Here is my (very speculative) theory on how linguistic relationships could have come about:
It is speculated that the Uralic (Finnish) language family is related to the
Altaic (Turko-Mongolic) [17]. As mentioned previously, the relationship between
Japonic and Altaic is accepted in some scholarly sections [1]. Dravidian, on
the other hand, is also suspected to be related to Uralic and Altaic languages
[18]. This leads me to speculate that there may have indeed been a proto
Uralic-Altaic-Japonic-Dravidian language widespread across Europe and Asia . The rapid spread of the Indo-European
language family, and culture (perhaps coinciding with the domestication of the
horse in the steppes of Central Asia , a potential homeland of proto-Indo-European) led to these other
languages losing ground and being completely replaced in large swathes of Europe and Asia . Isolated from each other, these
languages gradually evolved independently into their current form.
An alternate possibility, and one that might very well be true for the cultural
similarities, is that Japanese and Dravidian peoples interacted sometime before
recorded history, although the exact mechanism of these interactions remains to
be determined.
This exploratory expedition has
just set sail. There is much to be discovered, and discussed, much room for debate
and well-reasoned skepticism. I hope you have enjoyed the journey thus far, and
will continue to travel with me, to the final destination “wherever the trail of
truth may lead”.
Next section: References
good blog. Expecting more from you.
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed your hypothesis. I am a Native Tamil too, lived all my live in Tamil Nadu (Salem & Chennai), my Dad being from Madurai and Mom from Kochi (and I ended up speaking Malayalam at home). I understood almost every word of your blog clearly as I am extremely interested in Linguistics (would like to pursue an M.A in Linguistics) and i started my Japanese language course in June 2008 and i continued it until August 2010 (and i traveled to Japan too on the JENESYS cultural exchange program). The striking similarities between Japanese and Tamil was what intrigued me during my course and that's exactly what has led me into your blog. I am so happy to meet someone with same interests and origins!
ReplyDeletenot having much know to understand a similarity between these languages .....
ReplyDeletebut when working in an environment where many nationals are involves it seems particualary very easy to exchange the ideas/thoughts easily with japenese than with any one ....
athu eppadi ? thedapooyee intha vimarchanam elluthikondirukiren.....
ungal muyarichi thodara vaalthukal...
I believe your second hypothesis, but your first one seems to make sense as well. I too am greatly interested in this topic and am looking for maybe a genetic relationship with the Japanese. I hear so much of the northern Indians being related to Europeans and I often wondered where we Dravidians are from. I've heard of us being from Elam, but I wanted to know who are our living relatives are. I've only have 1 or 2 phenotype evidences that could prove that we are related to Japanese, but that's not much. I would definitely attempt to find similarities between my family's language (Kannada and telugu) and Japanese, but both languages were heavily influenced by Sanskrit. So I don't know if it's possible. Any tips on where to start? I already watch anime and listen to a lot of J-pop but yet I haven't found much evidence to link Dravidian and Japanese.
ReplyDeleteThis may help, Just may... There was Genetic relationship between Australian aboriginals 4000 (141 generations ) years ago... Bringing Dravidians much longitudinally closer much before modern history. http://www.nature.com/news/genomes-link-aboriginal-australians-to-indians-1.12219
ReplyDeleteIn English to Japan Google translation, I tried listening these two sentences, one a statement and the other a question.
ReplyDelete1) Your name is Raju.
2) Is your name Raju?
I am surprised to listen that the last word "Raju" sounded "Rajuah" when posed the second question. In Dravidian languages, a statment becomes a question just by adding the 'ah' sound at the end. As in 1) un pEr Raju
2) un pEr Rajuah?
This was a very interesting Blog. I have been curious about ancient origin of Japanese culture/language, and your hypothesis definitely widened my horizon. Today's Japan is defined as "homogenous" society, but my past readings indicate to me that ancient Japan was much more diverse, with people of different origins arriving the islands from all over the Asia. Also, my understanding of the origin of our language is that we have strong influence from Southeast Asian language, though the grammar seems more close to Altaic (like Mongolian and Korean languages).
ReplyDeleteI agree on your hypothesis regarding language similarities and how the Japanese and Dravidian maybe related (which may go back thousands of years). But my question to you, then, what are the links that connect this 5,000miles, (Malay? Polynesian?). I also notice that some Hawaian as well as Native American languages share some similarities as well.
But I also think that the cultural similarities you brought up are due to arrival of Buddhism from India via China/Korea to Japan during 6-8th century, and not necessarily related to your hypothesis regarding language similarities, which is much older than Buddhism.
More in the same vein--did you know that Rajnikanth movies were very popular in Japan not so long ago?
ReplyDeleteHi sridharan,
ReplyDeleteI'm a native Tamil as well. Recently I went to Japan on work and was really amazed to see the similarities with Tamil culture and language. The 'kaarai' in japanese same as 'kaaram' in Tamil. There is a very bad smelling cuisine they eat, which they called "Nathoo' ( make from rotten beans). I was also wondering, how come the name is so similar to the tamil word "naatham" meaning bad smell.
I started learning Hiragana, in that the similarity of the japanese charater for 'a' , 'o' is the same as Tamil 'ka' ....
Astonished..... i searched the google and landed in your blog.
Your research and amount of thinking you have done is really impressive. Not being linguist, you seem to know a lot about languages and I must tell you, you have got a gift in explaining things in a very conveniencing and logical way.
Continue you good efforts and publish it as a book soon.
hi Sridharan Devarajan,
ReplyDeletei have been watching Korean Films recently and found some similarities between Tamil and Korean.
Appa (Father), Va(come) are some words that i have observed. they share the same meaning and also the sound.
Very Good Research.
Interesting blog! If what you're proposing is indeed true along with the Dravidian-Uralic grouping, might it make more sense to lump the Japonic languages with the Uralic languages and leave the Altaic group to the Mongolian and Turkic languages? I'm not sure where the Tungusic would fall. Finnish, Estonian, Samoyed, Japanese.... Branch Dravidians.
ReplyDeleteLooks like direct interaction between Dravidian and Japanese people is out of the question.
ReplyDeleteon the point of people from the dravidian peninsula having traveled to Japan.. there are enough historians who advocate a Indo-american link.. America was always to the east and Indians sailed to its west coast crossing the pacific.. it is quite natural japan which is a detour up north on the east west ride, was also a destination..
ReplyDeleteHi it is an interesting similarity, which I myself have been witness to and trying to understand more about them. I would be interested to learn more about what you have discovered. You could also visit my blog swathimoorthy.wordpress.com, where I write about Japan.
ReplyDeleteDr. Sridharan Devarajan,
ReplyDeletePlease, keep it up your studies.
At a lecture delivered at the 5th International Conference Seminar of Tamil Studies in Madurai, Professor Ono asserted “Haven’t you ignored the path Tamil language traversed in the East direction towards Japan?” In his address, Ono stated:
“There is a strong probability for the existence of a relationship between Tamil and Japanese. In order to prove this, it is necessary to present a long list of corresponding words strictly supported by sound laws to clarify grammatical similarities between both languages …