4 ms·

There are no languages we know of related to Japanese

• Mediterraneo10 6y ago
  This is not quite true. That some extinct languages of the Korean peninsula were related to Japanese on the basis of toponymy, is now nearly universally agreed on among linguists, whether they accept the Altaic hypothesis (or the recent "Transeurasian" rebranding of it) or reject the Altaic hypothesis.
  • diffrinse 6y ago
    Did I really have to say no living languages?
    • Mediterraneo10 6y ago
      The work on Korean toponymy is recent enough (and still ongoing) that it is missing in many older standard references for the history of Japanese. So, in a discussion like this, if a person mentions that the Japonic family is a language isolate, then it is helpful to add for readers less familiar with this subject that it isn’t completely isolated.