this post was submitted on 20 Jan 2025
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I keep hearing from #Mongols #Turks and now #Uyghurs living in #Japan that #Japanese is relatively easy for them to learn, as the grammar and structure is similar to their languages. That can't be a (social.coop)
submitted 2 days ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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I keep hearing from #Mongols #Turks and now #Uyghurs living in #Japan that #Japanese is relatively easy for them to learn, as the grammar and structure is similar to their languages. That can't be a coincidence, seems like there is a likely common linguistic heritage, no?

Yet, linguists claim they are unrelated languages. Why the contradiction? Is it #Japanese nationalism? Or #western academic elitism?

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 days ago

@[email protected]

I feel like what you're doing here is trying to answer a high-complexity question with a low complexity observation. A bit similar to "this winter is very cold, global warming is supposed to make things warmer. Why the contradiction?"

Whether certain linguists have some sort of bias, which they very well may have, or not, the way they look at languages definitely is a lot more complex and detailed than a general "the grammar and structure are similar" just like climate scientists...