Similarities and differences between Chinese and Japanese

In this article, we will discuss the similarities between the Japanese and the Chinese language.  People often look at the world map and observe that China and Japan share borders with each other hence are similar to each other in culture and language. However, this is far from reality. 

Chinese and Japanese Are Not Similar

If you look at a sample of how a Japanese or Chinese language is written, it's very difficult to differentiate between them. And people often conclude that the Chinese and the Japanese language are somewhat similar.  But if you ask a professional linguist, or a professional language service provider, is the Chinese and Japanese language similar?

Well, to be precise, the answer is absolutely no.

Japanese Has Been Influenced By Chinese

The Chinese language and the Japanese language are fundamentally separate languages. However, historians proclaim that the Japanese language has been affected and influenced by the Chinese vis-a-vis words, vocabulary, writing systems, and grammatical structure.

One important thing that needs to be mentioned here is that there is no standard origin between the Chinese language and the Japanese language. Their language families are completely different.

Origin

Chinese language is of the Sino-Tibetian language family whereas the Japanese language originates from the Japanonkian language family. 

Phonology

The phonology of Japanese and Chinese is completely separate. The fundamental differentiation between them is that Chinese is more of a tonal language whereas Japanese is not.

Tonal Language

If you are not aware of all the tonal languages, then it is imperative to know what it is in order to differentiate these languages. Tonal language is basically the concept that the pitches and tones in a language will actually determine the concept and meanings of the words that are used in that particular language.

For instance, if the tone is inappropriate or not accurately utilized in a particular language, it will change the entire meaning of the sentence that we're speaking. Hence, the meaning of the word will obviously change as well.

In the above mentioned example, you can see how the tone completely changes the meaning of the word. And on a lighter note, a lot of the Chinese teachers are often called naive by error.

Pitch Accent

On the contrary, if we talk about the Japanese languages, there are no set tones that will decide what the meaning of the word would be. However, there is something in the Japanese language that is called the pitch accent. They indicate that a particular syllable would probably have a low or a high pitch. 

However, they will not indicate the meaning of the word. They are similar to how certain words are stressed in the English language.

Structure 

If we compare the structure of the Japanese and the Chinese language, it is fundamentally different.  Rudimentary, Chinese is an S V O language, whereas Japanese is an S O V language.   

Chinese Is An Analytical Language

Another important thing that needs to be mentioned over here is that Chinese is an analytical language. And the meaning behind an analytical language is that you have to establish a sentence by substituting independent tenets and elements simultaneously.

Inflection In The Chinese Language 

Moreover, in Chinese language, inflection is not used. If you are unaware of what inflection is then you would be surprised to know that it is actually the modification of words that decides the grammatical meaning of a particular sentence. For instance, the gender, tenses, cases in plural, etc.

In simpler words, one does not have to alter any segment of a particular word for the meaning to be changed. All you need to do is append another word to the original word in order to change the meaning.

Japanese Is An Agglutinative Language

If we talk about the Japanese language it is an agglutinative language. This basically indicates that it utilizes an abundance of inflectional suffixes. So, the words are not simultaneously placed side by side but extra pieces to the words are attached in order to alter or change the meaning of the words

As a consequence of that, the Japanese words are longer than the Chinese words. And if you are trying to translate the Japanese words into the Chinese words, one word of the Japanese language might take around two to three words in the Chinese language. 

Taking Assistance From Chinese Translation Services

Hence, it's quite a daunting and difficult task. Therefore, people often take the assistance of professional Japanese translation services or professional Chinese translation services as they have an abundance of professional translators who only have translation experience but possess expertise in the little intricacies. of both languages.

Chinese And Japanese Are Completely Different Languages

So, we can conclude that when it comes to the grammatical structure of the Chinese language and the Japanese language, they are completely different.  To an untrained eye or to an uninformed person who is not aware, he might see Chinese and Japanese languages as similar to each other. 

But if you are talking to a professional linguist and if you are taking into account different intricacies and nuances of the language you will find that there is nothing similar between the Chinese and Japanese languages. They are completely different. And this is not the case with just the Japanese or the Chinese Language. Malay also has a lot of nuances that need to be taken into account. So, if you are planning to penetrate the Malay market, taking assistance from Malay translation services would be a good thing. 

Vocabulary and Chinese characters

However, it's important to discuss any similarities between both languages. And the only thing in which you will find similarities in both languages is the vocabulary part and also in the use of the Chinese characters. In order to study this complicated matter, taking help from Japanese translation services would be effective. 

Japanese Did Not Have An Original Written Form

Historically speaking, the Japanese did not have an original written form. Between the fifth and the ninth centuries, we saw that a lot of the Chinese characters were being adopted and borrowed by the Japanese language. Moreover, other disciplines and domains such as science and religion were also influenced by the Chinese language in Japanese culture.

Integration

Once the borrowing of the Chinese vocabulary began to take place, the writing systems of both the Japanese and the Chinese language amalgamated and gradually integrated to become the Japanese language that you are seeing now.

So, it is not just about borrowing the Chinese language, rather the entire Chinese characters are being represented in the Japanese language. It would be interesting for you to know the fact that around 60% of the entire Japanese vocabulary originates from Chinese characters and vocabulary.

Chinese Dictionary Contains A Lot of Japanese Words

 If you have a Chinese dictionary, you would find a lot of Japanese words. And a lot of these words are also from the specialized or academic domains as well. However, this was only the written aspect when it comes to finding similarities between Chinese and Japanese. If you are talking about the spoken aspect of Japanese in Chinese, then, experts claim that only 18 to 20% of the spoken vocabulary is borrowed words.

Nouns 

Grammatically speaking, the words borrowed from the Chinese language into the Japanese language, were basically nouns. And these nouns are sometimes used as adjectives in the Japanese language.

And with the passage of time, we saw that the adopted Chinese words were altered and adapted to fit the Japanese phonological system as far as pronunciation is concerned. Hence, we saw that the Japanese words that were borrowed from the Chinese language had no tone in them, hence the meaning completely changed.

Conclusion

In this article, we discussed some of the major similarities and differences between the Chinese and Japanese languages. 

These languages may appear similar to many, but they are very different if you look closely. If you want to learn more about Malay, take assistance from professional Malay translation services. They will translate any document into the language of your choice. Moreover, you will also get the chance to understand how Chinese culture is different from Japanese.