Jomon language 2014/10/19
Japanese is one of the oldest language which does not belong to any active language group in the world.
It is presumed people started to live in Japanese archipelago at latest 200thousands to 300thousands years ago. It is also presumed plural races reached to the Archipelago, from various areas such as southern islands in south Asia, Siberia and China coast, through plural ice bridges during glacial era.
Many linguists have been trying hard to find a similar language to Japanese in such area but in vain.
It is one possibility that different races reached Japanese archipelago with different languages and cultures and they developed Japanese language when they lived together for more than 10000years in the archipelago which was isolated from the Eurasia continent after the last glacial age (around 12000years ago).
Old Japanese people were considered to develop well advanced culture especially in such fields as ancient pottery, bow and arrow, dugout canoe and so on. We can learn from many ruins that they developed not only advanced buildings and villages, but also unique high quality culture to be harmonized with natural surroundings. This era which lasted for around 10000years from 13000 to 3000 years ago is called as Jomon era. It obviously had one of the most advanced culture in the world at that time, however it did not have written letters.
It is extremely difficult to imagine what kind of languages were spoken at Jomon era, however recent study indicated Jomon language which is the origin of modern Japanese language is close to the language for Ainu people who are the old minority in Japan. There are many Japanese words whose origin can be projected from Ainu words.
Latest study with high modern technology is revealing mysterious veils on Jomon culture, one of the oldest human cultures, piece by piece.
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