isolates

[Larry Trask]

Alexander Vovin writes:
 
[To keep this posting down to a manageable length, I have snipped the
remarks made by me and quoted by Vovin; hope that doesn't obscure the
discussion.  I have also snipped a few of Vovin's remarks on which I
have nothing to say.]
 
[snip Vovin on Shibatani]
 
> The center of research on Korean-Japanese relationship is now in the
> States, and it is one of the main cointributions of the scholars who
> belong to S. Martin's school. Anyway, let me refer you to the
> J. Whitman's dissertation: "Phonological Basis for the Comparison of
> Japanese and Korean", Harvard 1985, which together with a couple of
> articles published recently by S. Martin in Baldi's volume and in
> "Sprung from some common source" should persuade you that the two
> languages are related (I can provide you with some further reading,
> if you wish so). Well, even ground-breaking Martin's 1966 article is
> still valid at 75% percent, but you have to disregard the
> reconstructions proposed there. Well, anyway, among the people who
> are actively engaged in research on Japanese and Korean (and
> Shibatani is not one of them) it is accepted that two languages are
> related.
 
[snip Trask]
 
> Well, please see above. Japanese and Korean have been demonstrated
> to be related. That's enough for them not to be isolates.
 
Well, I am happy to be persuaded that Shibatani's views are not
representative, and that some progress has been made in linking
Japanese and Korean.  However, I still entertain doubts about your
flat assertion that the two languages "have been demonstrated to be
related".  Even Samuel Martin does not maintain that.  In his article
in the Lamb and Mitchell volume, he most emphatically does not assert
that J and K are related beyond reasonable doubt, or anything close to
this.  Instead, he is exceedingly cautious.  He opens with the words
"There is no general agreement on the genetic relationships of either
Japanese or Korean."  He continues later with "I believe the majority
view today would hold that Japanese and Korean are *more likely* to be
related to each other than to any other language..." [emphasis added].
And that's about it.
 
The only further remarks he offers are suggestions that his own work
and the work of others are perhaps lifting the comparison of J and K
above the level of mere speculation, but he acknowledges difficulties
and uncertainties.  This does not strike me as a ringing endorsement
of your very confident assertion.
 
Of course, Martin's private views may be rather different from what he
is prepared to say in public, but I can only go by the latter.  And
Martin is not prepared to assert that Japanese and Korean are related.
 
[snip Trask on languages versus dialects]
 
> I can only say that you rely on sociolinguistically oriented
> sources. It is a matter of national policy in both Japan and Korea
> that everyone is "Japanese" and "Korean" and there is a "great
> national unity". This is not true as long as language divergence is
> concerned, and the break-off is not just bewtween Ryukyuan and
> Japanese. There are at least 5 branches within Ryukyuan: Okinawan
> proper, Northern Okinawan-Amami, Miyako, Hateruma, Yonaguni. None of
> them is mutually comprehensible, and they are all very
> divergent. The same is true about mainisland Japanese: a person from
> Tokyo will not understand a person from Toohoku )north-east), and
> will barely understand a person from Kyuushuu. A close situation
> exists in Korea: while most dialects spoken on the Korean mainland
> are mutually intelligible (Korean proper), a dialect spoken on the
> island of Ceycwuto (Chechudo, Quelpart) is too divergent to be
> understood by a person from Seoul. THe same is applicable to the
> Northeastern Hamkyeng dialect, spoken also in adjacent regions of
> China and in Russia, on which I myself have done a fieldwork. The
> mutual comprehension is almost out of question, and the languages
> have diverged to the point where they have almost different verbal
> suffixation. Hope this helps to dissolve your doubts.
 
What you're raising here is the old question of how we distinguish
languages from dialects, and of course we can't.  Yes, I'm aware of
the mutual incomprehensibility of the several varieties of Japanese
(though I didn't know about the similar case for Korean).  But mutual
comprehensibility is only one possible criterion for recognizing
language boundaries, and it's not even the one we mainly rely on.
Instead, political and social factors, where these exist, are more
usually regarded as overriding comprehensibility.  Hell, I can't
understand the English of Tyneside in England, but nobody wants to see
that as a distinct language.  And I certainly can't understand the
speech of large chunks of Scotland, but hardly anybody, apart from a
few Scottish nationalists, wants to see Scots as a distinct language
from English.
 
[snip Vovin and Trask on Ainu]
 
> It has been established that Ainu is UNLIKELY to be an isolate: for
> me it is enough to take off the list of definite isolates, if we
> want to be completely honest with ourselves. Let's place it into
> intermediate group.  Austric (as consisting of Austronesian and
> Austroasiatic, but not including Kadai) is accepted nowadays by all
> known to me leading scholars in both Austroneasian and
> Austroasiatic. It is even accepted by R. Blust, who is one of the
> most carteful historical linguists known to me.
 
I'm sorry, but I simply cannot understand this.  You are telling me
that Ainu is "unlikely" to be an isolate, even though no relationship
has been demonstrated between Ainu and anything else at all.  I find
this position incomprehensible.
 
[snip]
 
[snip Vovin and Trask on Asian isolates]
 
>    As I always say, let us discuss the evidence.  I remove Japanese
> and Korean from your list, and since it is accepted by virtually
> everyone who works in the historical and comparative Japanese field
> (using of course, comparative method, and not folk etymology), I
> believe that the burden of proof that Korean and Japanese are not
> related rests on your shoulders. Please present us with the evidence
> that the two languages in question are not related, using exactly
> the same technique as you apply for Basque: that is, showing that we
> have faulty etymologies etc. Then I will be happy to present
> counterevidence, showing, e.g. why such highly divergent words as
> Tokyo Japanese isi and Seoul Korean tol "stone" are in fact
> cognates.
 
You are joking.  It is not on my shoulders to demonstrate that any
languages are not related; this is a logical impossibility.  If you
can demonstrate that J and K are related beyond reasonable doubt, I'll
be delighted, since I prefer positive results to negative ones.
 
[snip on Nostratic]
 
> I don't know anything about the Southern branches of Nostratic:
> Kartvelian, Afrasian, and Dravidian (and I have grave doubts about
> Nostratic validity of the latter), but there are very few doubts in
> my mind that IE, Uralic and Altaic are related -- I have an article
> in a forthcoming volume on Nostratic from John Benjamins. Anyway, I
> believe Nostratic is not yet finally established, but I wouldn't
> call it "very far".
 
You may be right, but my optimism on this point is a little more
tempered than yours.
 
[on the putative isolated status of Gilyak]
 
> Rather, we should call it a small family with no apparent
> relatives. But it is not a single isolate -- the same as about Ket
> and Yukaghir.
 
We are merely quibbling over words here.  A small family of one
language with no apparent relatives is my idea of an isolate.
 
Larry Trask
COGS
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
UK
 
larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk