Regarding my ancestors 20,000 years ago, they were passing through Central Asia as nomads.
10,000 years ago, they had settled throughout the Japanese archipelago and Korea.
4,000 years ago, another strain of my ancestors were being fended off by the Chinese.
2,000 years ago, they were slaving away at the behest of their Korean overlords who went on to become the royal and noble families.
700 years ago, the ruling class had reinvented their history, occluding contributions to the noble houses by Paekche culture from Korea when they were defeated by combined Chinese and Silla forces circa 500-600 BCE.
Since that time, the Paekche lineage was absorbed into the Japanese imperial family. Yet the Japanese mythological past was rewritten in the 1300s CE.
At that time, most Japanese were peasants, with a Polynesian ancestry in the south (Okinawa), Ainumushiri throughout Japan from Kyushu through Honshu and northwards to Hokkaido, and a growing number of immigrants from China and Korea.
After the 1300s, the official mythological history stated that the people of Japan were descended from gods, which in this case does not mean divine beings.
Rather, this revision of their mythological history might have occurred because it would be politically unwise to admit to Korea being their ancestral homeland. As well, admitting to the harsh acts the Japanese aristocracy did to Ryukuan and Ainu peoples would undo unification of Japanese as one nation, one people.
By stating that Japanese people are descended from gods, their mythological history tries to imitate the Korean mythology about their ruler being descended from a god. The purpose of this myth is to establish divine rule by royalty, which worked until the peasants revolted during repeated famines which affected Japan prior to the end of the feudal period in the 1850s CE.
Yet through it all, the ancient Japanese spirit is echoed in the saying "shigata ga nai", which means "It can't be helped". A similar saying is "shigata no nai" which means "it's inevitable".
Yet Japanese political activism has been empowered by going against "shigata no nai", by daring to do something to help save the environment, empower the people and do what is morally right.
Thus "shigata ga nai" is a setting sun kind of sentimentality which only ensures patriarchy's hold on the People through the State.
Reference:
Paekche and Japan: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baekje
Korean lineage in Japanese aristocracy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kudara_no_Konikishi
Korean ruler descended from a god: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dangun
Shigata ga nai: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shikata_ga_nai
Showing posts with label history of language. Show all posts
Showing posts with label history of language. Show all posts
20090219
Why Korean and Japanese are Similar to Each Other
The main reason why Japanese and Korean are similar is because of the ties between Baekche and Japan until the combined Silla and Tang Chinese forces defeat it circa 7th century CE.
Then all the Baekche royalty beat it to Japan, where their colony had grown into a distinct country through interaction with Okinawans (they kept the Koreans and proto Japanese at bay off Kyushu) and the Ainumushiri.
It was the Ainu whose language influenced and shaped Japanese vocabulary, because the people of Wa needed women to propagate the species.
So when a Japanese is taught he is "descended from the gods", it means he is heir to Baekche and mainly Korean ancestry.
After 700 CE, Korean had Chinese loanwords absorbed into their language due to Tang influence.
Then all the Baekche royalty beat it to Japan, where their colony had grown into a distinct country through interaction with Okinawans (they kept the Koreans and proto Japanese at bay off Kyushu) and the Ainumushiri.
It was the Ainu whose language influenced and shaped Japanese vocabulary, because the people of Wa needed women to propagate the species.
So when a Japanese is taught he is "descended from the gods", it means he is heir to Baekche and mainly Korean ancestry.
After 700 CE, Korean had Chinese loanwords absorbed into their language due to Tang influence.
20080112
Beni: Music to My Ears
When I visit Vancouver, sometimes I hang out at a coffee shop to guess which city a certain group of Japanese women are from. At times I even get bold enough to go up to them and ask in Japanese, "Where are you from?" just to see if I am right.
From my scanty research so far, I've determined that the girls who frequent Granville establishments like Blenz or work at the Japanese restaurant on the street (Yamazaki?) are not from Tokyo but from near Kobe and Nara, which are older parts of Japan. IMHO I don't think Tokyo people have the time to vacation or do ESL vacations. Perhaps they are too busy trying to make a good impression at home on the tourists.
IMHO it too may be rare to have visitors from the Inland Sea area (Shikoku) and southern Japan because they tend to prefer Europe or Hawaii. As well, the insular nature of Shikoku-jin may tend to make them seem shy, though I can imagine the few Catholics would be hooked on Rome.
Getting back to accents, in Japan, the accents are called -beni ie Tokyo-beni, and are due to influence and intermixing of Korean and Chinese and even European languages on Japanese in a given area.
E.g. Kagoshima-beni has adopted European and English words. As well, various adverbs, verbs and suffixes are distinct to a region, city or district. Part of this was to done to code-talk so villagers would discuss matters openly in front of their overlords who spoke the same language as their masters i.e. a Shogun born in the southern region would speak in southern dialect at home but speak in court language in Kyoto. If he wanted to discuss something personal with one of his loyal retainers, then he might switch to beni, provided that the Emperor did not employ spies from the same village as the Shogun to eavesdrop.
As well, there is a variant of Tokyo-beni that the kids there are rapidly evolving into a dialect distinct from standard beni. Over here, we call it "street slang", and the roughest equivalence would be "gangsta talk". One of its endearing qualities is almost every phrase sounds like a challenge because of the sentence ending: wakari-masu ka? (do you understand?) becomes wakaru de ya? or wakaru de yo? Also, English words are incorporated, sometimes in amusing ways foreign to Westerners. Indeed, the swear word "fuck" does not have the same emotional impact on Japanese ears as it does on Westerners sensitized to its meaning.
Anyways, after modernization (1853), dialect no longer determined where the average Japanese will end up as it did 2000+ years previously, prior to seclusion in the 17th Century. Though, Tokyo gossips will still pretend Kagoshima beni is incomprehensible and the people rude, ignoring the fact that it's easy to distinguish a Tokyo rube in Nagasaki from a native when he opens his mouth.
Overall though, it's all music to my ears, and I take special joy in enjoying the music of beni-shaberu (colloquial chatter) when travelling to and from the city.
From my scanty research so far, I've determined that the girls who frequent Granville establishments like Blenz or work at the Japanese restaurant on the street (Yamazaki?) are not from Tokyo but from near Kobe and Nara, which are older parts of Japan. IMHO I don't think Tokyo people have the time to vacation or do ESL vacations. Perhaps they are too busy trying to make a good impression at home on the tourists.
IMHO it too may be rare to have visitors from the Inland Sea area (Shikoku) and southern Japan because they tend to prefer Europe or Hawaii. As well, the insular nature of Shikoku-jin may tend to make them seem shy, though I can imagine the few Catholics would be hooked on Rome.
Getting back to accents, in Japan, the accents are called -beni ie Tokyo-beni, and are due to influence and intermixing of Korean and Chinese and even European languages on Japanese in a given area.
E.g. Kagoshima-beni has adopted European and English words. As well, various adverbs, verbs and suffixes are distinct to a region, city or district. Part of this was to done to code-talk so villagers would discuss matters openly in front of their overlords who spoke the same language as their masters i.e. a Shogun born in the southern region would speak in southern dialect at home but speak in court language in Kyoto. If he wanted to discuss something personal with one of his loyal retainers, then he might switch to beni, provided that the Emperor did not employ spies from the same village as the Shogun to eavesdrop.
As well, there is a variant of Tokyo-beni that the kids there are rapidly evolving into a dialect distinct from standard beni. Over here, we call it "street slang", and the roughest equivalence would be "gangsta talk". One of its endearing qualities is almost every phrase sounds like a challenge because of the sentence ending: wakari-masu ka? (do you understand?) becomes wakaru de ya? or wakaru de yo? Also, English words are incorporated, sometimes in amusing ways foreign to Westerners. Indeed, the swear word "fuck" does not have the same emotional impact on Japanese ears as it does on Westerners sensitized to its meaning.
Anyways, after modernization (1853), dialect no longer determined where the average Japanese will end up as it did 2000+ years previously, prior to seclusion in the 17th Century. Though, Tokyo gossips will still pretend Kagoshima beni is incomprehensible and the people rude, ignoring the fact that it's easy to distinguish a Tokyo rube in Nagasaki from a native when he opens his mouth.
Overall though, it's all music to my ears, and I take special joy in enjoying the music of beni-shaberu (colloquial chatter) when travelling to and from the city.
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