日本語比較研究序説(<特集>ルース・ベネディクト『菊と刀』の與えるもの)
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概要
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This is an introductory paper on a study of Japanese vocabulary which will appear later in monograph form. Japanese words are compared with their equivalents in Altaic, Austric, Siniticic, and other Asiatic languages. This comparative study of Japanese vocabulary, especially the old forms and dialect forms, and the languages outside Japan, reveals that the Japanese language has many word families related to some of the word families in Korean, Ainu, Tungus (including Manchu), Mongolian, Turkic, Sinitic, Tibeto-Burmese, Thai, Austroasiatic and Austronesian languages. The author includes some references to the Uralian languages. The above-mentioned "word equations" are determined by assuming that the non-Japanese words have been brought to Japan, and incorporated as layers in the gradually evolving Japanese language, by succeeding tribes of immigrants coming from the Asiatic continent and from the islands to the south of Japan. This assumption, together with the hypothesis concerning the origin of the Japanese language, is supported to a certain extent by the results of archeological and ethnological studies, as well as those of physical anthropology. In the controversy over genetic relationship versus borrowing the author sides with C.C. Uhlenbeck, stating "the genetic relationship of large language groups...can only be explained by sustained assimilation, secondary differentiation and continually renewed regrouping. [It is] nothing but the common possession of an overwhelmingly large number of very ancient isoglosses". The Japanese language structure, syntax and morphology are related to the Altaic languages, including Korean, and not to Chinese and the Austric languages. In short "Japanese is a complicated mixed language, the vocabulary of which can be traced back to Austric", and also to Altaic, with some borrowing from Chinese ; "the grammatical and syntactic structure of Japanese is built after the model of the Altaic linguistic type".
- 日本文化人類学会の論文