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47-527: Eastern Old Japanese constitutes a branch of the Japanese subgroup of the Japonic languages (Insular Japonic), with the other varieties of Old Japanese, which all descend from proto-Japanese (separate from Proto-Ryukyuan , following the classification used by Kupchik (2011). Eastern Old Japanese is mainly attested through poems collected in several anthologies written during the 8th century: All this would give

94-478: A diachronic (from δια- "through" and χρόνος "time") approach, as in historical linguistics , considers the development and evolution of a language through history. For example, the study of Middle English —when the subject is temporally limited to a sufficiently homogeneous form—is synchronic focusing on understanding how a given stage in the history of English functions as a whole. The diachronic approach, by contrast, studies language change by comparing

141-448: A 19th-century tradition of evolutionary explanation in linguistics. A dualistic opposition between synchrony and diachrony has been carried over into philosophy and sociology , for instance by Roland Barthes and Jean-Paul Sartre . Jacques Lacan also used it for psychoanalysis . Prior to de Saussure, many similar concepts were also developed independently by Polish linguists Jan Baudouin de Courtenay and Mikołaj Kruszewski of

188-655: A Korean form, and the other is also found in Ryukyuan and Eastern Old Japanese, suggesting that the former is an early loan from Korean. He suggests that to eliminate such early loans, Old Japanese morphemes should not be assigned a Japonic origin unless they are also attested in Southern Ryukyuan or Eastern Old Japanese. That procedure leaves fewer than a dozen possible cognates, which may have been borrowed by Korean from Peninsular Japonic. Most Japonic languages have voicing opposition for obstruents , with exceptions such as

235-527: A Southwestern branch. Kyushu and Ryukyuan varieties also share some lexical items, some of which appear to be innovations. The internal classification by Elisabeth de Boer includes Ryukyuan as a deep subbranch of a Kyūshū–Ryūkyū branch: She also proposes a branch consisting of the Izumo dialect (spoken on the northern coast of western Honshu) and the Tōhoku dialects (northern Honshu), which show similar developments in

282-513: A basic subject–object–verb word order, modifiers before nouns, and postpositions . There is a clear distinction between verbs, which have extensive inflectional morphology, and nominals, with agglutinative suffixing morphology. Ryukyuan languages inflect all adjectives in the same way as verbs, while mainland varieties have classes of adjectives that inflect as nouns and verbs respectively. Most Japonic languages mark singular and plural number , but some Northern Ryukyuan languages also have

329-403: A combination of internal reconstruction from Old Japanese and by applying the comparative method to Old Japanese (including eastern dialects) and Ryukyuan. The major reconstructions of the 20th century were produced by Samuel Elmo Martin and Shirō Hattori . Proto-Japonic words are generally polysyllabic, with syllables having the form (C)V. The following proto-Japonic consonant inventory

376-434: A simple (C)V syllable structure and avoiding vowel sequences. The script also distinguished eight vowels (or diphthongs), with two each corresponding to modern i , e and o . Most of the texts reflect the speech of the area around Nara , the eighth-century Japanese capital, but over 300 poems were written in eastern dialects of Old Japanese . The language experienced a massive influx of Sino-Japanese vocabulary after

423-496: A small population of elderly speakers. The Ryukyuan languages were originally and traditionally spoken throughout the Ryukyu Islands , an island arc stretching between the southern Japanese island of Kyushu and the island of Taiwan . Most of them are considered "definitely" or "critically endangered" because of the spread of mainland Japanese. Since Old Japanese displayed several innovations that are not shared with Ryukyuan,

470-515: A total of 242 short poems and one long poem according to Alexander Vovin (2014). This variety is geographically opposed to Western Old Japanese and Kyūshū Old Japanese. It was spoken to the east of Nara , the capital of Japan during the Nara Period , approximately in the current Kantō region , Chūbu region and Tōhoku region (then collectively referred to as the Azuma region ). Eastern Old Japanese

517-500: Is a SOV language with a structure including a modifier at the start of the sentence, although there are exceptions. There are many suffixes , but unlike most SOV languages, there are also prefixes . Morphologically it is principally an agglutinative language , but blend words also exist. The phonotactic structure of Eastern Old Japanese is strictly ( C ) V , without consonant gemination nor long vowels . Typically, vowel sequences contract rather than merge. The accent system

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564-454: Is a language family comprising Japanese , spoken in the main islands of Japan, and the Ryukyuan languages , spoken in the Ryukyu Islands . The family is universally accepted by linguists , and significant progress has been made in reconstructing the proto-language , Proto-Japonic . The reconstruction implies a split between all dialects of Japanese and all Ryukyuan varieties, probably before

611-418: Is based on a subsyllabic unit, the mora . Each syllable has a basic mora of the form (C)V but a nasal coda , geminate consonant , or lengthened vowel counts as an additional mora. However, some dialects in northern Honshu or southern Kyushu have syllable-based rhythm. Like Ainu, Middle Korean , and some modern Korean dialects , most Japonic varieties have a lexical pitch accent , which governs whether

658-525: Is fragmentary evidence suggesting that now-extinct Japonic languages were spoken in the central and southern parts of the Korean peninsula. Vovin calls these languages Peninsular Japonic and groups Japanese and Ryukyuan as Insular Japonic  [ fr ] . The most-cited evidence comes from chapter 37 of the Samguk sagi (compiled in 1145), which contains a list of pronunciations and meanings of placenames in

705-439: Is generally accepted that a lexical pitch accent should be reconstructed for Proto-Japonic, but its precise form is controversial. Diachrony and synchrony Synchrony and diachrony are two complementary viewpoints in linguistic analysis. A synchronic approach (from Ancient Greek : συν- "together" and χρόνος "time") considers a language at a moment in time without taking its history into account. In contrast,

752-611: Is generally agreed upon, except that some scholars argue for voiced stops *b and *d instead of glides *w and *j : The Old Japanese voiced consonants b , d , z and g , which never occurred word-initially, are derived from clusters of nasals and voiceless consonants after the loss of an intervening vowel. Most authors accept six Proto-Japonic vowels: Some authors also propose a high central vowel *ɨ . The mid vowels *e and *o were raised to Old Japanese i and u respectively, except word-finally. Other Old Japanese vowels arose from sequences of Proto-Japonic vowels. It

799-508: Is held together by a systemic equilibrium based on the interconnectedness of meaning and form. To understand why a language has the forms it has at a given stage, both the diachronic and the synchronic dimension must be considered. Saussure likewise rejected the idea of the Darwinian linguists August Schleicher and Max Müller , who considered languages as living organisms arguing that linguistics belongs to life sciences . Saussure illustrates

846-609: Is mainly inherited from Japonic languages. However, it is also contains Koreanic and Ainu loanwords, and only a few of Sinitic origin. Other words are close to Japonic forms that appeared in later periods: The dialects of Eastern Old Japanese were replaced by the Kyoto dialect ( Middle Japanese ), the descendant of Western Old Japanese during the Heian period (between the 8th and the 12th centuries). However, there are still modern traces of this variety: According to Maner Lawton Thorpe (1983),

893-538: Is unknown. There exists a correspondence between the Western Old Japanese *i and *u and the Eastern Old Japanese *(j)e and *o respectively, which is confirmed by the comparison of the three Japanese dialects, as well as the Ryukyuan languages . Thus, the Eastern Old Japanese vowel system would have been closer to that of Proto-Japonic than that of Western Old Japanese. The Eastern Old Japanese lexicon

940-572: The Korean peninsula around 700 to 300 BC by wet-rice farmers of the Yayoi culture and spread throughout the Japanese archipelago , replacing indigenous languages. The former wider distribution of Ainu languages is confirmed by placenames in northern Honshu ending in -betsu (from Ainu pet 'river') and -nai (from Ainu nai 'stream'). Somewhat later, Japonic languages also spread southward to

987-463: The Ryukyu Islands . There is fragmentary placename evidence that now-extinct Japonic languages were still spoken in central and southern parts of the Korean peninsula several centuries later. Japanese is the de facto national language of Japan , where it is spoken by about 126 million people. The oldest attestation is Old Japanese , which was recorded using Chinese characters in the 7th and 8th centuries. It differed from Modern Japanese in having

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1034-582: The Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure, professor of general linguistics in Geneva from 1896 to 1911, and appeared in writing in his posthumous Course in General Linguistics published in 1916. Saussure's teachers in historical-comparative and reconstructive linguistics such as Georg Curtius advocated the neo-grammarian manifesto according to which linguistic change is based on absolute laws. Thus, it

1081-414: The dual . Most Ryukyuan languages mark a clusivity distinction in plural (or dual) first-person pronouns, but no Mainland varieties do so. The most common type of morphosyntactic alignment is nominative–accusative , but neutral (or direct), active–stative and (very rarely) tripartite alignment are found in some Japonic languages. The proto-language of the family has been reconstructed by using

1128-441: The "life" of language—simply language change —consists of a series of static points, which are physically independent of the previous stage. In such a context, Saussure warns against the confusion of synchrony and diachrony expressing his concern that these could be not studied simultaneously. Following the posthumous publication of Saussure's Course, the separation of synchronic and diachronic linguistics became controversial and

1175-478: The 7th century. The Hachijō language , spoken on the Izu Islands , is also included, but its position within the family is unclear. Most scholars believe that Japonic was brought to the Japanese archipelago from the Korean peninsula with the Yayoi culture during the 1st millennium BC. There is some fragmentary evidence suggesting that Japonic languages may still have been spoken in central and southern parts of

1222-425: The Korean peninsula (see Peninsular Japonic ) in the early centuries AD. Possible genetic relationships with many other language families have been proposed, most systematically with Koreanic , but no genetic relationship has been conclusively demonstrated. The extant Japonic languages belong to two well-defined branches: Japanese and Ryukyuan. Most scholars believe that Japonic was brought to northern Kyushu from

1269-725: The Miyako dialect of Ōgami. Glottalized consonants are common in North Ryukyuan languages but are rarer in South Ryukyuan. Proto-Japonic had only voiceless obstruents, like Ainu and proto- Korean . Japonic languages also resemble Ainu and modern Korean in having a single liquid consonant phoneme. A five-vowel system like Standard Japanese /a/ , /i/ , /u/ , /e/ and /o/ is common, but some Ryukyuan languages also have central vowels /ə/ and /ɨ/ , and Yonaguni has only /a/ , /i/ , and /u/ . In most Japonic languages, speech rhythm

1316-509: The Tokyo dialect has several western features not found in other eastern dialects. The Hachijō language , spoken on Hachijō-jima and the Daitō Islands , including Aogashima , is highly divergent and varied. It has a mix of conservative features inherited from Eastern Old Japanese and influences from modern Japanese, making it difficult to classify. Hachijō is an endangered language , with

1363-425: The central "Kunigami" branch comprising varieties from Southern Amami to Northern Okinawan, based on similar vowel systems and patterns of lenition of stops. Pellard suggests a binary division based on shared innovations, with an Amami group including the varieties from Kikai to Yoron, and an Okinawa group comprising the varieties of Okinawa and smaller islands to its west. Southern Ryukyuan languages are spoken in

1410-435: The different stages. This latter approach is what surface analysis often relies on, as a given composition may not have appeared synchronously in history. The terms synchrony and diachrony are often associated with historical linguist Ferdinand de Saussure , who considered the synchronic perspective as systematic but argued that language change is too unpredictable to be considered a system. The concepts were theorized by

1457-453: The former kingdom of Goguryeo . As the pronunciations are given using Chinese characters , they are difficult to interpret, but several of those from central Korea, in the area south of the Han River captured from Baekje in the 5th century, seem to correspond to Japonic words. Scholars differ on whether they represent the language of Goguryeo or the people that it conquered. Traces from

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1504-402: The historical development of languages by way of his distinction between the synchronic and the diachronic perspective employing a metaphor of moving pictures . Even though objects on film appear to be moving, at a closer inspection, this turns out to be an illusion because each picture is static ('synchronic') and there is nothing between the pictures except a lifeless frame. In a similar manner,

1551-418: The introduction of Buddhism in the 6th century and peaking with the wholesale importation of Chinese culture in the 8th and the 9th centuries. The loanwords now account for about half the lexicon. They also affected the sound system of the language by adding compound vowels, syllable-final nasals, and geminate consonants, which became separate morae . Most of the changes in morphology and syntax reflected in

1598-498: The modern language took place during the Late Middle Japanese period (13th to 16th centuries). Modern mainland Japanese dialects , spoken on Honshu , Kyushu , Shikoku , and Hokkaido , are generally grouped as follows: The early capitals of Nara and Kyoto lay within the western area, and their Kansai dialect retained its prestige and influence long after the capital was moved to Edo (modern Tokyo) in 1603. Indeed,

1645-449: The moras of a word are pronounced high or low, but it follows widely-different patterns. In Tokyo-type systems, the basic pitch of a word is high, with an accent (if present) marking the position of a drop to low pitch. In Kyushu dialects, the basic pitch is low, with accented syllables given high pitch. In Kyoto-type systems, both types are used. Japonic languages, again like Ainu and Korean, are left-branching (or head-final ), with

1692-565: The northern part of the chain, including the major Amami and Okinawa Islands . They form a single dialect continuum , with mutual unintelligibility between widely separated varieties. The major varieties are, from northeast to southwest: There is no agreement on the subgrouping of the varieties. One proposal, adopted by the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger , has three subgroups, with

1739-605: The phonological correspondences of Eastern Old Japanese shared with the Ryukyuan languages could be explained by the descend from a common language. Thus, he proposes the following phylogenetic tree: Following his model, Western Old Japanese would have separated first, during the 4th-5th centuries, then the Kyūshū -branch would have separated three or four centuries later. Subsequently, Kantō would have been populated by Japonic speakers directly from Kyūshū, without passing through central Japan. However, Alexander Koji Makiyama (2015) finds

1786-515: The pitch accent that she attributes to sea-borne contacts. Another alternative classification, proposed by the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology as part of their Glottolog project, splits the Hachijō language into an independent branch of Japonic, in addition to splitting the divergent Kagoshima and Tsugaru dialects into independent branches of a "Japanesic" family. There

1833-546: The results of diachronic changes in Eastern Old Japanese such as in denasalization , fortition and vowel raising unconvincing in comparison with the Ryukyuan languages. In fact, he finds: The hypothesis of a linguistic contact or a resemblance is therefore, in the state of current knowledge, only speculative. Thomas Pellard (2015) also considers that this hypothesis is unproven. Japonic languages Japonic or Japanese–Ryukyuan ( Japanese : 日琉語族 , romanized :  Nichiryū gozoku ), sometimes also Japanic ,

1880-677: The south of the peninsula are very sparse: According to Shirō Hattori , more attempts have been made to link Japanese with other language families than for any other language. None of the attempts has succeeded in demonstrating a common descent for Japonic and any other language family. The most systematic comparisons have involved Korean , which has a very similar grammatical structure to Japonic languages. Samuel Elmo Martin , John Whitman, and others have proposed hundreds of possible cognates, with sound correspondences. However, Alexander Vovin points out that Old Japanese contains several pairs of words of similar meaning in which one word matches

1927-520: The southern part of the chain, the Sakishima Islands . They comprise three distinct dialect continua: The southern Ryukyus were settled by Japonic-speakers from the northern Ryukyus in the 13th century, leaving no linguistic trace of the indigenous inhabitants of the islands. An alternative classification, based mainly on the development of the pitch accent , groups the highly divergent Kagoshima dialects of southwestern Kyushu with Ryukyuan in

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1974-414: The three provinces of Frellesvig's southern area and Eastern Old Japanese in the rest. The former dialect lacks attested Ainu loanwords. He remarks on the differences in the spelling of the two varieties. In earlier work, he had separated the dialects of Shinano province as Central Old Japanese due to the absence of innovations shared with his Töpo-Suruga and Eastern Old Japanese groups. Eastern Old Japanese

2021-513: The two branches must have separated before the 7th century. The move from Kyushu to the Ryukyus may have occurred later and possibly coincided with the rapid expansion of the agricultural Gusuku culture in the 10th and 11th centuries. Such a date would explain the presence in Proto-Ryukyuan of Sino-Japanese vocabulary borrowed from Early Middle Japanese . After the migration to the Ryukyus, there

2068-491: Was argued that ancient languages without surviving data could be reconstructed limitlessly after the discovery of such laws. In contradiction to his predecessors, Saussure demonstrated with multiple examples in his Course that such alleged laws are too unreliable to allow reconstructions far beyond the empirical data. Therefore, in Saussure's view, language change (diachrony) does not form a system. By contrast, each synchronic stage

2115-610: Was limited influence from mainland Japan until the conquest of the Ryukyu Kingdom by the Satsuma Domain in 1609. Ryukyuan varieties are considered dialects of Japanese in Japan but have little intelligibility with Japanese or even among one another. They are divided into northern and southern groups, corresponding to the physical division of the chain by the 250 km-wide Miyako Strait . Northern Ryukyuan languages are spoken in

2162-569: Was not a unified variety but a collection of different dialects. Their demarcation differs depending on the author. For example, Bjarke Frellesvig (2010) distinguishes three dialect areas: He states that these dialects form a continuum with the varieties of Nara Old Japanese, with North Eastern Old Japanese constituting the most divergent variety. However, the majority of songs and poems do not have information on their provenance. John Kupchik (2023) calls all of these varieties Azuma Old Japanese, consisting of two dialects: Töpo-Suruga Old Japanese in

2209-494: Was rejected by structural linguists including Roman Jakobson and André Martinet , but was well-received by the generative grammarians , who considered Saussure's statement as an overall rejection of the historical-comparative method. In American linguistics, Saussure became regarded as an opponent of historical linguistics. In 1979, Joseph Greenberg stated By contrast, Mark Aronoff argues that Saussure rooted linguistic theory in synchronic states rather than diachrony breaking

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