The origins of the Japanese people is not entirely clear yet. It
is common for Japanese people to think that Japan is not part of
Asia since it is an island, cut off from the continent. This tells
a lot about how they see themselves in relation to their
neighbours. But in spite of what the Japanese may think of
themselves, they do not have extraterrestrial origins, and are
indeed related to several peoples in Asia.
We shall have to go back a long way through history and analyse
in depth the culture and language of the archipelago and try to
find out whether the Japanese are indeed unique, and in what
way.
During the last Ice Age, which ended approximately 15,000 years
ago, Japan was connected to the continent through several land
bridges, notably one linking the Ryukyu Islands to Taiwan and
Kyushu, one linking Kyushu to the Korean peninsula, and another one
connecting Hokkaido to Sakhalin and the Siberian mainland. In fact,
the Philippines and Indonesia were also connected to the Asian
mainland. This allowed migrations from China and Austronesia
towards Japan, about 35,000 years ago. These were the ancestors of
the modern Ryukyuans (Okinawans), and the first inhabitants of all
Japan.
The Ainu came from Siberia and settled in Hokkaido and Honshu
some 15,000 years ago, just before the water levels started rising
again. Nowadays the Ryukuyans, the Ainus and the Japanese are
considered three ethnically separate groups. We will see why.
It is now believed that the modern Japanese descend mostly from
the interbreeding of the Jomon Era people (15,000-300 BCE),
composed of the above Ice Age settlers, and a later arrival from
China and/or Korea. Around 300 BCE, the Yayoi people crossed the
see from Korea to Kyushu, bringing with them a brand new culture,
based on wet rice cultivation and horses.
DNA tests have confirmed the likelihood of this hypothesis. The
Y-DNA (paternal line) of the modern Japanese is composed at 50% of
haplogroup O, of Sino-Korean origin. The rest is made of three
haplogroups C, D and N. The 15% of haplogroups C and N, or Siberian
origin, might have come through the Ainus, but more probably
through the Yayoi invaders.
The 35% of haplogroup D (or DE) is the most interesting for this
study. It is only found in very specific regions : the Andaman
Islands (between India and Myanmar), Indonesia (only a small
minority), Mongolia (also a small minority) and Tibet. It is
thought to have originated in East Africa some 50,000 years before
present. Those people would have migrated along the coasts of the
Indian Ocean, through Indonesia, and gone up to Japan, South-East
Siberia, then moved inland to Mongolia to end up in Tibet.
It likely that haplogroup D represents the settlers of
Austronesian and Ainu origin. The presence of this haplogroup in a
minority of Indonesian people confirms the link between the two
countries. As for the Ainu, we know from the last surviving tribes
of "pure" Ainu (most of whom live in Sakhalin rather than Japan)
that almost all of them belong to haplogroup D. It would mean that
the aboriginal people of Japan, the Ryukyuans and the Ainus, are
ultimately related.
The Indonesians, Malaysians and Philipinos originated from
Southern China. They migrated on boats via Taiwan and displaced the
original inhabitants that might have been related to Dravidians of
Southern India. We will see below that it is possible that some of
these early Austronesians may have been the ancestors of the Ice
Age settlers of Japan.
From a linguistic point of view, Bahasa Indonesia/Malaysia and
Japanese language share only a few similarities, but nonetheless
striking ones. Apart from the very similar pronunciation in both
languages, there is the same hierarchical differences in personal
pronouns. For example "you" is either anda or
kamu with the same meaning and usage as anata and
kimi in Japanese. Likewise, the Japanese verb
suki ("to like") translates suka in Bahasa. Such
similarities are probably more than mere coincidences, and may
reveal a common origin. Furthermore, in both languages the plural
can be formed by simply doubling the word. For instance, in
Japanese hito means "person", while hitobito
means "people". Likewise ware means "I" or "you", whereas
wareware means "we". Doubling of words in Japanese is so
common that there is a special character used only to mean the word
is doubled (々) in written Japanese. In Bahasa, this way of forming
the plural is almost systematical (person is orang, while
people is orang-orang). Expressions like
ittekimasu, itteirashai, tadaima and
okaeri, used to greet someone who leaves or enter a place,
and which have no equivalent in Indo-European languages, have exact
equivalents in Indonesian (selamat jalan, selamat
tinggal...).
Another evidence of the migration of haplogroup D from the
Indian Ocean to Japan is that Tamil language (from Tamil Nadu in
South India) also bears some uncanny similarities with Japanese
language. Naturally, these languages having evolved separately for
maybe 40,000 years, only a tiny fraction of the common roots have
subsisted, but enough to confirm that such a common origin might
indeed have existed, in a very distant past.
Japanese matsuri (festivals) resemble so much Balinese
ones that one could wonder if one was not copied from the other.
During cremations in Bali, the dead body is carried on a portable
shrine, very much in the way that the Japanese carry their
mikoshi. Balinese funerals are joyful and people swinging
the portable shrine in the streets and making loud noise to scare
the evil spirits. Basically, Balinese religion is a form of
Hinduism that has incorporated the aborigenal
animist religion. Japanese Shintoism is also a variety of animism,
and is practised side-by-side with Buddhism, a religion derived
from Hinduism (Buddha
himslef was born a
Hindu). There are lots of other cultural
similarities between ancient cultures of Indonesia and Japan. For
example, both Balinese temples and Japanese shrines, as well as
traditional Japanese and Balinese houses have a wall surrounding
them, originally meant tp prevent evil spririts from penetrating
the property. Despite the radical changes that Indonesian culture
underwent after the introduction of Islam and Christianity, and the
changes that Buddhism brought to Japan, it is still possible to
observe clear similarities between the supposed original
prehistoric cultures of the two archipelagoes.
Japanese and Korean languages are both classified by linguists
as Altaic languages, along with Mongolic, Tungusic and Turkic,
among others. Nevertheless, Japanese is so distant from Mongolic
and Turkic than the common points are hardly more evident than
those with Indonesian or even Tamil.
Korean language, however, is much closer to Japanese. The
grammar is very similar, and both have imported about half of their
vocabulary from Chinese, which makes these three languages almost
mutually understable in the written form, thanks to Chinese
characters (rarely used in Korea nowadays, except in place names).
Native Korean and Japanese words are often related when comparing
Old Korean and Old Japanese, but few of them are really obvious to
modern speakers.
Mindset and values in Japan and South Korea are deeply
intertwined, thanks to the strong influence of Confucianism, Taoism
and Buddhism in both countries. This is obvious from the corporate
culture (e.g. discipline, seniority system), the strict politeness
system, or the Taoist/Buddhist value of simplicity and
humility.
The Japanese colonisation of Korea (1895-1945) has left of a lot
of resentment on the Korean side and a sense of superiority mixed
with repressed shame and denial on the Japanese side. This is why
both Koreans and Japanese are often reluctant to admit their
similitudes. However, thanks to natural affinities in sensitivities
and tastes, South Korea and Japan appear to be culturally closer as
ever nowadays.
