# German, Japanese's lost cousin.



## paradoxa4

Hello.

Have you ever tried to learn German and Japanese? I'm currently doing it and I see too many similitudes between Japanese and German, even more than German and English (As people usually say). Sometimes I say, kind of joking, kind of speaking seriously: "Speaking Japanese is like speaking German with soft sounds" or "Speaking German is like speaking Japanese with Nordic sounds"

What do you think about it?
If your answer supports my opinion: Why do you think that it happens?


----------



## LilianaB

Hi Paradoxa. What do you mean: the sounds, the grammar, the etymology of some words. If you mean the sounds that might be possible, although I do not speak Japanese so you would have to wait for some opinions from the real experts. I personally think Polish and Mandarin Chinese have many similar sounds, although Chinese is a tonal language.


----------



## Ben Jamin

Could you give any examples and justification. I know German and basics of Japanese, and I have never experience anything like you.


----------



## Moro12

I can try to guess what the author means by saying Japanese resembles German.

1. Paradoxa's native language is Spanish, and a second language (as I suppose) is English, right? Neither Spanish nor English use the system of noun cases.
German has 4 noun cases, and Japanese has an extensive system (up to 12) noun cases though they are expressed in a different way in Japanese (by means of postpositive particles, not by endings and articles as in German). However, both German and Japanese express syntax roles of their nouns morphologically: whether it is a subject, a direct object, an indirect object, a possessor, a location, a direction etc.

2. Both English and Spanish are SVO languages (subject-verb-object). Japanese is always SOV (subject-object-verb). German although being an SVO language, frequently uses SOV constructions in subordinate clauses.

As to the phonetics, I do not think one could find German and Japanese similar.


----------



## terredepomme

No they are not similar. You are just remarking some similarities in two languages that you are simultaneously learning, which are of course present in many, many other languages. One relationship between the two languages could be that you can see quite a few German loanwords in Japanese, such as Arbeit, Orgasmus, etc. But that's about it.


----------



## sotos

I learned japanese for few years and I found that acoustically is very close to Greek, except the sound of u. This makes many japanese words to have a pseudo-meaning in Greek and vice-versa.  But there is no true lingal relation excepting some coincidences (e.g. Jap. _kona_ (dust), Gr. _konis_ (dust) ).


----------



## Moro12

Sometimes I also find some "pseudo-similarities" between Japanese and other languages. That is due to "stereotype perception" of the typical phonetic structure of some words. Of course, that has nothing to do with the language relationship.
Many Japanese words (though not all of them) often seem kinda "pseudo-Italian" to me. Not really Italian, but they resemble Italian words by their syllabic structure.
And some of (but only some of) Georgian words seem kinda "pseudo-Japanese" to me.
That's nothing more but my subjective opinion.


----------



## Perseas

sotos said:


> I learned japanese for few years and I found that acoustically is very close to Greek, except the sound of u. This makes many japanese words to have a pseudo-meaning in Greek and vice-versa.  But there is no true lingal relation excepting some coincidences (e.g. Jap. _kona_ (dust), Gr. _konis_ (dust) ).


I find similarities between Japanese and Ancient Mycenaean in the sense that both have syllabic alphabets; but I know this is only a matter concerning the writing systems.


As for similarities between German and Japanese, are they as Moro12 has described them?


----------



## paradoxa4

Moro12 said:


> 1. Paradoxa's native language is Spanish, and a second language (as I suppose) is English, right? Neither Spanish nor English use the system of noun cases.



Yes, you supposed it right. Perhaps I did not explain myself too clear; however I feel you got my idea, indeed Japanese is a "SOV" language, and German is "SVO" and "SOV", that's why I feel it more similar, for instance when Japanese adds a を to indicate the direct object, German uses the declination of "Der" to "Den", when German uses "dative", Japanese uses に. But in English everything is "the the the the" and "me me me me me" and "get get get get get get". That's what I meant.


----------



## terredepomme

> indeed Japanese is a "SOV" language, and German is "SVO" and "SOV", that's why I feel it more similar, for instance when Japanese adds a を to indicate the direct object, German uses the declination of "Der" to "Den", when German uses "dative", Japanese uses に.


Hundreds of languages have SOV structures or use accusative/dative declensions.


----------



## Dan2

paradoxa4 said:


> Perhaps I did not explain myself too *clear*;


_*clearly*_. English, like Japanese, but unlike German, has different forms for adjectives and adverbs.



paradoxa4 said:


> But in English everything is ... "me me me me me"


No, it's _I, me, (to) me, myself._
*German *fails to distinguish between reflexive and non-reflexive pronouns (except for 3rd person).



paradoxa4 said:


> But in English everything is ... "get get get get get get".


No, it's _get, get, *gets*, get, get, get_.  And don't forget _getting, got, _and _gotten_.
German of course conjugates verbs for number and person to a much fuller extent; Japanese doesn't at all.


----------



## paradoxa4

Dan2 said:


> _*clearly*_. English, like Japanese, but unlike German, has different forms for adjectives and adverbs.
> 
> 
> No, it's _I, me, (to) me, myself._
> *German *fails to distinguish between reflexive and non-reflexive pronouns (except for 3rd person).
> 
> 
> No, it's _get, get, *gets*, get, get, get_.  And don't forget _getting, got, _and _gotten_.
> German of course conjugates verbs for number and person to a much fuller extent; Japanese doesn't at all.



Did you "GET" mad?


----------



## berndf

paradoxa4 said:


> Did you "GET" mad?


No, he just explained to you that you misrepresented the nature of the difference between German and English grammar. Besides, all these differences are very recent, a mere 1000 years ago, English and German grammar were almost identical. German just preserved the Germanic case system (five cases) a bit better, retaining four of them while English lost the accusative/dative distinction.


----------



## Ben Jamin

paradoxa4 said:


> Yes, you supposed it right. Perhaps I did not explain myself too clear; however I feel you got my idea, indeed Japanese is a "SOV" language, and German is "SVO" and "SOV", that's why I feel it more similar, for instance when Japanese adds a を to indicate the direct object, German uses the declination of "Der" to "Den", when German uses "dative", Japanese uses に. But in English everything is "the the the the" and "me me me me me" and "get get get get get get". That's what I meant.



I think that the amount of similarities you found between German and Japanese is about the same as you could find between a pair of any languages chosen completely by chance. The basic phonetical, syntactical, lexical and other properties of a language just exist in a finite number, and any two languages will always share some similarities.
I can give an example: what is a common feature of German and Mandarin?
Both German and Mandarin distinguish between stop pairs k/g, p/b and t/d by the presence or lack of aspiration, not by being voiced or unvoiced.


----------



## koniecswiata

You will find some similarities between all languages.  For example, all (or almost all) languages have the sound "m"--this is a similarity.  

Personally, I think it's great if you focus on the similarities--this can help you learn, and may motivate you.  If this logic works for you, good for you.


----------



## Ben Jamin

All people are cousins. The geneticists have found that all humans on earth share a common male and a common female ancestor. The languages we speak have also certainly developed from a simple language shared once by the small group of humans that were extant about 70 000 years ago. But the geographical distances and tens of thousands years have changed our languages thoroughly. You will find other languages much more similar to German among the Indoeuropean family than Japanese is. On the other hand the similarities you point out can be found in hundreds of other “unrelated” languages. (By unrelated I understand languages whose relation is impossible to trace). If we call two languages cousins, there must be a known common ancestor. They must share common vocabulary, or at least recognizable cognates (words coming from a common ancestor word).


----------



## LilianaB

Languages can sometimes share common vocabulary which is mostly made up of borrowings: Silesian and German, for example. Baltic and Slavic languages, as far as I am concerned. All of those languages belong to the Indo-European group, but that is about it in my opinion. I also think that human speech could have originated in several different places at the same time.


----------

