This video presents two opposing hypotheses on the origin and dispersal of the Japonic languages. Links to all academic sources are in the description.
According to Martine Robbeets, et al. (2020, 21), the Japanic languages originated in the Liaodong Peninsula of Northeast China.
Robbeets (2020, 21) classifies Japanic as a branch of the Japano-Koreanic languages, itself part of the Transeurasian language family.
Japanic and Koreanic split in about 3500 BCE, and the Koreanic speakers migrated to southern Korea, bringing with them millet agriculture.
Archaeologist Kim Jangsuk (2020) has criticized this assessment, arguing that the pre-existing Jeulmun pottery culture of southern Korea, which began...
...in 8500 BCE, did not undergo significant changes with the arrival of millet in 3500 BCE. Therefore, there may have been no major migration at this time.
In contrast, Alexander Vovin (2014, 21) has identified southern China as the homeland of the Japonic languages, rejecting a common origin with Korean.
Vovin (2014, 21) bases this claim on loanwords from Proto-Kra-Dai that found in Japonic. Kra-Dai is a language family native to southern China.
Vovin (2021) has also identified loanwords from Austroasiatic, yet another southern language family. However, he rejects a genetic relationship.
There is cultural evidence for this hypothesis as well. Vovin (2014) points out that the Japanese worship the Sun rather than the sky like many...
...of their fellow East Asians, including the Chinese, Koreans, Mongols, and ancient Turks. This possibly implies that the Japanese originated from afar.
Both Robbeets (2020, 21) and John Whitman (2011) agree that the spread of the Japonic languages brought wet rice agriculture along with it.
Robbeets (2020, 21), Whitman (2011), and Vovin (2014) all contend that the Japonic languages eventually reached the Shandong Peninsula...
...of eastern China, regardless of the language family’s ultimate origin. They also agree that wet rice farming entered Korea from Shandong.
The Japonic languages, along with wet rice farming, entered Korea starting in 1500 BCE (Robbeets 2021, 21; Whitman 2011).
Elisabeth de Boer, et al. (2020) has identified this migration with the emergence of the Mumun pottery culture, which succeeded the Jeulmun tradition.
Kim (2020) points to the Songgukni culture, a subdivision of the Mumun culture in southwestern Korea, as the origin of the Yayoi people, who...
...began to migrate to the Japanese Archipelago starting in the early 1st millennium BCE. The Yayoi mixed with the local Jōmon people to give rise...
...to the Yamato, or Japanese, people. At this point, hypotheses about those Japonic speakers who remained in Korea diverge greatly.
Robbeets (2020) has labeled the continental branch of Japanic as the Puyŏ languages, after the ancient northern kingdom of Buyeo.
Robbeets (2020, 21) argues that the Koreanic speakers from Jeulmun times remained in southern China during and after the Mumun period, going on...
....to establish southern kingdoms like Silla, Gaya, and Baekje. The Puyŏ Japanic speakers founded the northern kingdoms like Buyeo, Goguryeo, and...
...Okjeo. The ruling class of Baekje, who were northern migrants, also spoke a branch of Puyŏ Japanic.
Whitman (2011) has an opposing view. He argues that Koreanic speakers settled in southern Korea much later than 3500 BCE.
Rather than millet, Whitman (2011) identifies the spread of Koreanic with that of bronze daggers. Under his model, proto-Koreanic originated...
...in Northeast China, colonizing southern Korea starting in 300 BCE. Kim (2020) counters that this wave of migration was likely smaller than Whitman claims.
According to Vovin (2013), the northern kingdoms were established by Koreanic speakers, and the southern kingdoms started out...
...speaking Japonic but were fully Koreanized before the 8th century (Vovin 2017). Though the Korean chronicle Samguk Sagi contains...
...Goguryeo placenames that appear Japonic, Vovin (2013, 14, 17) has labeled them as evidence of a language spoken before, not by, Goguryeo.
Many modern placenames, like Berlin (Slavic) and Mississippi (Ojibwe), preserve previously-spoken languages. Vovin (2014, 17) thus classifies...
...these placenames as vocabulary of Pseudo (false)-Koguryŏ. He has called its branch of Japonic “Peninsular” (Vovin 2017) or “Continental” (2014).
The insular branch of Japonic contains the Japanese and Ryukyuan subbranches. Old Japanese had emerged by the Nara period (710 - 794).
While Robbeets (2020) maintains that Japanese and Ryukyuan split before the development of Old Japanese dialects, Boer (2020) contends that...
....Ryukyuan, though independent languages now, actually split from Kyūshū Old Japanese. She also argues that the Emishi, a non-Yamato people...
...of ancient and medieval northern Japan, had a significant Japonic-speaking component (Boer 2020).
Western/Central Old Japanese evolved into Middle Japanese during the Heian period (794 - 1185). Eastern Old Japanese became the...
...Hachijō language, spoken in the Izu Islands south of Tokyo. The Hachijō dialects are now critically endangered due to pressure from Modern Japanese.
The creator of this video has set the extinction date of the Tamna language of Jeju Island as the 15th century, as that is when the island became...
...fully politically integrated with the rest of Korea. However, there are no academic sources to support this, and it is purely the creator’s conjecture.
In 1603, Japan’s de facto capital was moved from Kyoto in the west to Tokyo in the east. This led to the development of Early Modern Japanese.
Japan subjugated the Ryukyu Kingdom in 1609, leading to changes in the Okinawan language, spoken in the Ryukyuan capital, as well.
Modern Japanese formed by the mid-19th cetury. Since then, government policy favoring Modern Japanese has threatened the other Japonic branches.