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African elements of japanese the language

kenyanite

後輩
18 Oct 2012
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Hi! For some time I've been searching for answers to the origin of Japanese and I hope I'm in the right place. Like most Africans who watch dubbed anime I'm struck by the numerous similarities. Everybody from E.African bantus to W.Africans and Somalis recognizes umistakable parallels.
Can a native speaker confirm or disconfirm these examples:
JAPANESE SOMALI (Northern Dailect/Somaliland)
Wakarimasu/Wakarta/Wagaranai Wagartay/Magaranay
-I understand/understood!/I don't understand - Understood! I don't understand
Hai - YES (affirmative) - Haye - Yes (affirmative)
* Niin - People/Men - Niin - Men
* YO - slang added at end of sentences - YO - slang added at end of sentences
ex. Wagaranai yo (I don't understand!) - Magaranai yo ( I don't understand!)
* Ima - right now, at this moment *ima/ima ku - right now, at this moment
* Chotto Matte - wait a moment * Joogso - wait a moment (these two both have the "choo, joo" root sound, prononciation)
* Shigoto - Work/company *Shiago - work company (pron: Shiako)
Karanja'z Place: THE SECRET HISTORIES OF BLACK PEOPLE-far east,China & Japan
The link provides also identical W.African/Japanese place names. I'm truly interested in what the linguist has to say.
 
Hi! For some time I've been searching for answers to the origin of Japanese and I hope I'm in the right place. Like most Africans who watch dubbed anime I'm struck by the numerous similarities. Everybody from E.African bantus to W.Africans and Somalis recognizes umistakable parallels.
Can a native speaker confirm or disconfirm these examples:
Karanja'z Place: THE SECRET HISTORIES OF BLACK PEOPLE-far east,China & Japan
The link provides also identical W.African/Japanese place names. I'm truly interested in what the linguist has to say.
Come on Jrefers! At least one of you must have an opinion;am not necessarily looking for scholarly research papers,even though my link has one on W.African Mande/Japanese lexical similarities. Basically,do you find the idea of African elements in Japanese plausible?
 
I think it is unlikely. Purely from a perspective of history. They were more in contact with cultures that were close to their regions. Namely china, mongolian, and indian. But that was after the development of their own language. If you are talking pre-history here it becomes even less likely in my opinion. As over the years languages change drastically. I am not saying that it isn't possible that the two are related, but it is likely that if they are it was before people got around to recording a lot of historical events.
 
I think it is unlikely. Purely from a perspective of history. They were more in contact with cultures that were close to their regions. Namely china, mongolian, and indian. But that was after the development of their own language. If you are talking pre-history here it becomes even less likely in my opinion. As over the years languages change drastically. I am not saying that it isn't possible that the two are related, but it is likely that if they are it was before people got around to recording a lot of historical events.
I was originally inclined to think like you but the early Indian links with Africa via the Dravidians and Africoid skull and dental types in Japan and China couple with the strange W.African tonal system seen in descendants of the historical Shang really made me reconsider.

there was migration in the jomon times (10,000-300 bc)explaining why skeletons of that period had dental morphology similar to Indian and African teeth while the typical N.Asian sinodont appeared in the Yayoi era (300-300ad).The god of the latter was Amon corresponding to the sun goddess Amaterasu. Apparently
Karanja'z Place: THE SECRET HISTORIES OF BLACK PEOPLE-far east,China & Japan
 
I'm not saying it isn't a possibility. I am just saying to prove one way or another you would need more supporting evidence. For example, if you could prove or found evidence linking the two races, ie contact or close proximity. I would think it more likely that the two were either originally the same language or both based off a similar language. You would want to try and find that common link, in european languages the common link is latin. All the languages are based off that root so they share similar characteristics. I don't know enough about early Japanese speaking or any early african languages to either make a connection or disprove one. You could also look for similar geographic features in Japan and certain regions of africa, to prove that they were once connected physically and would be in regular contact with one another. I think if you are really interested in the connections that would have existed that would be a great place to start.
 
They appear to be mere coincidence for me.
If you really compare two languages and their similarity, you should compare more basic words (verbs), and how they conjugate, I believe?

"~masen" is a word used since 18th century. If you wish to compare, you should give more example of words (not phrase or sentence).
"Hai" is rather a recent word - started being used late Edo period, around 18th century.
"nin" (not niin) is on-pronunciation of the kanji 人, the pronunciation came from Chinese, original Japanese for man/person is "hito".

There are 'similarities' between Japanese and other languages.
e.g.
Japanese: namae / German : Name (pronounced naame)
Japanese: shio taran (shio = salt, taran = lacking) / Hungarian sotlan (so, pronounced 'sho' meaning 'salt' + tlan (meaning less, without))
And I do not think they can prove the link between the two languages.
 
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