6 Responses to Similarities between Japanese and Korean Part One

1. Anonymous says:

   23/07/2010 at 23:04

   Other Similarities are
   Shinbun– newspaper

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2. Alex Case says:

   04/06/2011 at 05:33

   Part Two is here:

   http://tefltastic.wordpress.com/teach-abroad/asia/japan/japanese-korean-similarities-two/

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3. seneschal says:

   10/12/2011 at 06:59

   Very interesting compilation of the common words..
   A big reason, in case you missed it, was that Korea was annexed by Japan from 1910 to 1945. Japan forced the use of Japanese in Korea during this time.
   Also, a lot of the words are the same in Chinese as well (the kanji/hanja/hanzi) but pronunciation is using native Chinese pronunciation. This was because Japan was much further ahead than Korea or China in Westernizing itself.

   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan-Korea_Annexation_Treaty

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4. Yonaadan Jun says:

   26/03/2013 at 03:11

   While it is true that Japanese, Koreans and Chinese languages have commonality in many of their words phonetic due to words based on “imported” Chinese characters (Ancient Chinese were far more civilized and advanced than Japanese and Koreans who did not have their own writing system thus depended on Chinese to transcribe their spoken languages), but this has nothing to do with proving that Koreans and Japanese are related or similar. Both superiority feeling ridden Japanese and inferiority complex Koreans who fought each other to death over many centuries hate to admit that they are related not only linguistically but also in kinsmen blood despite the fact that recent research by “3rd party” western geneticists & archaeologist or historians or linguists etc point to the striking similarity in the genetic make ups and in both countries languages. Korean academia and Japanese graduate schools lack research in such fields. Japanese archaeologists also have taboo in Japan as well as Koreans do not normally talk about their intertwined history in ancient times; Japanese thought influenced western educational text books or even encyclopedia ALMOST ALWAYS evade and exclude anything that pertains to ancient Koreans and modern Koreans do not care but want to distance themselves from next door country of Japan as far as they can.

   For me of having good knack of picking up languages I find staggering in the below facts (I can not write nitty gritty details herein though):

   * Both Japanese and Koreans have exactly same order in grammars: Subjec-Object-Verb
   * Chinese is ‘TONAL’ language whereas Japanese & Koreans are ‘NON-Tonal’.
   * Some “3rd party” western academia put Japanese and Koreans into completely separate category of ‘Japanese Korean language group’ instead of the conventional ‘Uralic/Altai’ language group which includes Mongolian,Turkish,Hungarian, Finish languages etc. (Chinese language belongs to Sino-Tibetan language group.
   * In the ancient Korean peninsula (i.e. Goguryo, Shinra, Goryo, Baekje, Gojosun etc. periods) Koreans had their original Korean names instead of the current Chinese style of 3 syllable names: e.g. Ijinashi, Sadaham, Paso, Taro, Jiru, Uljimuunduk etc. that sound similar to current Japanese – or RATHER Japanese names sounding similar to ancient Korean names. When the ancient Koreans borrowed to use the Chinese characters to transcribe their spoken language, they also abandoned the practice of naming themselves in the original Korean phonetics and instead changed to adopt the Chinese character based tri-syllabic names in order to better facilitate transcription.
   I surmise the above is partly the reason why both Koreans and Japanese have 2 ways counting numbers; one in in Chinese influenced ways 1= il, 2= Ee, 3=Saam, 4=Saa & so on, but original Korean way is 1=Hana, 2=Duul, 3= Sed, 4= Ned & so on. And you probably know the dual Japanese ways of counting so I truncate.

   Both Japanese and Koreans have overlapping phonetics that are almost exactly same in pronunciation to each other except the Japanese “z” sound, but Koreans have “extra” sounds due to more versatile combination of Korean ‘Ga-Na-Da-Ra’ (equivalent to Japanese Ka-Ta-Ka-Na) alphabetical consonants and vowels. This means Koreans can master 99% Japanese pronunciation with ease except “z” sound which exists only on Japanese side and Japanese can pronounce all the same overlapping pronunciations of Korean but Japanese have to learn fresh on those more complex combinations of Korean vowels and consonants. (e.g. Japanese has ‘a,e,i,o,u’ but Korean has ‘a,e,ya,oe,yo,u, yu, uu, i’ etc. as more extra sounds, but note those overlapping sounds in Korean) One Japanese man told me that he thinks in ancient time both Japanese and Korean languages were probably more similar to each other than nowadays. Some researcher thinks that in the ancient time Japanese language might have been more inclusive on complex pronunciations similar to modern Korean, but as time past by the Japanese phonetics somehow have become simpler than Korean language.

   Here below are SOME VOCABULARIES that have NOTHING TO DO WITH CHINESE BASED CHARACTERS:
   oegyeoseo (어겨서)=okasu (おかす)=infringe
   matgyeoseo (맡겨서)=makasu (まかす)=deligate
   gayeopso (가엾소)=kawaiso (かゎいそう)=pity
   gom (곰)=kuma (くま)=bear
   mul (물)=moru (もる) = water

   btw. I heard that in Tsushima island (geographically situated in closer proximity to Korea than mainland Japan and Japanese residents more notably have “mixed” Korean ancestry as fairly recent Japan/Korea history indicates – but non of those “homogeneous” Japanese residents probably deny anything to do with nearby Korean kinsmen blood line) some of their local Japanese dialects are not only using exactly same sounding Korean vocabularies, but very very very interestingly even a whole line of phrase is exactly same as Korean everyday language!
   (e.g. “Tomankatta”=”Tomangkada”=”escape”, “Hangachi”=”Hangaji”=”1(item)”, “Chokoman”=”Choguman”=”Small” etc.)

   HERE BELOW ARE MORE STRIKING SIMILARITIES OF JAPANESE AND KOREAN LANGUAGES:

   In this world only French, Japanese and Korean languages have the 2 dual ways of speaking their respective same language: 1st )formal and 2nd) informal ways of speaking. But for Japanese and Korean this is more of honorific system that are very strict system of alternating methodologies depending on the opposite listener of your speech if they are different from you by their age, familiarity, social status etc.

   For Korean language speaker, few examples of the formal ways to end verbs:
   ‘…supnida.’ (making statement equivalent to ‘…desu’)
   ‘…supnidayo’ (old fashion way of “supnida”)
   ‘…soida’ (another old fashion way of “supnida”)
   ‘…supnika? (question form equivalent to ‘…desuka?)
   ‘…Ipnida’ (another way to end verb)
   ‘…yo’ (formal/honorific way of ending verb in conversational speech)

   Few examples of informal ways to end verbs:
   ‘…ne’ (equivalent to Japanese ‘…ne’)
   ‘…da’ (Japanese ‘…de’)
   ‘…ra’ (in commanding manner of seech e.g. gara=go, Hajimara=don’t do it, Bojimara=don’t look etc- all Korean, not Japanese though sounds like Japanese)
   ‘…itda’ (equivalent to Aru/iru in Japanese)
   ‘…itsuh’ (equivalent to Aru/iru in Japanese)

   Ending the verb with ‘Ka’ is question format which serves same purpose in both Japanese and Korean, but Korean nowadays use less, less,less and less use of this question format as this sounds too formal or old fashioned from the ancient Korean language. Nevertheless this question form is still widely used in formal settings such as meeting a stranger or older person or by TV news anchor etc.

   ‘Wa’ and ‘Uun’ in Japanese and Korean respectively are exactly the same word for word transliteration as in: “Namae-wa John desu” = “Eerum-uun John ip-nida” = ” (my) name is John”

   ‘No’ and ‘Ui’ in Japanese and Korean are also exactly the same:
   “Watashi-no namae-wa John desu” = ” Na-ui Eeruum-uun John ip-nida” = “My name is John”

   ‘Ga’ and ‘Ga’ in Japanese and Korean are also accurately the same:
   “Inu-ga aru” = “Gaangaji -ga Itsuh” = “There is a dog”

   There are more strikingly similar concepts that exist in both languages but I truncate.

   But more on some herein below:
   Shid-su-rei De-suka? = Shil-rye-heh-do depnika? =both old fashioned way to say “execuse (me)?” both speech are not much use in modern times in both languages.

   Btw. both Japanese and Korean often exclude speaking the subject in everyday conversational speech. hence ‘me’ in “execus me” is not even mentioned.

   Both Korean and Japanese have 3 ways of referring to an object/item in a long distance, short nearby surrounding and on conceptual thought process (as in a phone conversation). In English “this” and “that” are only words of reference, but in Japanese and Korean:
   Kono, Sono, Ano(Japanese) = Yogo, Jogo, Guugo(Korean; or Eegut, Jugut, Guugut) respectively. These 3 ways are parallel to each other in both languages and exactly the same concepts that I think only Japanese and Koreans can understand.

   I have many more things to say but it is now more than 11 o’clock at night by Eastern standard time in Canada, so i am here to leave with the above smidgen of info.

   Sorry, if I am obnoxious with too long of occupying the comment page, please pardon me. thanks.
   Yonaadan Jun a Korean Canadian guy from Toronto.

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5. Yonaadan Jun says:

   27/03/2013 at 01:31

   By the way, just after thought… i should have included on my above comment:
   “Hai, WaKari-Mashida !” (Jp) = “Ne, Arget-supnida ! (kr) = “Yes (sir), (I) understand !” is another example that show the similarity b/w Japanese & Korean language.

   One more thing: Japanese ‘KaTaKaNa has less flexibility in expressing foreign borrowed words such as in ‘McDonald’ (fast food restaurants) as the best transliteration that can be made is,
   ” Meh-Guu-Doh-Naa-Ruu-Doh” but Korean ‘GaNaDaRa’ is more versatile that the best transliteration that can be made is “Meg-Doh-Nar-Duu” in their respective alphabetical writing systems. But what i was saying in my previous comment was that in ancient Japanese language, this type of modern day Korean phonetic was also part of ancient colloquial Japanese, but somehow the modern day Japanese lost it and have become simplified in pronunciations and phonetics.

   Korean people claim to be homogeneous and love to think that they are unique and racially different from Japanese and Chinese, but this is not true. There is NO SUCH thing as 100% pure ‘homogeneous’ peoples groups anywhere in the world. Thanks to the Genghis Khan invasion (Mongolian) and many years of oppressive rule over ancient Korea by this fierce rulers from the North, Koreans were forced on interracial marriage with the Mongolians en mass hence large pool of modern Koreans living in the upper half or 2/3rd of the Korean peninsula) have peculiar facial feature bearing resemblance to modern day Mongolians, (though genetic make ups show that about 70% of DNAs are similar to Japanese) but having said this though I myself originally came from the central part of the Korean peninsula (I am from Seoul), people sometimes mistake me as Japanese as I have slim face and beard. Many Korean men have thick and prosperous facial beard to the point that even though they shave clean but you could still see the well defined gray patch on the jaw and below their cheek bone contrasting the color in other parts of the face. Some Korean guy I knew even had hairy chest – some Korean men have hairy chest that look like they are Mediterranean men. But as modern day Korean society demands clean shaven face for men and Korean mothers, girlfriends, wives hate their men’s stubbles (except the beards on king or military general pictured on the flip side of their money bill or coins) they always shave. Korean people depending on their geographic regions also display peculiar bodily features as certain group of people have wavy hair and quite a few also have naturally very tight curls (like Africans) that some guys appear to have done their perm at hair salon – but totally natural and large Afro hair is popping up against their wish. Depending on geographic regions in Korea, some women seem to have crooked teeth and double eyelids that are peculiar and different from the cosmetic surgery done folks living in upper region (e.g. Seoul/Central part of the Korean peninsula). I think that Korean folks living in the South western tip of Korean peninsula – it is called ‘Gyung-ghi-doh’ province where South Korea’s 2nd largest modern city is located- have facial feature that resemble Japanese.

   Also those guys in the South Western tip have thick accents that Korean folks from Seoul area or central part of Korean peninsula can very much misunderstand it as Japanese language. When I went to Korea couple years ago for a visit I was perplexed and confused as some young people chatting at a cafe in city of Busan were as if speaking Japanese and I wondered if they were Japanese tourists (I was confused and it is truly mind boggling), but in fact they were speaking “Gyung-Ghi-Doh Saturi” (Saturi means ‘country side accent’ – Koreans consider Seoul accent as the standardized accent) Interestingly, the folks in Gyung-ghi-doh province area can’t pronounce certain “standardized” accents that almost reminds me of Japanese speakers who have difficult time learning certain “complex” Korean phonetics (I mentioned about it in my previous comment).
   Like wise, there was a time of total confusion when i visited some Asian store in Canada and strolled through store aisle, i thought that I was hearing from another aisle Korean couple as husband and wife were talking to each other in Korean Saturi accent as if they were from Busan or Gyung-Ghi-Doh province. But alas, i soon realized that they were in fact a Japanese couple. At the time, their intonation was very familiar that the speech itself was resonating as my mother country’s tongue. (btw. I speak fluent Korean and am ain’t so ignoramus as to not being able to distinguish b/w Korean and Japanese).

   My point is: Korean language has been immensely fast changing especially in the last 100 years or so, but there is still enigmatic vestige of evidences that point to undeniable common linguistic root with the Japanese language. HUGE majority of westerners, other Asians, even Koreans or Japanese are blissfully unaware of this fact but just glibly think that Japanese and Koreans are very different. Koreans feel extremely ashamed at the final showdown by the Japanese as the modernized Japanese imperial army finally conquered Koreans after many centuries of attempts to invade. Japanese on the other hand feel superior over Koreans. Just as Jews and Arabs have the same linguistic root (e.g. ‘Shalom Alekhem’ of Hebrew language spoken by Jews and ‘Salem Alokhom’ of Arabic language spoken by Arabs are same which both mean ‘peace be unto you’ as greeting in English ‘How do you do?’) and Jews and Arabs derive from same kinsmen blood line but hate each other to death. Likewise, Japanese and Korean are related in kinsmen blood (you might say what about Yayoi or Jonom origin etc but alas there is very much a controversy on the theory of Yayoi and Jonom people as to their origin and pertaining to Ainu and what not) but both East Asians are good at putting distance b/w themselves as much as they can. Both Japanese and Korean snub each other even on international sports events too.

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6. Yonaadan Jun says:

   02/04/2013 at 16:36

   I made mistake on the above comment, instead of “South Western…”, should be corrected as “South Eastern” tip of Korean peninsula when mentioning Gyung-Ghi-Doh province.

   Also consider: (do you remember my mention of Sono, Gono, Ano & Yogo, Jogo,Guugo?)
   So-Desu. = Guurut Supnida. (in ancient Korean: “Guurut Deso” or “Guurut Deso-ida”)
   So-Desuka? = Guurut Supinka? (in ancient Korean: “Guurut Deso-ika?)
   So-Desune! = Guurut Dane! (or Guurut-tago-hane in modern day korean)

   *Also Japanese:
   Nande
   Nandeyo
   Nandesuka?
   *Equivalent Korean (in various forms):
   Moji? (informal)
   Monde (informal)
   Mondeyo (Formal)
   Mobnika? (Formal)
   Mobnikayo? (old fashioned way)
   Mondan-Ga? (Korean Saturi accent)
   Mu-ot-ship-nika? (very formal)
   Mu-otSHI-danga? (Korean Saturi accent)
   Mu-O-SHI-dayo? (Korean Saturi accent; as you go southern area of Korea, Korean phonetic seem to become simpler and deviates from the “standardized” Seoul accent, but Koreans all understand each other)

   Lastly please consider:
   Gojai-mashida! = Gomaab-supnida! (authentic Korean way) = Gaam-Sa-hapnida! (Chinese influenced way)

   Some western thinker argues that modern day Japanese language might have been “off shoot” language from one of the ancient Korean kingdoms of either Goguryo, Shinra, Gaya or Baekjeh while modern day Korean language largely derives from other one of either Goguryo, Shinra, Gaya or Baekjeh. Ancient Korean kingdoms used different dialects though they are all considered “Korean” distinct from the Sino-Tibetan language of Chinese, hence the off shoot derivatives of modern day Japanese & Korean appear to be quite different. (Well, this is just a theory by a western thinker on the paradox of Japanese & Korean languages as they are puzzling 2 languages bearing striking similarities on which Japanese & Koreans themselves are usually silent about – & not much research academically)

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