Did the Japanese language grow out of the Chinese language?

6 Comments

1. Chris H says:

   August 4, 2009 at 2:46 pm

   Yes. Korea is the product of migration from China, then Japan was the product of migration from Korea.

   When the Koreans came and founded Japan, they adapted a language and culture similar to what the priests had in Korea. With that, the lettering came too.

   Japanese doesn’t really have an alphabet. They have 4 different writing styles. Kanji, Hiragana, Katakana, and Romaji.

   Romaji is basically english letters that spell out Japanese words.

   Kanji is the Chinese-based set of idiograms. A roman letter, like what English is made of, spells out a word based on each letter representing a sound. Idiograms like Kanji, represent ideas. So, you can’t really sound out kanji, you just have to know what it means. So, there are literally tens of thousands of kanji. Since nobody knows all Kanji, the Japanese created Hiragana and Katakana, which are 2 ways of writing that anyone can read… in that, Hiragana and Katakana are characters that are sound-based, so you can sound out a word. But, the Japanese still use Kanji in cases where the word is a commonly used word.
2. GrahamH says:

   August 4, 2009 at 2:46 pm

   No; the two languages are not related.
3. Belie says:

   August 4, 2009 at 2:46 pm

   Japanese imported Chinese characters as their first system of writing. From the kanji they created hiragana, a writing system designed for women and children because it was considered "less intense" than kanji. And then they created the third and final writing system, katakana, to complete the mess that is Japanese.

   But that’s where the similarities end. Pronunciation, sentence syntax, grammar, et cetera are all different and not all Japanese kanji characters mean the same as their Chinese counterparts.
4. Dani G says:

   August 4, 2009 at 2:46 pm

   Yes, by way of ancient Korea. The Japanese would never admit to it and prefer a much more convoluted history in which they owe nothing to either Korean or Chinese history.
5. ~Bella~ says:

   August 4, 2009 at 2:46 pm

   No, the two are not related. Japanese actually is it’s own language family (or distantly related to Korean). Chinese culture is the root of Japanese culture, and the Japanese writing system is derived and borrowed from Chinese (as you said they’re pronounced differently). It’s a common misconception that they are the same thing due to the writing system and similar culture (but it’s really just ignorance because they obviously don’t sound anything alike). Here’s proof too..just listen to the same sentences in each language
   http://www.transparent.com/languagepages/chinese/chinese-phrases.htm (chinese)

   http://www.transparent.com/languagepages/japanese/FSJapanese.htm?link=tagcloud

   So yeah. The people that are answering that they ARE the same thing/Japanese came from Chinese are really just talking about culture and writing system (Though the Japanese don’t really seem to realize it. Look up nihonjinron -_-)
6. Sam Yurai 外人 says:

   August 4, 2009 at 2:46 pm

   Japanese written language was "imported" from China.

   China have no particles and verb form (and other reasons) so Japan invented Hiragana.

   to write foreign words and for emphasis, Japan invented Katakana.

   haha, but be careful, Kanji for "letter" (like correspondance) in Japan means "toilet paper" in China