<story><title>Japanese words and names sound African (2022)</title><url>https://www.farooqkperogi.com/2022/10/japanese-words-and-names-sound-african.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>jameshart</author><text>Japanese does allow for word initial P in loan words, like Pokémon, so the sound isn’t impossible in Japanese. And pachinko is a Japanese word.</text></item><item><author>shiomiru</author><text>Nit: pokatokaino is unlikely to be Japanese, since word-initial p has morphed into h during the centuries. But it works if you turn it into, say, t.&lt;p&gt;Anyway, I think there&amp;#x27;s another factor: the common alphabet we transliterate these languages to is quite limited. I suspect the similarities become less obvious if you use something like the IPA, which has better universal correspondence between sounds and letters (i.e. doesn&amp;#x27;t reduce every sound to the same ~26 symbols).</text></item><item><author>retrac</author><text>Because the Bantu languages (most prominently: Swahili) and Japanese have similar sound systems.   Finnish is also oddly similar-sounding, or Hawaiian.  None of them are actually related.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s because the syllable is restricted in the number of possible forms, in a similar way.  (And they all have approximately five vowels.  And a pitch accent.)  In Hawaiian, nothing but consonant + vowel syllables are possible.  Swahili and Japanese allow an optional final n sound.  Finnish is a little more flexible, and syllables can end with an n, r, l or t.  No consonant clusters, in any of the languages.  No syllables ending with consonants outside the restricted set (if any), in any of the languages.&lt;p&gt;This results in a lot of syllables of the form: i, a, ne, na, ka, ta, po, to...  &amp;quot;Pokatokaino&amp;quot;.  I just made that up and it&amp;#x27;s probably not a Swahili, Finnish, Hawaiian, or Japanese word -- but it could be.&lt;p&gt;This basic pattern (consonant + vowel + maybe limited option for final consonant) is very common; it&amp;#x27;s the most common arrangement among the worlds languages.   Far more common than languages like English which allow monstrosities like &amp;quot;strengths&amp;quot; (which is 6 consonants and one vowel).</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>unscaled</author><text>There are also many native Japanese onomatopoeiae using an initial p sound. Interestingly enough, if we&amp;#x27;re at Pokémon, Pikachu&amp;#x27;s name is influenced by the onomatopoeia &amp;#x2F;pikapika&amp;#x2F; which means to shine, sparkle or flash. But if we look at the original pronounciation of the Japanese verb 光る&amp;#x2F;hikaru (&amp;quot;to shine&amp;quot;), it would have been pronounced &amp;#x2F;pikaru&amp;#x2F; in Old Japanese, so it looks like the onomatopoeia has re-established itself.&lt;p&gt;The same is probably true for the Japanese word for flag, 旗&amp;#x2F;hata - it would have been pronounced &amp;#x2F;pata&amp;#x2F; which is suspiciously reminiscent of the onomatopoeia &amp;#x2F;patapata&amp;#x2F;, often used for thin pieces of material flapping in the wind.</text></comment>
<story><title>Japanese words and names sound African (2022)</title><url>https://www.farooqkperogi.com/2022/10/japanese-words-and-names-sound-african.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>jameshart</author><text>Japanese does allow for word initial P in loan words, like Pokémon, so the sound isn’t impossible in Japanese. And pachinko is a Japanese word.</text></item><item><author>shiomiru</author><text>Nit: pokatokaino is unlikely to be Japanese, since word-initial p has morphed into h during the centuries. But it works if you turn it into, say, t.&lt;p&gt;Anyway, I think there&amp;#x27;s another factor: the common alphabet we transliterate these languages to is quite limited. I suspect the similarities become less obvious if you use something like the IPA, which has better universal correspondence between sounds and letters (i.e. doesn&amp;#x27;t reduce every sound to the same ~26 symbols).</text></item><item><author>retrac</author><text>Because the Bantu languages (most prominently: Swahili) and Japanese have similar sound systems.   Finnish is also oddly similar-sounding, or Hawaiian.  None of them are actually related.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s because the syllable is restricted in the number of possible forms, in a similar way.  (And they all have approximately five vowels.  And a pitch accent.)  In Hawaiian, nothing but consonant + vowel syllables are possible.  Swahili and Japanese allow an optional final n sound.  Finnish is a little more flexible, and syllables can end with an n, r, l or t.  No consonant clusters, in any of the languages.  No syllables ending with consonants outside the restricted set (if any), in any of the languages.&lt;p&gt;This results in a lot of syllables of the form: i, a, ne, na, ka, ta, po, to...  &amp;quot;Pokatokaino&amp;quot;.  I just made that up and it&amp;#x27;s probably not a Swahili, Finnish, Hawaiian, or Japanese word -- but it could be.&lt;p&gt;This basic pattern (consonant + vowel + maybe limited option for final consonant) is very common; it&amp;#x27;s the most common arrangement among the worlds languages.   Far more common than languages like English which allow monstrosities like &amp;quot;strengths&amp;quot; (which is 6 consonants and one vowel).</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>arghwhat</author><text>To be fair, Pokémon is abbreviated English, while pachinko is recent from pachin, the onomatopoeia of the loud sound made by the metal balls.&lt;p&gt;I believe the change into “h” sounds is more applied to words that were traditionally initiated in “p” but morphed over time, in turn also making words starting on “p” an oddity.</text></comment>