Latest / POST-WHATEVER with Ken Nishikawa
Dual-Layered Languages: What English and Japanese Have in Common
This week on Post-Whatever, I do something I almost never allow myself: point out what English and Japanese have in common, rather than spending the usual twenty minutes explaining why they're linguistically about as compatible as oil and a kettle.
Turns out both languages are secretly the same trick played twice. English is a Formula One car with a German engine and a French chassis — Anglo-Saxon grammar underneath, nearly a millennium of French and Latin vocabulary bolted on top after the Normans turned up in 1066 and rearranged the furniture. Japanese runs the identical con: Yamato Kotoba…
The skinny
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