A friend of mine, Jared Taylor from American Renaissance, asks:
I have heard that Japanese is supposed to be a member of the Finno-Ugric family, but I don’t see how it could be. People tell me that Japanese grammar is close to Korean grammar, but i don’t hear of Koreans as part of the F-U family.
Do you have any idea where Japanese (and Korean) came from? The Japanese copied the Chinese characters, but their language and grammar are completely different. What gives?
The R-U family of languages. Ok, that’s pretty funny! My response:
Technically it is an isolate, and Korean is too. Actually, Japanese is not really an isolate as it is a member of a family called Japonic, which consists of Japanese and the Okinawan languages. But the Japonic family is not thought to be related to any other languages or language families. I do not agree that Japanese (Japonic) or Korean are isolates. My opinion is that Japanese is a member of a family called “Altaic,” a postulated but unproven family consisting of:Turkic (Turkish and related tongues)
Mongolic (Mongolian and related tongues)
Tungusic (languages of far eastern Siberia)
Japonic
Korean
The position of Ainu is quite uncertain.
Finno-Ugric is part of a larger family called Uralic consisting of Finno-Ugric, Samoyedic and some related tongues. The position of Yukagir is uncertain. Uralic itself is a somewhat controversial family, but ultimately I think it is a valid taxon. People have held for a long time that Uralic and Altaic are related, and I think there is something to it, but first of all we need to prove Altaic!
Korean consists of maybe 70% Chinese borrowings and if I am not mistaken, Japanese has quite a few Chinese borrowings also.The Yayoi people who make up the current Japanese stock came down from Korea about 2,300 YBP, conquering, interbreeding with and replacing the Ainu people who inhabited the island. Modern Japanese are now a mixture of the Yayoi, the Ainu and to some extent Ryukuyans (Okinawans). Both the Ainu and the Ryukuyans are pretty archaic types, more or less Paleo-Asians or Archaic Northeast Asians. The Ainu are actually classed in the Australoid race, believe it or not.
Taylor then disputed that the Ainu were Australids.
The truth is that Ainu genes are Asian, but Ainu skulls look like Negrito, Papuan, Aborigine, Tamil, Senoi, Melanesian and Paleoamerindian skulls. This makes sense as prior to 9,000 YBP, Australid types were generalized across all of Asia. There is a large dig in north China. All remains older than 9,000 YBP look like Aborigines (Australoids). The modern Mongoloid race only appears at this site 9,000 YBP. As the Ainu are the ultimate Paleoasians, it would naturally follow that they have an Australid phenotype.
