LL-L: "East meets West?" [E] LOWLANDS-L, 08.AUG.1999 (01)

Sun Aug 8 23:23:40 UTC 1999

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From: Muhammed Suleiman [suleiman at lineone.net]
Subject: LL-L: "East meets West?" [E] LOWLANDS-L, 07.AUG.1999 (03)

Dear Joseph,

The Melungeons have a delightful name, but unfortunately I know nothing of
them, and am unable to pass comment.

With regard to the Altaic languages and Japanese, however, I should point
out that the Altaic languages are not - as you say - derived from Turkmen
and Uyghur. Rather these two languages, along with many others are members
of the Altaic 'Family' of languages, and as such are all descended from a
theoretical ancestor which we know of as Proto-Altaic.

As you mention, certain scholars have suggested that Japanese, and Ainu, are
closely related to Altaic. Furthermore, other scholars (such as Ramstedt and
Poppe)  have suggested that Korean also belongs to Altaic ( or
Macro-Altaic). The problem is that the mainland Altaic languages (Turkic and
Mongolian, perhaps less so Tungusic) would seem to have remained relatively
unchanges for a long period of time. There are various explanations for this
which need not concern us here. Japanese and Korean ( to a lesser extent
Ainu), on the other hand have undergone revolutionary sound-changes and have
been exposed to extremely strong Chinese influences. Even before their
contact with the Chinese, it is likely that both these languages soaked up
influences from languages previously spoken in the areas they presently
occupy. The latter fact makes comparisons between Japanese and Ainu
especially troublesome, along with the fact that the two languages have
existed side by side for so many centuries.

Reliable comparisons between Japanese/ Korean/ Ainu and Altaic were hampered
for many years by the lack of historical phonologies and morphologies for
the former. Nowadays, thankfully careful studies have been made of the
histories, ancient texts and dialects of all these languages, and historical
linguists may now proceed on a more careful footing.

Already in the early seventies the American scholar Roy Andrew Miller wrote
a book, 'Japanese and the Other Altaic Languages', which compared not only
Japanese and Korean (which had already been masterfully treated by another
linguist called Martin), but also attempted (successfully in the opinion of
many) to prove the relationship between Japanese, its sister languages of
the Ryukyu Islands,Korean and all the various Altaic tongues. Karl Menges
subsequently penned a number of monographs (Such as 'Altaische Studien : II
Japanisch und Altajisch') adding yet more careful comparisons. These studies
were especially distinguished by the fact that they used vocabulary items
taken from texts of the Old and Middle Periods of Japanese and Korean ( this
does not apply to Martin, however) to establish their comparisons, and also
that they paid careful attention to modern dialects, as opposed to the
standard languages.

Miller and Menges seem to have been so convinced of their theory that Miller
actually openly criticized Japanese scholars for not accepting it. The fact
remains though that what is really required is - as you so correctly state -
verifyable, documented evidence, and careful examination of even these
scholar's works show certain discrepancies and an overall lack of
consistancy.

As far as Ainu is concerned, recent years have seen a tendency for scholars
to be more reluctant to draw it too deeply into the Japanes-Altaic
controversy.Kindaichi, who was during his lifetime one of the foremost
experts on Ainu, pointed out that many features of Japanese and Ainu were
fundamentally different, and that these features date back to older periods
of Japanese, and are not therefore innovations.

Hattori, using the lexicostatic method (which is somewhat frowned upon these
days), suggested that a comparison of the rich collection of words collected
by him in his Japanese dialect dictionary provided a reliable basis on which
to build comparisons with Korean, Altaic and perhaps Ainu. He does, however,
point out that on the basis of lexicostatic analysis the period of
separation between Japanese and Korean, for example, would be of the order
of 4,000 years, and the split between Japanese and Ainu would have occurred
some 10,000 years ago!

In 1982, the University of Hawaii Press published an interesting book in
which James Patrie establishes 221 Ainu lexical items which point towards
Ainu being essentially an Altaic language. The book is consistent, cautious
and well researched.He basically aims at establishing a Japanes-Ainu-Korean
subgroup of Altaic. The book remains the subject of controversy.

The problem remains that much work still needs to be done on the internal
histories of all the languages involved. Even within Altaic internal
relationships between Turkic, Mongolian and Tungusic are questioned from
time to time, and there can be no question of a Japanese-Ainu-Korean
subgroup forming part of Altaic. Most people in the know tentatively accept
the existence of some kind of relationship between all these entities, but
it would almost certainly prove that JAK, or JK and A, or J K and A formed
sister languages to Proto-Altaic, such are the time gaps and immense
differences involved.

I hope I have not been too abstruse in the following explanation, but I
trust it answers your question to some extent.

Regards,

Dr Muhammad Suleiman

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From: R. F. Hahn [sassisch at yahoo.com]
Subject: East meets West?

Although it is quite extraneous here, let me just add to Muhammeds exhaustive
explanation this:

There may be grounds to argue that Japanese, Ryu-Kyuan, Ainu and Korean belong
to a branch that is parallel to Altaic, both of them descending from an even
earlier ancestor.  Uralic (i.e, Finnic, Ugric, Samoyedic)  has often been
claimed to be another such branch.  Also, astonishing similarities for instance
in reconstructed pronouns between all of the above and Indo-European makes many
propose some sorts of macro families, some even going as far as including
Semitic and Bantu, and even beyond (e.g., Nostratic, World Language).  While it
is not impossible that most or all languages share a common ancestor, proving
such hypotheses seems virtually impossible because we are dealing with very
ancient times, lack of records and a multitude of contacts and borrowing.

As far as strange-sounding theories such as those about the Melungeon are
concerned, I guess nothing is impossible, and we should not dismiss them
lightly, but we need plenty of evidence to consider going along with them.
There are all types of "weird" stories floating around, for example that of
direct Swedish and Turkic contacts and Turkic settlements in Sweden.  We do know
that early Swedes did go down the Volga trading and may well have had contacts
with the ancestors of today's Tatars and perhaps Bashkirs.  Who knows?

Regards,

Reinhard/Ron

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From: Richard L Turner [fr.andreas at juno.com]
Subject: LL-L: "East meets West?" [E] LOWLANDS-L, 07.AUG.1999 (03)

Dear Lowlanders,

There is a good way to keep up with the telling of the Melungeon story.
It's www.melungeon.org.

Yours,
+Fr Andreas Richard Turner

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