's actually *n ~ *m ~ *ŋ; perhaps also *r on the basis that some compounds of 鳥(tori, “bird”) becomes to- and making rendaku likely because of an earlier *tor-, but no other parallels in Japanese where a contraction of -r- in a compound gives rendaku). Pellard (2013) Ryukyuan Perspectives of the Proto-Japonic sound system (https://hal.science/hal-01289288/file/Pellard_2013_Ryukyuan_perspectives_on_the_proto-Japonic_vowel_system.pdf) makes reconstructions *neNkə- [sic] and *niNkir-. Only Vovin seems to uniformly use *n as a prenasal consonant, as in Vovin (2021) Austronesians in the Northern Waters (https://brill.com/view/journals/jeal/3/2/article-p272_8.xml), where he reconstructs proto Japonic *panki and *pinsa.
