Oh dear, this topic felt so interesting that I had to register
The most obvious resemblance is the thing matildemichi already mentioned. The indicator of a question. In Indoeuropean languages, for example, a question is made by changing the order of words. In Finnish, Estonian and Japanese, a question is indicated with "-ko/-kö" (FIN), "kas" (EST) or "ka" (JAP).
Nihongo o hanashimasu
ka?
Puhut
ko suomea?
Kas sä räägit eesti keelt?
If those three aren't close relatives, I'll eat my socks. Another thing very similar is the indicator of possession; in Japanese, "my (something)" is "watashi
no(something)", which is very similar to the Finnish genitive form, most surprisingly "
-n".
sammy wrote:
the most prominent features being the syllabic word construction and the three different alphabets (hiragana, katagana and kanji) make it very hard to believe that there's be anything in common between our languages.
First of all, writing systems have nothing to do with a language's origin.
Secondly, WTF? Finnish has a syllabic word construction nearly identical to the Japanese one! Does "katosiko takakumi" ring a bell? How about "vasara" or "Kokemäki"? Also notice how unnatural it is to have certain consonants successively in Finnish: "traktori" is an impossible word for a Finnish child; it might as well be "turakutori", which would resemble Japanese very much.
Sure, Finnish has
some differences (for example, a word can end with just a T), but that is what I call language evolution. It's not like Japanese and Finnish got separated two days ago. I am actually surprised how great the resemblace is, since Hungarian, for example, is total gibberish to me. But I actually have an explanation for this one, too: isolation. Thousands of years ago, when Ural-Japonic languages separated, the Finns went up North, where it was so freezing nobody wanted to come there and ruin their linquistic heritage. The same goes for the Japanese, who moved to an island. The Hungarians, however, were left in Central Europe in the middle of Slovenic influences, making a language completely different from its isolated cousins.
As for the genetics, we, the "actual" Finns, are a dirty mixture of who-knows-what resembling Flemish people, but the Sami are very...
asianish. And when we go across the Ural mountains, we meet the Samoyeds, a genetically Asian group who speak Uralic languages. What do you think we will meet after going a bit more East (past the Yugaghirs (another "maybe-uralic" group)) and taking a little boat ride? That is right, the Japanese.
BTW, matildemichi, I have had the same goals as you do for a very long time. It is going to be an epic battle between us someday
but i guess this time we have to admit its just a case...
