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While I don't have a survey in hand, my impression is that few historical linguists believe there to be a demonstrated (genealogical) relationship between Korea

While I don't have a survey in hand, my impression is that few historical linguists believe there to be a demonstrated (genealogical) relationship between Korean and Japanese: they are generally considered to be isolates (i.e., languages which have no demonstrable relationship to any other extant language; Ainu, as it happens, is also thought to be an isolate). Now, this doesn't mean they're not genealogically related. But, (at least prehistoric) languages change rapidly enough that it is probably impossible to convincingly reconstruct an ancestral language spoken more than a few thousand years ago, so the shared ancestor probably would have been spoken farther back than the comparative reconstruction method can look.

jqm 12y ago
I seem to remember years ago reading that the Japanese language was related to Finnish and considered to be in the same family. Maybe things have changed or I'm mis-remembering.
- SiVal 12y ago
  Yes, things have changed. When I first learned both Japanese and Korean, they were considered part of a "Uralo-Altaic" language family that included Finnish and Hungarian as well as some Northeast Asian languages. I'm not aware of any linguist who believes in that East-West link anymore. And, when I (as a non-Asian) learned both of these languages long ago, the difference from any other languages I had learned was obvious, and so was their resemblance to each other. I was quite surprised and puzzled to learn that linguists had declared them unrelated. Over the years, more and more linguists have concluded that they are, in fact, related, something that has always been obvious to me (and that has nothing to do with shared Chinese loanwords in both.)
- kylebgorman 12y ago
  My claim is that this idea that Japanese and/or Korean can be shown to be related to any other known language is very much a minority and/or fringe position, held by few mainstream historical linguists. (My only source is held by that I am a professional linguist and sometimes travel in circles that care about such matters.)

jqm 12y ago

I seem to remember years ago reading that the Japanese language was related to Finnish and considered to be in the same family. Maybe things have changed or I'm mis-remembering.

SiVal 12y ago
Yes, things have changed. When I first learned both Japanese and Korean, they were considered part of a "Uralo-Altaic" language family that included Finnish and Hungarian as well as some Northeast Asian languages. I'm not aware of any linguist who believes in that East-West link anymore. And, when I (as a non-Asian) learned both of these languages long ago, the difference from any other languages I had learned was obvious, and so was their resemblance to each other. I was quite surprised and puzzled to learn that linguists had declared them unrelated. Over the years, more and more linguists have concluded that they are, in fact, related, something that has always been obvious to me (and that has nothing to do with shared Chinese loanwords in both.)
kylebgorman 12y ago
My claim is that this idea that Japanese and/or Korean can be shown to be related to any other known language is very much a minority and/or fringe position, held by few mainstream historical linguists. (My only source is held by that I am a professional linguist and sometimes travel in circles that care about such matters.)