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Why do all the little countries like Thailand, Japan, Korea, Mongolia, Burma, Phillipines have languages belonging to a different language group other than the Sino-Tibetan?
Apparently China has had a huge cultural impact on all its neighbors, yet, the languages which is the important tool for exchange is completely oblivious to each other, and can not be further apart.
And the even funnier thing is the chinese have settled extensively in some of these countries for more than a thousand years particularly the southeast asian kingdoms.
Why do all the little countries like Thailand, Japan, Korea, Mongolia, Burma, Phillipines have languages belonging to a different language group other than the Sino-Tibetan?
Apparently China has had a huge cultural impact on all its neighbors, yet, the languages which is the important tool for exchange is completely oblivious to each other, and can not be further apart.
And the even funnier thing is the chinese have settled extensively in some of these countries for more than a thousand years particularly the southeast asian kingdoms.
The provinces next to those countries didn't use Chinese either.
Yunnan and Guangxi, for example, were dominated by non-Han people till Ming dynasty. Not to mention xinjiang, Tibet, inner Mongolia and Manchuria.
It's literally the same thing in Africa and amongst the indigenous in the Americas. The Indo-European languages, IMO, are an exception to the rule, not the norm. Well, in Europe it also happens on a smaller scale. All the countries in Europe speak an Indo-European language except for Spain, Finland, Estonia, and Hungary (might be missing one or two more). Spain has Basque which is as much of an enigma for linguists like Korean, and Finland, Estonia, and Hungary speak Uralic languages (not related to Indo-European). So, the situation happens more often than you think, and is not limited to China's neighbors
It's literally the same thing in Africa and amongst the indigenous in the Americas. The Indo-European languages, IMO, are an exception to the rule, not the norm. Well, in Europe it also happens on a smaller scale. All the countries in Europe speak an Indo-European language except for Spain, Finland, Estonia, and Hungary (might be missing one or two more). Spain has Basque which is as much of an enigma for linguists like Korean, and Finland, Estonia, and Hungary speak Uralic languages (not related to Indo-European). So, the situation happens more often than you think, and is not limited to China's neighbors
Europe minus Russia is about as big as China. If you consider all the Chinese dialects, Tibetan dialects, other Sino-Tibetan languages as totally different languages, it would be similar to Europe.
Proto Sino-Tibetan tribes were found in northwest China. Their expansion was quite fast actually.
Europe minus Russia is about as big as China. If you consider all the Chinese dialects, Tibetan dialects, other Sino-Tibetan languages as totally different languages, it would be similar to Europe.
Proto Sino-Tibetan tribes were found in northwest China. Their expansion was quite fast actually.
That's a good point, actually. About Sino-Tibetan. But, if I'm understanding the OP correctly, I think he wants to know how you have Sino-Tibetan, Koreanic, and Japonic all together like that. The three language families don't really share any similar grammatical features (Chinese loanwords don't really count, as Japanese and Korean have native equivalents of Chinese loanwords anyways), the differences are far greater than any similarities (think Swedish and Finnish, totally different language families). I think the biggest similarity between the 3 groups are the SOV word order?
That's a good point, actually. About Sino-Tibetan. But, if I'm understanding the OP correctly, I think he wants to know how you have Sino-Tibetan, Koreanic, and Japonic all together like that. The three language families don't really share any similar grammatical features (Chinese loanwords don't really count, as Japanese and Korean have native equivalents of Chinese loanwords anyways), the differences are far greater than any similarities (think Swedish and Finnish, totally different language families). I think the biggest similarity between the 3 groups are the SOV word order?
Then I don't see the point. Indo-European langauges are also surrounded by Uralic, Semitic, Altaic ... languages too, and they are very different from Indo-European languages. Turkish is not related to Greek, Finnish is not related to Swedish, Hindi is not related to Tibetan, Farsi is not related to Arabic, and so on. So it is the same as Sino-Tibetan languages being surrounded by unrelated languages.
Then I don't see the point. Indo-European langauges are also surrounded by Uralic, Semitic, Altaic ... languages too, and they are very different from Indo-European languages. Turkish is not related to Greek, Finnish is not related to Swedish, Hindi is not related to Tibetan, Farsi is not related to Arabic, and so on. So it is the same as Sino-Tibetan languages being surrounded by unrelated languages.
What I'm thinking is the OP previously thought they were are related, but recently found out the 4 major language families of East Asia are actually pretty far apart from each other. Then we both say, that's not unique to the China region, it happens everywhere in the world. Here in North America, in the distant past before Europeans arrived, the indigenous tribes spoke languages completely unrelated to each other across the different tribal nations. In my state, there were two language families: Iroquoian and Algic. Completely unrelated to each other, but bordered each other. Anyway, going back to Asia, what's your opinion on an Altaic language family that includes Mongolian, Korean, and Japanese?
What I'm thinking is the OP previously thought they were are related, but recently found out the 4 major language families of East Asia are actually pretty far apart from each other. Then we both say, that's not unique to the China region, it happens everywhere in the world. Here in North America, in the distant past before Europeans arrived, the indigenous tribes spoke languages completely unrelated to each other across the different tribal nations. In my state, there were two language families: Iroquoian and Algic. Completely unrelated to each other, but bordered each other. Anyway, going back to Asia, what's your opinion on an Altaic language family that includes Mongolian, Korean, and Japanese?
In recent years, a lot of people try to correlate Y-DNA lineage with language. It makes some sense, since males tend to be carriers of culture, although we need to be very cautious too.
Japanese and Koreans have many different layers, probably ranging from Proto-Austronesian to Altaic. Both were influenced by Chinese too.
The Indo Europeans languages really are flukes, they are the real outliers here, it is natural for diversity to exist, actual diversity.
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