Discussion Post #10

[Tianhui Qiu]

If I have received a research grant to conduct a linguistic study of Turkish and its culture, I want to study the similarity of Turkish and Japanese, because even after learning Turkish for nearly 3 months, I still think that Turkish sounds like Japanese a lot. And I ask my friends who studies Japanese and they thought so. I heard there were a lot of arguments about the reasons, but it seems that the expansion of the Turkish nationality (nomadic horsemen) from Central Asia to East Asia is a strong one. The Altai mountains ranges from the present western Siberia to Mongolia. The Turkish ethnic group has been integrated into this region since ancient times. I believe I would start the research by learning the origins of these two languages and the history of the relationship between Turkey and Japan. After finding the possible historical reasons of why they are similar, I would analyze and compare the phonetic and maybe grammar similarities between these two languages. For example, the grammatical order of Turkish and Japanese is subject + object + verb. In the cases of English and Chinese, it is subject + Verb + object, there is no need to replace the language order when translating Japanese into Turkish. Also, Turkish and Japanese are languages with frequent vowels. The syllables of Japanese are basically "consonant + vowel", and Turkish is similar (there are many cases of consonant + vowel + consonant). Therefore, compared with English, vowels should be heard more clearly. In other words, it can be said that Turkish pronunciation is easy to mark with Katakana, and Katakana pronunciation is easy to understand.

[Haley Zhao]

Interesting post and finding! I never thought that there could be similarities exist between Japanese and Turkish, which seemed to be two completely different languages. But grammar and phonetics will be great to compare in this case. It's also interesting to see if these similarities had something to do with the origins of the Turkish and Japanese people like you mentioned!

[Yahui Wu]

 It is interesting to see how your plan is similar to mine! I also want to go to Turkey if I have enough money and time. I think the most effective way to learn a new language is to immerse myself in the local culture and society. Therefore, I could keep practicing what I know and have more opportunities to learn new expressions. I also think the Turkish is similar to the Japanese in terms of pronunciation and grammar.