[KS] Inconvenient line of argument? Japanese descended from Korean...then why sensitivity?

[Kye C Kim]

Hi,

Thanks to Kwang On Yoo for starting yet another fascinating thread.

This topic brought to mind some comments by a polyglot American
lawyer-banker who also spoke faultless Japanese and was helping me
get some insight into the Japanese and Korean capital market
regulations.

During one of the breaks, with his and my own interest in languages
playing a part, this very topic came up: Japanese descended from Korean.

He was puzzled and brought up the point, knowing about the Korean's
bitterness over its colonial past and the extreme Korean sensitivity about
the role of Japanese Language in Korean the rather inconvenient logical
consequences that would follow.

His point was: "Doesn't the Korean descent of the Japanese Imperial
family give legitimacy to the Japanese imperial/colonial claim on Korea and
strengthen justification for colonization ?" And along the same line:
"If Japanese is descended from Korean, then Japanese is "Korean"
and there should be little sensitivity over adopting Japanese as "form
of Korean. Ergo, no justification for SENSITIVITY."

Now, there was much tongue in cheek in his remarks, but they did give
me pause.

Regards,

Joobai Lee

5/13/2011





On Fri, May 13, 2011 at 11:06 AM, Kwang On Yoo <lovehankook at gmail.com>wrote:

> Hello,
>
> For the Origin of  the Founders of Japan, please read following 1975 essay
> by Dr. Gari Ledyard.
>
>
> Galloping along with the Horseriders: Looking for the Founders of Japan
> Author(s): Gari Ledyard
> Source: Journal of Japanese Studies, Vol. 1, No. 2 (Spring, 1975), pp.
> 217-254
> Published by: The Society for Japanese Studies
> Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/132125
>
>
> Regards,
>
> Kwang-On Yoo
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Wed, May 11, 2011 at 6:08 AM, Werner Sasse <werner_sasse at hotmail.com>wrote:
>
>>  Thanks for the link.
>> Just one note before I start reading the article:
>>  "new light on the *origin of the Japanese people,* suggesting that *their
>> language* is descended from that of the rice-growing farmers who arrived
>> in Japan<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/japan/index.html?inline=nyt-geo>from the Korean Peninsula," (italics mine). We must be careful to
>> distinguish between the origin of a LANGUAGE and the origin of the
>> PEOPLE....
>> Best, Werner Sasse
>>
>> ------------------------------
>> Date: Mon, 9 May 2011 21:37:16 -0500
>> From: lovehankook at gmail.com
>> To: koreanstudies at koreaweb.ws
>> Subject: [KS] Japanese language is descended from that of the rice-growing
>> farmers who arrived in Japan from the Korean Peninsula, The New York Times,
>> May 4, 2011
>>
>>
>> Hello,
>>
>> If I may, I would like to share following article with [KS] subscribers.
>>
>>
>> "The finding sheds new light on the origin of the Japanese people,
>> suggesting that their language is descended from that of the rice-growing
>> farmers who arrived in Japan<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/japan/index.html?inline=nyt-geo>from the Korean Peninsula,"
>>
>> "John B. Whitman, an expert on Japanese linguistics who works at the
>> National Institute for Japanese Language and Linguistics, in Tokyo, and at
>> Cornell University, called the new finding solid and reasonable.”
>>
>> http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/04/world/asia/04language.html?_r=4
>>
>>
>> Regards,
>>
>> Kwang-On Yoo
>>
>>
>>
>
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