> People who pay attention to politics are probably familiar with the late Senator Gyang Nyam Shom Pwajok. Names can’t get more Chinese than that!
That does not even remotely sound Chinese. Korean, maybe.
Japanese words and names sound African (2022)
21–30 of 115 posts
Re: Japanese words and names sound African (2022)
#22A similar phenomenon https://youtu.be/uGkLjfPWqeI
Re: Japanese words and names sound African (2022)
#23When viewing my resume, my name, Ayo Ijidakinro (Nigerian), is often mistaken for Japanese. Especially because I had on my resume that I speak some Japanese. When I show up for the interview there is surprise. The syllables are identical. A-yo I-ji-da-kin-ro ア-ヨ イ-ジ-ダ-キ-ン-ロ Have always found it interesting.
That's interesting, because Kinro or キ-ン-ロ is an actual name in Japanese (or at least some Anime that I watch)
Re: Japanese words and names sound African (2022)
#24Because the Bantu languages (most prominently: Swahili) and Japanese have similar sound systems. Finnish is also oddly similar-sounding, or Hawaiian. None of them are actually related. It's because the syllable is restricted in the number of possible forms, in a similar way. (And they all have approximately five vowels. And a pitch accent.) In Hawaiian, nothing but consonant + vowel syllables are possible. Swahili an…
That's interesting.
From an English perspective katakana (a system for writing words foreign to Japan, which can't write English very well) seems broken, but I guess from what you say that it's probably effective for most languages
Re: Japanese words and names sound African (2022)
#25> People who pay attention to politics are probably familiar with the late Senator Gyang Nyam Shom Pwajok. Names can’t get more Chinese than that! That does not even remotely sound Chinese. Korean, maybe.
> Shok Jok. That name could pass for a Mandarin or Cantonese name.
These sounds do not exist in Mandarin. This would never be, or sound like, a Mandarin name. And no mention is made of tones, which are critical in Mandarin.
The article already smelled of a bovid's feces, but at this point I actually saw the bullshit.
Re: Japanese words and names sound African (2022)
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
Nit: pokatokaino is unlikely to be Japanese, since word-initial p has morphed into h during the centuries. But it works if you turn it into, say, t. Anyway, I think there's another factor: the common alphabet we transliterate these languages to is quite limited. I suspect the similarities become less obvious if you use something like the IPA, which has better universal correspondence between sounds and letters (i.e.…
Japanese does allow for word initial P in loan words, like Pokémon, so the sound isn’t impossible in Japanese. And pachinko is a Japanese word.
Fair; though I didn't say it's impossible, just unlikely :)
Japanese words starting with "p" still exist, but they tend to be loanwords (pokemon = pocket + monster) or onomatopoeia (pachinko = pachin + ko). Thinking of it now, pokapoka is also a word, but again, an onomatopoeia.
Re: Japanese words and names sound African (2022)
#27Because the Bantu languages (most prominently: Swahili) and Japanese have similar sound systems. Finnish is also oddly similar-sounding, or Hawaiian. None of them are actually related. It's because the syllable is restricted in the number of possible forms, in a similar way. (And they all have approximately five vowels. And a pitch accent.) In Hawaiian, nothing but consonant + vowel syllables are possible. Swahili an…
> Pokatokaino According to Google Translate, that would be "shortcuts" in Maori. (Reverse, "Pokatata".) Nice!
I believe Hawaiian and Maori are somewhat related (Eastern Polynesian family)?
Re: Japanese words and names sound African (2022)
#28Because the Bantu languages (most prominently: Swahili) and Japanese have similar sound systems. Finnish is also oddly similar-sounding, or Hawaiian. None of them are actually related. It's because the syllable is restricted in the number of possible forms, in a similar way. (And they all have approximately five vowels. And a pitch accent.) In Hawaiian, nothing but consonant + vowel syllables are possible. Swahili an…
Speaking of similar sound system of Finnish and Japenese, I think we should highlight the discredited language family claim of Uralic-Altaic, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ural-Altaic_languages You can still find tons of other theories of "what else could be related to Uralic"... So far, no African languages were included in these theories. But that's probably just a question of time and politics (and definitely…
>the discredited language family claim of Uralic-Altaic
I'd substitute "doubtful" for "discredited".
The article you link says nothing more damning than "It is now generally agreed [wrt Ural-Altaic] that even the Altaic languages [themselves] do not share a common descent: the similarities between Turkic, Mongolic and Tungusic are better explained by diffusion and borrowing", but that wiki comment is a paraphrasal of a source that says "a pattern [that] is easily explainable by borrowing and diffusion rather than common descent", i.e. not "better", just weakening that alternate claim.
Also, the Altaic article says that there is still a small group of scholars who adhere to an "Altaic" grouping.
And I would add, the lack of existence of an "Altaic" common ancestor to Mongolic, Turkic, Tungusic, and Koreanic says nothing about potential connections between Uralic and any of those 4 independent languages.
I'm not expert enough to advocate any position, but I'm interested and it's irritating when I pursue researching my interest to discover people slightly misquoting others or ignoring additional possiblities to make their own pov stronger.
Re: Japanese words and names sound African (2022)
#29So do we know why?
Apologies if I’ve missed this.
Re: Japanese words and names sound African (2022)
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
Nit: pokatokaino is unlikely to be Japanese, since word-initial p has morphed into h during the centuries. But it works if you turn it into, say, t. Anyway, I think there's another factor: the common alphabet we transliterate these languages to is quite limited. I suspect the similarities become less obvious if you use something like the IPA, which has better universal correspondence between sounds and letters (i.e.…
Japanese does allow for word initial P in loan words, like Pokémon, so the sound isn’t impossible in Japanese. And pachinko is a Japanese word.
Poka-yoke