Can anyone explain to me the similarities between the Japanese and Korean languages?

Question

Having taken Japanese level 1 & 2 languages classes at my community college and been exposed to much Korean throughout my life, I find the similarities in both pronunciation and grammar to be quite apparent. This is my opinion, however, and I invite people to share theirs. I have been thinking about it for a while and I hope people can give me some more knowledge regarding the matter.

Answer 1

Actually, I beg to differ on that opinion.

In terms of writing:

Japanese has a lot more curved strokes. I don't know how their writing system came to be, but I can guarantee that it's different from Korean. Korean writing (han-geul) was invented in the 15th century by scholars underneath King Sejong. It is one of the only invented languages in the world. Before that, a version of Chinese calligraphy was used, making it nearly impossible to learn besides the elite.

The writing calligraphy is very, in a way, geometric. It's easy to learn the writing, since it was invented specifically for that purpose, the illiteracy rate in Korea is very low. (For more info on han-geul, go here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hangul )

As for grammar, it may very well be similar only because Japanese, according to some, used to be a dialect of Korean (a long long time ago). I don't know much about this, so don't quote me on this one. What I do know is that since Japan is very close to Korea, in the 12th-14th centuries, a lot of exiled/banished Korean princes and princesses went over to Japan. As a result, most of the Japanese royal family is descended from these princes and princesses.

Pronunciation, however, is very very different. I can see how some people define Japanese pronunciation as very "refined" and Korean as "rude" or "loud". But you may very well go to Japan or Korea and have people say that Americans are "rude" and "loud", it all depends on the context and your viewpoint of other cultures.

Koreans are vocal, I'll give you that. It has its merits, though. For a small country, there are a large number of dialects. People from Gang-won-do, people are quieter and the dialect is very cute compared to the "Seoul Sah-too-ri" (the main dialect, like the Midwestern accent in the U.S.). I'm sure Japan has a lot of dialects that sound different as well, the Japanese don't tend to raise their voices as much as Koreans.

The same word may mean a different emotion in Korean, according to the inflection and tone of voice. An example:

The word geuh-reh (그래) has multiple meanings. If you pronounce it as a question "geuh-reh?" it means, "oh really?" If you pronounce it trailed off, "geuh-reh..." it means, "yeah..." If you add a "suh" to it, and say "geuh-reh-suh?" it means "so?" But if you say it in an angry tone, it means "so what?"

Also, I know that in Japanese, as a hesitation word, they say "ah-no", like the English equivalent of "uh". As far as I know, there is no such word like that in Korean, if there was, it's probably a longer phrase such as "geuh-ruh-nih-kkah" which means, "it's like".

Anyway, that was mostly from the Korean point of view, as a Korean, I think there is a major difference between the Japanese and Korean language.

Hope that helps~!

Answer 2

Japanese is distantly related to the modern Korean language. But linguists have recently traces the origin of the Japanese language to a minority Korean language spoken in the distant past. Korea was not always unified (the South Korea I mean). At one time therewere four kingdoms. And before that time it may have been more fragmented. One of those long ago kingdoms spoke a language that became Japanese, after the Jomon Culture was defeated by a mainland group of people. Strangely some of the words that describe body parts, (which are often the most ancient words of a language), had Polynesian roots and that thew linguists off for a long while.
Dan.

Answer 3

Dan S has given you the most informative answer! Especially as you specifically mentioned punctuation and grammar, but not writing!
; )

Let me just destroy a couple of myths before I go ...
1. Koreans do NOT sound like a bunch of rude people - except when they're shouting! For some strange reason they shout the news ...
2. neither language is descended from Chinese! Chinese characters were the basis of the WRITING of both countries, but had NOTHING to do with the language of either - unless you count the occasional Chinese pronunciation of Japanese kanji...! Korea altered the Chinese characters almost beyond recognition, but they still share the same roots with Japanese kanji.

The actual spoken language has little to do with the written language - and the spoken language has to be widespread before there's any point trying to write anything down!

Answer 4

I've noticed the similarities in grammar and pronunciation, but the writing system seems to be somewhat different. As I understand it, Japanese palatially uses a symbolic writing system known as "kanji" (maybe related to the Chinese words kan-xie, "read-write") in conjunction with a phonetic alphabet. While Korean has an alphabet that implements the letters into a single syllable character so that each character represents a spoken syllable and the smaller characters inside are the letters being pronounced. Is that correct? Also, the actual dialog seems to be quite different from Japanese. Just the greetings reveal the fundamental difference in their vocabulary. "Konnichiwa", as opposed to "Anyo-haseo".

Answer 5

I know that both have similarities in their appearance.

Answer 6

well... they are both descendant from chinese... so... their languages are still using some mandarin characters in some parts... maybe the only thing i can say that... they are chinese!

Answer 7

no way.japanese is so refined while korean sounds like a bunch of rude ppl.