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Title:
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Is Japanese Related to the Altaic Languages?
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Author:
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Martine Robbeets
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Email:
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click here to access email
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Degree Awarded:
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Universiteit Leiden
, Department of Comparative Linguistics
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Degree Date:
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2003
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Linguistic Subfield(s):
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Historical Linguistics
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Subject Language(s):
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Japanese
Korean
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Language Family(ies):
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Altaic
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Director(s):
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Frederik Kortlandt
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Abstract:
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Where does Japanese come from? Is Japanese Related to Korean, Tungusic, Mongolic and Turkic?The linguistic origin of the Japanese language is among the most disputed questions of language history. One current hypothesis is that Japanese is an Altaic language, sharing a common ancestor with Korean, Tungusic, Mongolic and Turkic. But, the opinions are strongly polarized. Especially the inclusion of Japanese into this classifi cation model is very much under debate. Given the lack of consensus in the fi eld, my doctoral dissertation presents a state of the art for the etymological evidence relating Japanese to Korean, Tungusic, Mongolic and Turkic.
The different Altaic etymologies proposed in the scholarly literature are gathered in an etymological index of Japanese appended to this dissertation. An item-by-item sifting of the evidence helps to hold down borrowings, universal similarities and coincidental look-alikes to a small percentage. When the remaining core-evidence is screened in terms of phonological regularity, the answer to the intriguing question is beginning to take shape.
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