Hi, this channel uploads translations of various Japanese games and media. I also like to delve into, and explain the linguistic history of some of the features of the Japanese language.
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There's a bit of a walk-through of the past tense endings showing every occurrence in the old literature in "A Descriptive and Comparative Grammar of Western Old Japanese - Vovin (2020)." It starts at page 636 and getting to the nu/zu form at page 645. It's complicated to say when '-nu' became it's own thing because the 'n' was a very common nasalization in Old Japanese that is explicitly written in Vovin's book, but not usually in other texts similar to the way that 'ga' is often pronounced 'nga' but never written that way. (The schwa 'e' is actually an 'o' in Vovin's books as he differentiates between ko and otsu forms of the old vowels.) There's a small blurb on page 202 of "The Evolution of the Japanese Past and Perfective Suffixes - Sandness (1999)" positing a theory (that I had never heard before) of 'nai' deriving from an emphatic from the Yonaguni region.
Thanks for making a new video with more theories! With regard to why ぬ and ず coexisted, I think you need to understand the six base model of Japanese conjugation: 未然形・連用形・終止形・連体形・已然形・命令形. Every verb has these six forms (some auxiliaries lack a few). They are all used to connect to different particles and serve different roles in the sentence, hence they coexist. You couldn't(*see below) use ぬ at the end of the sentence like you could ず, and you couldn't modify a noun with ず like you could with ぬ. During the middle ages, the 連体形 replaced the 終止形 in all verbs and adjectives. This was probably related to the 連体形 being used at the end of the sentence in limited situations (this includes ぬ): as the 結び of the mid-sentence emphatic particle ぞ (which got ousted in favor of が) and なむ (which disappeared), the mid-sentence question particles や and か (which got ousted in favor of は/が), and for questions in general. Look up 係り結び for more information on this. And yes that's right, the question particles often frequently came in the middle of the sentence (they could still come at the end with slight difference in emphasis or nuance). So, this is why ぬ replaced ず. This is why we say 食べる (< 食ぶる) and not 食ぶ today. This is why we more often say する than す. This is why we say くる and not く. This is why we say ありうる and not ありう. This is why we say 良い (<良き) and not 良し as the adjective for "good" at the end of a sentence. This is why we say べき and not べし. Regarding the なふ theory, if you look at the chart, its 連体形 was なへ. Since the shift was universal, it is likely that the なへ form would have replaced the なふ form. This would have then shifted in sound from なへ (nape > nafe > nae) to ない (nai). This intervocalic lenition of /p/ occurred almost universally in Japanese. The other piece of the puzzle is that ない is not observed to conjugate as an adjective when it first appeared, and wouldn't complete its transformation until late Edo. This is explained in the ない entry of 日本国語大辞典, which you can check on Kotobank (do check it out, there is a lot of useful information): 「今日のような活用をするようになったのは、後期江戸語以来と考えられている。それは形容詞の活用に類推したものである。ただし、その初めは、「なかった」よりも「なんだ」、「なければ」よりも「ないければ」の言い方のほうが普通である。」 This says that it didn't conjugate like an i-adjective at first. Hence it would make sense that it could be the direct descendent of the なへ form of なふ. Note how peculiar it is that the なへ form does not end in -u like most verb attributive forms. It would not have easily conformed to any part of speech.
Thank you very much for your kind words. Apologies, but I am a little lost with some of your explanations. Probably because you understand the subject matter far better than I do. For this section: 'This is why we say eat (< eat) and not eat today. This is why we more often say than す. This is why we say くる and not く. This is why we say it is possible and not there. This is why we say good (<good) and not good as the adjective for "good". This is why we say should and not should.' ^ Are you saying because the Rentaikei and Shushikei form became interchangeable in the Middle Japanese, that is why verbs like 食ぶ became 食ぶる? I am struggling with this explanation. Would you mind dumbing it down for me a little bit? Thank you for the information as well on なふ! I don't fully understand the full implications, but it is very interesting.
@@tonythesopranos5310 So in Old Japanese, you would say this: 人 家より出づ (The/a person emerges from the house.) 家より出づる人あり (There is a person who emerges from the house) Notice how at the end of the sentence, it takes the form 出づ and when modifying a noun it takes the form 出づる. This is what it means for the 終止形 to be 出づ (idzu) and the 連体形 to be 出づる (idzuru). When a 係り結び particle is in the sentence, the verb at the end of the sentence has to agree with it. The ぞ particle agrees with the 連体形 (or we say the 連体形 is the 結び of ぞ): 家より人ぞ出づる (A person emerges from the house. (emphatic)) Eventually, Japanese would evolve as follows: 家より人が出づる (idzuru) 家から人が出でる (ideru) 家から人が出る (deru) The 終止形 form 出づ is no longer used. The subject が particle becomes prevalent. 出づる shifts conjugation class to 出でる. 出でる loses its initial i- sound and becomes modern 出る. This is just one example to illustrate it. Hopefully some things are more clear. The examples are contrived, so just take them as demonstrations of the grammar.
@@nickpatella1525 Oh wow that is so interesting. I get it now. 食ぶ was the 終止形 and 食ぶる was the 連体形. Do you know why the ぶ became a べ sound? As in 食べる？ Or is that just a random sound change? I still don't fully understand 係り結び but I will go away and do some reading on them. Thank you!
@@tonythesopranos5310 So I think the easiest way to understand it is that verbs have conjugation classes, and one form of shift a verb can undergo is to all-together change its conjugation class. 食ぶ/食ぶる is a "nidan" verb, but 食べる is an "ichidan" verb, so the verb switched its conjugation paradigm from "nidan" to "ichidan". This isn't a phonetic shift but a category shift. The reason the -e vowel appeared is because like how ichidan has -iru and -eru verbs, nidan had verbs that took -i and verbs that took -e when conjugated into the 連用形 and 未然形 forms: 食ぶ→食べ (連用形/未然形) 滅ぶ→滅び (連用形/未然形) Thus if you keep the vowel category of the verb the same, i.e. keep its 連用形 and 未然形 the same, but change its conjugation from nidan to ichidan, you get 食べる and 滅びる. There is only one nidan verb that survives in modern Japanese, which is うる in the compounds ありうる、しうる、できうる、おこりうる, etc. In colloquial Japanese, people say ありうる as ありえる instead, which annoys grammarians, but that's just another example of the shift. Sometimes you will see people describe this shift as る having attached to the 連用形, but that's just saying the same thing from a different perspective. This is actually a large shift that happened, and most of the ichidan verbs today used to be nidan verbs. There are Western dialects which didn't fully undergo the shift and still retain many nidan verbs today. In English materials, ichidan is called "monograde" and nidan is called "bigrade". Whether the verb belongs to the i vowel category or the e vowel category is expressed by the words "upper" and "lower", or "kami" and "shimo" in Japanese. So "shimo ichidan" would be "lower monograde" in English.
ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-1hTOMZM2_ys.html Of course me being casual watcher and this guy being an amateur probably could have missed the mark but I found his theory quite interesting. In short, an was a common negative forming word (as shown in Sanskrit and Korean) and in Japanese, it has formed a connecting sound with wuri and suru to form nu and zu.
9:32 I don't know much about Japanese etymology or Japanese philology, but my immediate thought here was that it may have changed to match the adjectives via analogy, because people just thought it seemed similar and should have the same conjugation. I have no idea how plausible this is in this case and I'd rather ask an expert, but it's a possible explanation
Fun fact about the transition of ず being common to ぬ, this probably happened for two reasons, 1. When using certain particles like なむ or ぞ it forces the final verb to be in the 連体形 form for some reason which is why some sentences will end with ぬ despite it clearly being the end of the sentence. 2. The ancient Japanese loved to put verbs in the 連体形 form and then leave the expected verb out because why bother using the word when it's so obvious that an implication is all that's needed. Thus they would cut their sentences short and allow the listener to fill in the rest which led to sentences actually ending with ぬ and just not finishing the thought. Also, a personal request, can you explain to me the origin of the honorific お in words like お大事 and お話. I'm aware of where the ご and み uses come from, but I'm not sure about the お use. It's ostensibly a 訓読み but in the 古事記 it's always pronounced as み and never お, as far as I'm aware.
Oh wow thank you that is really interesting. It seems then like ぬ was often being used in effectively the 終止形 position for quite a while? It makes sense then that the two forms began to become interchangeable. Thanks for the idea, that is great thank you. I had wondered where み went, as it only seems to show up in incredibly incredibly old words. A video on the origins/uses of お・み・ご would be fun to do.
I am very impressed that this is 'easy' listening! I've just heard the echo, how strange. I went back and listened to it in my video software and it is fine, so absolutley no idea what has happened there. Let's just pretend it was intentional for that 15 seconds.
Hi, I am back with some hopefully better audio quality. I wanted to remake my older video on negations in Japanese as it is no longer up to a standard I am happy with. I feel like I understand the topic better than I used to, and thus am begged equipped to explain the topic. Additionally there is a greater deal of nuance here than before. (Minor audio glitch 10:20-10:30) Please see my playlist for all videos I have made in this format: ru-vid.com/group/PLGGdWQoxz4TKXd2cXbJ-cW1149Hizgsiw If you enjoy my content, please consider a small donation as these videos take quite a while to make: buymeacoffee.com/japaneseetymology
Very interesting history! Side note as well, but have you tried using a wired microphone when recording? The audio sounds like it's a BlueTooth microphone, which makes some phrases hard to hear (thankfully, you use subtitles!).
@@Killer_Space_2726-GCP hi! Yes I am very sorry, my microphone isn't great at all. I'm going to switch how I record for the next set of videos, and hopefully that will help. I'm glad the subtitles are useful though, thank you for your patience
Thanks! I'm not sure how I'm ever going to make use of this info but I love being exposed to it. And am enjoying the funny backdrops too. Just wanted to point out that there seems to be a problem with the audio. It "drops" or gets garbled now and then, for example, around 08:17. Then again, we listened to Cure Dolly in the beginning when she had no end of trouble with audio.
@@donconore thank you for your kind comment. Sorry, I've to record my audio on my very crappy laptop mic. 🎤I try messing around with it in audacity but yes, it's not great. That's why I use captions too 😅😢
I was first introduced to "Naru and Taru adjectives" by the late Cure Dolly, there seems to have been some shift over time but nothing felt alien to me. Just a comment to help with the algorithm more than anything, but it's interesting they have taken a slightly different life in modern Japanese, it seems.
Another wonderful video! I just have one question, do the adjective たり and なり carry the same connotations as the sentence ending ones (I.E. たり as a temporary state), or are these completely unrelated to each other?
Sorry I might have to try to explain this in a bit of a longwinded way, but please bear with me. So this dictionary website tells us 2 things about たり: (kobun.weblio.jp/content/%E3%81%9F%E3%82%8A) The たり that: 1. Shows the 'perfect' tense 完了 (when an action is finished, like the modern た in Japanese, たべた) 2. Tells us that an action is ongoing, ている・てある 3. Tells us more than 1 thing is happening at once, 食べたり、飲んだり, ^These たり allcome from て＋あり. The dictionary explains using this: '接続助詞「て」＋ラ変動詞「あり」からなる「てあり」の変化した語。' Now, the たり that 1. Tells us what something is だ・である for example 忠盛備前守たりし時 ( When Tadamori was governor of Bizen. In Modern Japanese 忠盛は備前守であった時) ^This たり comes from と＋あり. To summarise: The copula verb たり comes from と＋あり The adjectival noun (na adjective) たり comes from: a noun + と + あり Tari when it can be used as the perfect tense, an ongoing action, or telling us that more than 1 thing is happen is from: て＋あり Therefore, to answer your question: Tari adjectives and Tari as a copula verb come from the same place! However, when Tari is used as a (perfect tense/ongoing action/more than 1 thing is happening) that is from te and ari and is therefore a different thing? I put a question mark as I am not an expert on Classical Japanese. Because both て＋あり and と＋あり conjugating in exactly the same way. It seems like they have a very interwoven etymology? Sorry that I can't give you a definitive answer, but that's the extent of my knowledge.
Excellent explanations sir. You don't play around do you? Lol. It feels like you got that book by Shirane almost as soon as you became aware of it. Your appetite for understanding Japanese is excellent. Keep doing your thing.
Still the exact content I wish there was more of, thank you. I'm constantly trying to look up etymology to better grasp why things are the way they are. (Like conjunctions)
A lot of Japanese words are on 'wikitionary'. If you type them in hiragana/kanji they normally come up with clear etymologies! If your'e stuck just type in a Japanese word + の語源 and that normally gives you the etymology too :)
Hi, I hope you will enjoy this video on Tari and Nari adjectives, and what they tell us about modern 'na' adjectives in Japanese. Please see my playlist for all videos I have made in this format: ru-vid.com/group/PLGGdWQoxz4TKXd2cXbJ-cW1149Hizgsiw&si=9SE8VDorUrr_aqqq If you enjoy my content, please consider a small donation as these videos take quite a while to make: www.buymeacoffee.com/japaneseetymology
Wow, really fascinating information, and so clearly presented too! Your videos have been really informative and surprisingly useful as I try to move on from beginner and into intermediate Japanese. I’m so glad to have found your channel! For a minute you had me thinking I had found the origin of 必ず, with the ず negation, but of course I couldn’t find any extant word かなる. Then, I noticed the obvious fact that the ら in 必ず isn’t even in the okirigana! Even if I can only make wild guesses, thank you for providing such useful material for thinking a little deeper.
@@ianzentner6770 Hi Ian, thank you very much that's very kind! If you can't explain something clearly, then you don't really understand it is my motto. You're on the right track with the logic of 必ず！From wiktionary: Shift from 仮かりならず (kari narazu), itself from 仮 (kari, “temporary”) + ならず (narazu, “not becoming”), the negative continuative form of なる (naru, “to become”). So 必ず means 'not becoming temporary', I. E., it will certainly happen! That's what I think it's saying anyway
It's great that you left na-adjectives open to consideration. Absolutely no one agrees on them. To me they most resemble (in english) a noun adjunct. A noun that describes another noun like jean jacket, or chicken soup. The na is just being an attributive particle; jean な jacket, chicken な soup. It's always (noun) な (noun) where the attributes of the first noun are given to the second noun. kiiro な kirin -> a giraffe that has the attribute of being yellow, as opposed to kiiroi kirin -> this extant yellow giraffe right here that we are talking about. Similarly na, ni, no, and という follow similar patterns to (noun) na (noun) - The second noun gets the attributes of the first noun. (noun) ni (verb) - the verb is given the attributes of the noun. (noun1) no (noun2) - the second noun is of the category of the first noun, and (specific noun) という (broader category of the first noun) ie. Dackle という inu - Dachshund kind of dog. I know you know those already but those patterns never seem to get written out explicitly. Genki 1 (mentioned in passing in Genki 2) and the Dictionaries of Japanese Grammar never even mention (noun) ni (verb) to create adverbs. Did that link ever work for you?
Hi! Sorry for the slow reply, was taking a break. The link is incredible, such vast resources. Do you just read about this as a hobby as well? It's very impressive the level of knowledge you have. Thank you again for compiling and sending them.
@@tonythesopranos5310 Excellent, I just wanted to verify that it wasn't some random person that just happened to see the comment. The "collection" is just the result of chasing linguistic rabbits down rabbit holes, looking for a "Dogen" level of pitch accent information, or a "Cure Dolly" (RIP) style explanation of the finer details. Collecting books and papers became a bit of a hobby in itself like finding and scanning the other volume of "Japanese Language Patterns" by Alfonso, or getting the covers and fixing the scans of older material. There's no particular need or use, just a quest for knowledge.
@@Transcription-do1pc you're on that renaissance man arc. I completely understand that. I just like compiling stuff for the sake of it in the future I'd go back and redo videos into tight nit specific series, and make it far more concise and accurate. I thank cure dully a huge amount for getting me to that intermediate stage of Japanese. You can probably tell from my pronunciation, I don't care a huge amount about things like pitch accent. More power to you, but I know I'll always have my English accent when I speak Japanese, and I don't mind. I've met loads of foreign speakers of English who are incredible, even if they retain an accent. And yet the accent is a part of their character, there's a charm to it. I make more speaking mistakes when I'm making these videos because I'm trying to flip between saying long sentences in English, to throwing in Japanese words in the middle. But I totally understand the pursuit to sound like a native, it just isn't for me.
I have one thing to say about this video, the channel, and the speaker. It rocks so damn hard. Your videos are really cool and informative. Theyve helped me a lot with understanding some things about japanese that felt off. For reference, ive been studying japanese for three years and learn new things everyday but this is the kind of stuff that makes me rethink what i have leanred. Your content is clear, concise, and informative. Many of your videos are great for beginners ans some less so but nevertheless they all have something interesting. Youve earnwd yourself another subscriber.
@@garrettramos8052 thank you so much, those are words of very high praise indeed 🙏 You don't need to full understand classical Japanese, but learning about how Japanese has developed, and how it's grammar has been formed made it far easier to understand the logic of what I was trying to learn. For example, when I learnt that part of a kanji tells you the sound of the character, and you can therefore guess the sound of a kanji semi-accurately it blew my mind. Since then I've found learning new kanji words far quicker than learning new native Japanese words. Just little cool tricks and tips like that.
Thanks for your comment! Just a question, what is はいと? I am struggling to make sense of it. 空はいと青く、涼し気なる風の心地よく吹きたり - The sky was blue, and the comfort of a cool wind had blown?
The は is the particle you already know all about. いと is a Classical Japanese word that means "very" or "much". So the sentence (assuming I didn't make any mistakes because I'm also just learning) is, "the sky was very blue, and a cool wind blew/was blowing pleasantly."
@@TalesofDawnandDusk ah thank you! A very nice sentence. What's confused me though is I associate たり with the perfect tense. But I've also read that たり can be used for ongoing actions, so I'm a little confused 🤔
@@tonythesopranos5310 In my experience you would need more context to really understand how best to translate it into English. The worst culprit of this is べし, there are loads of ways to translate that one based on the context.
@@TalesofDawnandDusk yeah tari is a tricky one because you've と +あり used to define things, and then て + あり which can be used for the continuative and perfect tense.
Please keep making videos about historical Japanese language. I enjoy them. If you ever want to get into etymology as well, I would be glad to watch it
@@sombrero8551 Hi Sombrero, thank you so much. That's very encouraging to hear. I've actually done a few etymology videos on pronouns such as this one: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-PZO-SaIjQNI.htmlsi=i0SW-eOmy6II-j6u But I'll definitely be making more 🙏
Hi, after a break I hope you will enjoy this video on Shiku and Ku adjectives, and what they tell us about modern 'ii' adjectives in Japanese. Please see my playlist for all videos I have made in this format: ru-vid.com/group/PLGGdWQoxz4TKXd2cXbJ-cW1149Hizgsiw&si=9SE8VDorUrr_aqqq If you enjoy my content, please consider a small donation as these videos take quite a while to make: www.buymeacoffee.com/japaneseetymology Apologies for no captions on this video. The software I use has now made using captions a paid feature. It very kindly only told me this, after I'd spent about 30 minutes editing the subtitles. I'll see what I can do moving forwards as I appreciate I sometimes mumble my words.
Just after looking at these candidates for how です came to be, personally, I believe that でそう turning into です is quite unlikely, and find it more likely that です would have come from であります or でございます. Those are longer and on the face of it more different from です than でそう, but the beginning and ending sounds are the same, whereas there is no す in でそう, and そう is quite strong and I don't think it would change to the す sound. Also, であります and でございます were already right there, and used in that exact way, so I'd say they are more likely to have morphed into です. But anyway, that's my own conclusion...
I wonder how older dialectal forms such as dasu and dosu rose, since they have a very traditional sort of feel nowadays. Did they rise during the Meiji era as desu became popular? Did Kansai have more prostitutes, doctors and craftsmen? I wonder.
@@akirakosaintjust I'm not sure, that's an interesting question. A fun video might be to look at the different language tropes of different professions/occupations!
@@c.m.bellman5721 thank you for your comment. Unfortunately when you unpack the Shogun 2 audio files, the fall of the samurai voice lines are mixed in with them. But now that I think about it, I could try and single out the fall of the samurai lines at some point 🤔
Is the western Japanese せん/へん related to the formal ません? It would make a lot of sense that the negative of the auxiliary ます would become ません in the west. Maybe even central Japan had ましない but the formal language from the west came to dominate in this aspect?
@@MooImABunny I believe you're correct! Frellesvig's book on the history of Japanese talks about how the Western dialectical せん influenced ません and that the modern Kansai へん is actually just another sound change being applied to せん
I would like to bring up some parallels to the development in the meaning of watakushi. In Old Chinese there was a genitive pronoun *lrem (朕) meaning “my”. Towards the end of the Old Chinese period it came to be a general purpose “I”, as the case distinctions between *lrem and *la (余) disappeared. My personal theory is that stock phrases like “I myself” meaning “personally” strongly associate the genitive with the nominative, so these two pronouns can merge. 😅
Could you do Something about how big and small morphed into お and おお. I know that just お is uncommon compared to こ but its atill interessting how big and small have kun omi readings that are so hard to distinquish.
Thank you for that series! What I really like about learning the etymology of だ and です is how it explains many aspects of Japanese grammar, like conjugation of the copula or its other versions (である and でござる), and also たる, なる and な adjectives. It would be great if you could maybe explain なくて and ないで - the fact that "two versions" of the same thing exist always seemed puzzling to me.
@@danielblumowski34 Hi Daniel, thanks for your comment. I don't know the history between なくて and ないで either 😱 so that'd be a great video idea, thank you. What I can tell you though, and I think I am correct is the following: So interestingly the negative form of verbs in Japanese is made by the 'い' adjective ない. I could be wrong, but I believe the negative form of Japanese verbs, is just the 連用形 (renyoukei) form of the verb, with the 'い' adjective stuck on the end. That's why the negative form of an adjective such as かわいい, which becomes 可愛くない. Then a verb does the same thing. 変わる, becomes 変わらない。 Why am I telling you all of this? Well なくて is actually just the 連用形 form of ない、which we now know is an 'い' adjective. On the other hand, ないで is the 'い' adjective ない but attached to で. The best equivalent in an Indo European grammatical context is that で works like the 'instrumental case'. In ないで I'd translate で here as meaning 'by' in English. So let's compare these two sentences: 1.宿題をしないで、教室に行った。I went to class without doing my homework. 2.宿題をしなくて、教室に行った。I didn't do my homework AND then I went to class. What I believe what is happening is the following: In sentence 1, the で attaches to ない, and acts similarly to the English 'by', so 宿題をしないで, 'by not doing my homework Z happened' In sentence 2, なくて is just the connective form of ない, so really it works similarly to the English 'and'. So the sentence is saying something like, I didn't do my homework and then I went to class. Do you see the subtle difference? Xないで without doing X and then Z Xなくて didn't do X and then Z Hopefully that helps! :)
@@tonythesopranos5310 Thank you so much for your answer! The explanation makes sense, though I was thinking that I don't really know any other instance where で attaches to an adjective like that. I'm not saying that this can't be the case, but it would be interesting why seems to be happening to ない only. I've also stumbled upon an explanation that なくて is the te-form of ない and ないで is ない + the te-form of だ. But I don't think the copula is ever used after adjectives (only です to imply politeness). I really wonder how exactly ないで developed in Japanese. It's great that you also mentioned negation of verbs and adjectives, because the fact that ない attaches to 未然形 of verbs, but 連用形 may be another hint to the answer of why ない is special when it comes to this topic. I've researched this a bit and didn't find any conclusive answer, but my hypothesis is that the ない that negates verbs (which would come from the negative form of ある) is not the same ない that negates adjectives (which would be a proper adjective: 無い). Maybe it has to do something with なくて and ないで?
@@danielblumowski34 oh that's a great point. I often forget that で is just the copula form of だ。But I'm not entirely if there is only 1 で in Japanese. Because as you say, there's the で that's clearly the continuative form of だ、but there are other times where で is clearly very instrumental. I. E., バスで仕事に行く. Is this で still just the connective, copula for of だ? You're absolutely cooking up with some of those theories. I'll do some digging some day, and hopefully we can both figure it out. Because honestly, I'm not sure myself! 🤔
@@tonythesopranos5310 Yes, I totally agree, sorry if I didn't state my thoughts well. I also think that there are more than one で, at least the one coming from the copula and the one that is a case-marking particle.
9:43 In modern Japanese, this is more of a conditional cause-effect, thus one would more likely use -nakereba (when/if not existing then...), thus, 私の命令がなければ、何も起こらない (Watashi no meirei ga nakereba, nanimo koronai When/if my orders not exist, nothing not happen).
