History of Japanese Language
| This is a multi-linguistic world, and each language is unique and interesting in its own vocabulary and phonetics. Even though each language is unique, there is some sort of relationship that dwells among major languages spoken across the world. |
Japanese is an interesting language spoken by almost 126 million people all over the world. Japanese is ranked as one of the most important language.
Many interesting and contradicting facts are unveiled while digging into the history of the Japanese language. Most of the studies reveal the Japanese language is associated with the Ultra-Altaic language family, which includes languages like Turkish, Mongolian, Tungusic, Manchu, and Korean.
Of all the above, Japanese is closely similar to the Korean language in the following key aspects:
- General language profile
- Harmony of vowels
- Usage of honorific speech
- Having no conjunctions
Although it is quite tough to predict the exact location where the Japanese language originated, there are signs of the origin in some of the following regions:
- Horse cultures of Mongolia and Northern Asia
- Rice cultures of Korea, China, and Southeast Asia
- Polynesia
Assumptions that Japanese may be originated at the time of third century AD prevail. However, there are some language experts who believe that the language could have originated several hundred Before Christ. By the twelfth century, Japanese language had a lot of impact from the Chinese language and had a mix of the characters and vocabulary.
The spoken Japanese language developed as follows:
- 8th century -- Old Japanese
- 9th century to the 11th century -- Late Old Japanese
- 12th century to the 16th century -- Middle Japanese
- 17th century onwards -- Modern Japanese
During the evolution, many of the language aspects, except for the syntax, were gradually reduced.
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