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Japanese words and names sound African (2022)

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Re: Japanese words and names sound African (2022)

#71

Post by canjobear »

fsckboy wrote: post #28
District5524 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 o…

I’d say the situation is worse than “doubtful”—-There was never any really good evidence for Ural-Altaic.

Altaic is a little more complicated, but whatever it is, it doesn’t seem to be a linguistic family tree in the same way that Indo-European is.

Re: Japanese words and names sound African (2022)

#72

Post by troad »

retrac wrote: post #2

Because 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…

> This basic pattern (consonant + vowel + maybe limited option for final consonant) is very common; it's the most common arrangement among the worlds languages. Far more common than languages like English which allow monstrosities like "strengths" (which is 6 consonants and one vowel).

It's a fun spectrum!

Italian is often given as an example of this, but Italian does allow more complex consonant clusters at the beginning of a syllable than Hawaiian or Japanese (e.g. gra-do, glo-bo, pneu-ma-ti-co). You see echoes of the Italian proclivity towards final vowels in English-language stereotypes of Italian accents, where a schwa (an 'uh' sound) is added after word final consonants ("I want-uh" etc.).

Czech, on the other end of the spectrum, happily allows for things like zmrz-li-na and - famously - strč prst skrz krk (yes, that spelling is phonetic - the rs are syllabic). Interestingly though, Czech evolved out of late Proto-Slavic, and PS had a rule that no syllable end with a consonant (the law of open syllables). This made late Proto-Slavic look more like modern Italian. So, e.g. prst in Czech was prĭ-stŭ in Old Church Slavonic, and krk was krŭ-kŭ.

Re: Japanese words and names sound African (2022)

#73

Post by marethyu »

ijidak wrote: post #7

When 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.

Your name doesn't sound Japanese to me unless it ends with u vowel so that your last name sounds like Ijidakinrō.

Re: Japanese words and names sound African (2022)

#74

Post by ronyeh »

Reminds me of when a Japanese town celebrated Obama becoming president.

https://youtu.be/K3qEIzYLOwA

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-obama-japan/japans-obama-...

(Yes I know he’s not African.) But it’s fun that his surname can be easily pronounced in Japan and Hawaii (although it would probably be Opama).

Re: Japanese words and names sound African (2022)

#75

Post by blacksqr »

retrac wrote: post #2

Because 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…

> Finnish is also oddly similar-sounding

For a long time I ignorantly assumed that Marimekko was a Japanese brand.

Re: Japanese words and names sound African (2022)

#78

Post by gfccggc »

aragonite wrote: post #41

Then there are real coincidences, like 'Muratori', which is both an Italian name [1] (Casey Muratori) and a real (though somewhat rare) Japanese name. [2] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muratori [2] https://www.google.co.jp/search?q=muratori+%E6%9D%91%E9%B3%A...

Quick IT lesson:

Muro means wall

Muratore means wall builder (-atore means doer)

Muratori means wall builders (male plural )

Re: Japanese words and names sound African (2022)

#80

Post by unscaled »

jameshart wrote: post #17
shiomiru wrote: post #11

Earlier 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.

There are also many native Japanese onomatopoeiae using an initial p sound. Interestingly enough, if we're at Pokémon, Pikachu's name is influenced by the onomatopoeia /pikapika/ which means to shine, sparkle or flash. But if we look at the original pronounciation of the Japanese verb 光る/hikaru ("to shine"), it would have been pronounced /pikaru/ in Old Japanese, so it looks like the onomatopoeia has re-established itself.

The same is probably true for the Japanese word for flag, 旗/hata - it would have been pronounced /pata/ which is suspiciously reminiscent of the onomatopoeia /patapata/, often used for thin pieces of material flapping in the wind.

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