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Language is one of the highest forms of culture and is a distinguishing

factor that separates the animal world from the human one. Through language,

individuals can express themselves, convey emotions, relay messages, and

transfer information between one another. In this paper I am going to compare

the words for the days of the week in English and Japanese. After a comparison

is made, we’ll see that they are not so different but actually come from the same

source. The similarities are too striking to pass off as mere coincidences and

suggest that languages all stem from one and the same source. As [linguist]

Roger Brown put it after his temporary immersion in Japanese, the two

languages, Japanese and English, “are obviously species of a single genus, their

variation almost trifling by comparison with their enormous common denominator

as languages”. Before beginning we need to define some linguistic terms and

explain a few things about Japanese.

Linguistics is the study of language, and it is concerned with three primary

components. Inherent to all languages are: phonology, lexicon, and syntax.

Phonology is the study of the smallest blocks of sound from which words are

built. These building blocks of words and expressions are called phonemes.

Phonemes are a set of phonetically similar but slightly different sounds in a

language that are heard as the same sound by native speakers, and are

represented in phonemic transcription by the same symbol, as in English,

the phonetically differentiated sounds represented by p in pin, spin, and lip

(Webster’s). Anthropologists and linguists in every sub-field imaginable have tried

to pinpoint the origins of human speech and evolution of languages. There is the
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ta-ta theory, the ma-ma theory, the poo-poo theory, the motor skills of the brains

of monkeys with those of humans in an attempt to discover the origin of

languages. There are hundreds of hypothesis as to when and how languages

came about. None of these scholars however can say beyond the shadow of a

doubt that languages all stem from one common root but. But they often suggest

that there probably was a common linguistic root. (NHK Radio)

If someone just came right out and told the world – yes, long ago there

was only one language! Its called the Adamic language (after Adam the first man)

All languages can trace their roots back to this, its most purest form. Nobody

comes out and tells us this because not everyone believes in Adam. What we

have instead is a scientific term used by linguists called the Nostratic tongue.

When we compare the similarities and dissimilarities of languages we are

overwhelmed with the similarities. This suggests that there was such a thing as

the Nostratic tongue Even when the apparently different languages Japanese

and English, when compared show that there are too many similarities to think

that there wasn’t some such common root. The next few paragraphs will show

the similarities in the days of the week in Japanese and English then you decide

how different they are.

A closer look suggests that all languages come from one and the same root. If

we take a closer look at the way the information age is shaping the way we

communicate in regards to language, it wouldn’t be too far amiss to say that

although we might not be going back to the Adamic language, we might be

headed towards a time when we again use only one language. The days of the
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week as denoted by the worlds languages share a similarity that is too alike to

pass off as a mere coincidence. A comparison of words for the days of the week

in English and Japanese show that there was a tongue from which languages

sprang, it also showed how it digressed. The languages started changing as

more and more people populated the earth. Then at some point the differences

became so great that it gave rise to the birth of other languages (it actually

necessitated them.) small of an example of the similarities in languages that

several languages that the tongues of the world did indeed come from one

source.

日 This is the Kanji for the word, Sun. Words that use radicals1containing

this ji2 日 are related to or usually have something to do with things of the sun,

bright things, things that give off light or radiate in someway. They are in

someway related to words of light etc. These words also have the kanji hi in

them.

Japanese isn't that difficult to read, but it is our predisposition to believe

that it is so that makes it so difficult. In a sense we curse ourselves by cowering

at the thought of eating sushi or of possibly deciphering the writing of the

Chinese. If we don’t at least give it a try we will never know what we are missing.

If there were only a few mentors that would encourage others to at least try to

learn a language other than the standard French, Spanish and German could just

show others as I had learned on my own. The learning of another language

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Radicals are elements of a kanji they are the roots of other kanji with very precise meanings 亍 for
example denotes things concerning going 中 is a radical meaning in the middle of etc. Radicals can come above
other kanji, toe the left and right of a kanji, or it may enclose a kanji, each having differences that affect on the
kanji it is modifying or making a part of.
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wouldn't be such a daunting or formidable task.

Kanji Day of Week Planet

日 日曜日
The sun hi,pi,bi nichiyoubi-Sunday or Sun's day

月 月曜日
Moon getsu getsuyoubi-Monday or Moon's day

火 火曜日 火星
Fire ka, or hi kayoubi- Tuesday Tiu's day kasei-Mars

水 水曜日 水星
water mizu or sui suiyoubi-Wednesday-Wodins day suisei-Venus

木 木曜日 木星
tree, wood ki, moku mokuyoubi-Thursday-thors'day mokusei-
Jupiter

金 金曜日 金星
gold, money kin, kane kinyoubi-Friday-Firigg's day kinsei- Mercury

土 土曜日 土星
dirt, ground tsuchi,do doyoubi-Saturday-Saturn's day dosei-Saturn
The preceding are the days of the week. If you could see these kanji

written in charcoal sumi calligraphy writing you could tell much easier these kanji

look also like what they are representing. You can still tell, look at the one for

thursday moku looks like a tree, kayoubi the one for tuesday fire seems to be

dancing the moon and the sun are self esplanatory, friday is golds day, it is

shining under some roof. Suiyouibi or wednesday looks to me like a faucet or

something where water is cupped in a hand. Doyobi looks liek a place where

somebody gets buried, and even though it looks like a cross I am not sure about
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that because the Japanese are 93% buddhist so I wouldn't make an assumption

that somehow dirt, burial, etc are related to the term for do, but who knows.

There seems to be so much more meaning contained in an ideograph

than letters representing sounds that together represent meaning. Here is one

example of a kanji that looks fairly difficult. 星 This kanji is made in 9 strokes of

the pen and after learning that 日 means the sun, or signifies words related to the

sun then we could make a fairly good estimate at what this next kanji means. 星

has the sun kanji in it as well as the kanji for the word to give birth, or umu. 生 is

the kanji sei which depending on tense of the word means, life. In the future

tense, it contains one other syllable mu. If we put 生 and mu or む together you

have Umu or in Japanese 生む. This according to Sanseido's Daily Concise

Japanese- English Dictionary means 1. Umu means to bear a child, or to give

birth to a baby or to spawn. 2. To lay eggs or spawn. (49) Now before reading the

answer on pg. 8 take an educated guess at what you think the meaning might be.

Think or ponder for a second how these two kanji put together make a different

yet totally logical word out of two other words. Just like English prefixes and

suffixes in words like lithograph, mean literally stone write, or engraving. The

words birth of something and the word hi fused together make the word star.

Now next time you see a couple of kanji just take a guess, your chances of being

right are better than 50%.

Better than 50% chance is usually all that linguists worry about when

trying to find the similarities of language. If the speaker of one language can
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guess better than 50% the meaning of words of another language without prior

knowledge based soley on their phonemical content or sound symbolism

(onomatopoeia) then the linguists have support for their motor theory on the

origins of languages. This is the case in Japanese, as illustrated in the results of

experiments, tests and surveys initiated by Tsuru in 1933. The Japanese linguist

Tsuru devised an experiment wherein he compile,”…compiled a list of 36 pairs of

Japanese antonyms (‘hot-cold’’high-low’ etc) and presented these to 57 native

English speakers who had no knowledge of Japanese. The subjects were asked

to match the English pairs of antonyms with the Japanese (spoken and written in

Romanised form). A chance result would have been that they should guess

correctly in 50% of the cases; they guessed correctly significantly more often

than this; it seemed therefore that they must have been offered some clue to the

right answers by the form or sound of the Japanese words. These results

suggested that there must be some trans-linguistic sound symbolism – not simply

a conventional association of sound and meaning (Kalb 17).

There are 13 branches of the Indo European class of languages. These

are the Indo-European, the Urallic, the Aleut-Eskimo, Tungusic, Malayo-

Polynesian, Slavic, Altaic from whence Japanese, Korean, and Turkish come

from

Since it has never been proven that there was one all mighty mother

tongue, which by the way is called Nostratic tongue, it is fair to assume that there

was one. The languages of the world although apparently can seem so different,

and it is true that we are confounded by them, one culture are confounded by the
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words of another. The problem is, is that there is no proof because there is no

evidence of the writings or digital recordings of ancient peoples to tell us that

there really was only one language.

One thing we can say for fact is that compared to the present day the

Earth had less inhabitants than it does today. That is fairly obvious. Therefore on

that assumption, we can assume that there were fewer languages than there are

now. Can't we further say then that the further back we go there were still less

and less people? Therefore as x (the number of people on the earth at any

certain time) approaches 2, y (the number of languages spoken on the earth) =1

or Σx2 Y=1. By definition, communication cannot take place without at least two

persons. There isn't much need for language if there is nobody to talk to. From

two people perhaps came 16 others, or borrowing Bible terms, and Adam begat

Seth and Seth begat Japheth… When the children of man started to populate the

earth and stated filling the Earth, the amount of distance as many other factors

contributed to the barriers of language that were formed and to the confounding

of language. The tower of Babel story (or truth however you see it) tells us in

Genesis 11:1, “And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech”.

This means that even amongst the closest of relatives, God confounded (Hebrew

balel – to mix) their language so that not even one’s own brother or sister could

be understand. Lets say hypothetically that there were 20,000 people there at the

tower of Babel, then this would means that in an instant, there were 20,000 new

languages on the Earth.

The languages in use today come down through the ages, going through
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countless transformations and alterations. “Just as there are no pure races, so

also […] are there no unmixed languages. We know that Japanese, like every

other language for which we have any firsthand evidence, has borrowed from

many different languages in the course of its long history and development.

(Miller 166) Languages borrow words from other languages and are influenced

by their many interactions. Linguist, Roy Miller, in his book, Origins of the

Japanese Language, tells us that “at some time, a very long time ago, the

remote ancestors of the speakers of Turkish together with the remote ancestors

of the speakers of Mongolian, Korean, Japanese and Tungusic functioned

together in a common linguistically society or community” (Miller 51). The same

seems to hold true for speakers of other languages as well. After one notices

how languages are so similar in so many respects although at first appearing to

be so remotely different convinces me that all languages have caome from the

same source, be it called what you may (Adamic or Nostratic).

Here is a sample of some of the words that English has borrowed from

other languages. Borrowed words are commonplace to all languages; here is a

list of some of the words that English has borrowed.

Time would be better spent if those anthropologists joined the linguists

and came right out and told the world – yes there use to be only one language let

us call it the Adamic language after Adam the first man from which all languages

stem. A closer look suggests that all languages come from one and the same

root.
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If we take a closer look at the way the information age is shaping the way

we communicate in regards to language, it wouldn’t be too far amiss to say that

although we might not be going back to the, Adamic language, (and seeing how

languages are slowly becoming extinct), we might be headed towards a time

when the world may start using only one language. (Internet 39)

Linguists tell us that the Aboriginal dialects of Australia as well as the

native American languages and the languages of other primitive speakers are

dying, that 90% of them have already passed away by the year 2000. (Escholz

14). But I ask are we really losing a language or just gaining one. If we look at

some at some of the current affairs regarding language and of making the official

language of the US English, then we also can see English as the language of the

future (Escholz 15). English or some hybrid form will become the official

language of the world, and there will be no more issues of race, no more

misunderstandings, and no more language barriers to keep the citizens of the

world from communicating with each other and making progress. We won’t have

lost any languages as many linguists suggest but will be gaining one

This is a table of vocabulary that would be in use by about age 6-7. It

shows us the basic words we ever really need, to actually survive. These basic

words haven’t digressed from the mother tongue as much as the more

sophisticated words and by using a quote from my next source in collaboration

with this one I can show how similar the words one – finger and two –pal are

almost universal to every language.(Ruhlen 3) This goes into how the

anthropologists view the many origins of languages and goes into things like the
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mama theory or the tata and poopoo theory for explaining the origins of

languages.

To start with, after taking a look at what the ‘experts’ have gathered

together for us under the title of the primitive vocabulary. You may take a few

minutes to ponder these words. Are there any words in this list that strike out at

you saying, you knew me when you were about 4 years old, when we are still

trying to find the words to describe the things we need. The motor theory says

that through our neurons and alpha and beta waves that languages developed

primarily due to a verbal equivalent of what was a gestural concept (Boeree 1)

The days of the week as denoted by the worlds languages share a

similarity that is too alike to pass off as a mere coincidence. I hope to show you

by comparing the days of the week in English against those of Japanese that the

tongues of the world did indeed come from one source. Hopefully this may spark

some interest in the study of Languages.

Now as far as the future of languages is concerned. It seems eminent that

all the diverse languages and tongues of the world will eventually assimilate just

like people do. When we write it will probably be the same type font. There will be

a way t, a common middle ground that all the languages will gravitate towards.

Now Sanskrit, the kanji of the Chinese, the Hieroglyphs, all these systems of

writing may eventually be conjoined and made into one language. Everyone has

an Internet address, and the common point about our address is the @ symbol.

And usually roman characters for the name, The Internet will allow people to

communicate quickly and easily all over the world. (Barry 547)
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“The Internet” by Dave Barry gives examples of how the information age

is upon us. There are virtual translators that help people translate 9,000 different

languages. out that barriers in languages were formed and from those barriers

came language, each distinct and separate having words of its own. Which came

first, the chicken or the egg? Did language barriers cause the various worlds

spoken word to arise or is it the case that the languages caused the barriers or

did communication breakdown? The following table shows the names of the

week in Japanese against those of English with an occasional other language for

super clarity.

It points out that since linguist agree that Japanese is an isolated

language set way apart from any of the other Altaic languages yet many of the

words like hone for the word bone cause us to suspect that the language we

speak today comes down to us after much history and geographical crossings. It

also however, shows us that it seems to have a common root. Above the Indo-

Eurasiatic mother tongue to its mother’s mother, ‘the real mother tongue’.

In the future it seems that the languages of the world are

converging. It was estimated that 90% of the worlds languages would be extinct

by the year 2000. Many native American languages have simply died out. 20

Alaskan languages are now very much lost. Almost all of the 250 Aboriginal

dialects of Australia are dying. (Escholz 91) Whether welcomed or feared just as

it originated, language is heading toward that same source from which it came to

be a one world tongue.

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WORKS CITED

Allot, Robin. “Table of the primitive vocabulary”. Electronic Publication on L.O.S.

Website by http://www.percepp.demon.co.uk/japanese.htm, 5/2/2004

pg.26

Ayto, John. Dictionary of Word Origins New York: Arcade Publishing, 1991.

Escholz, Paul, Alfred Rosa, Virginia Clark, Language Awareness Essays for

College Writer’s seventh edition. New York: St. Martins Press, 1997.

Grossman, Ruth and Frank J Cappeluti, et.al. The Human Adventure A Survey

of Past Civilizations. New York: The McMilllan Company, 1970.

The Scientific Research Society The gestural Origins Of Languages, The

American Scientist Online-Volume 87 Number 2 Page 138

10.1511/1999.2.138March- April1999.

http://www.americandcientist.org/template/assetdetail/assetid/15639?fullte

xt=true copyright Sigma XI. 5/2/2004

Kalb. Japanese and the Motor Theory of Language Electronic Publication on Los

website papers From Dr. Kalb Illinois: 1991

http://www.percepp.demon.co.uk/japanese.htm

Miller, Roy. Origins of the Japanese Language. Seattle: University of Washington

Press, 1980.
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Ruhlen, Merritt. “Where do languages come from”,4/29/2004. Exploratorium

Magazine http://www.exploratorium.edu/exploring/language/language

article3.html

Shrodes, Caroline, Finestone Harry, Micheal Shugrue. Ed “The Internet” The

Conscious Reader Eighth Edition. Massachusetts: Allyn & Bacon, 2001.

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