WI: Stronger Austronesian presence in Japan??

Just came back from a trip to northern Hokkaido and outlying islands, and one thing that struck me was the sheer abundance of Ainu place names, which is very different from the rest of Japan. The cultures immediately surrounding Japan, namely China and Korea but also the Ainu and Ryukyuans, have all made lasting impacts on the nation, with one notable exception. Taiwan is close enough to see from the southernmost Ryukyu islands, yet there are exceedingly few pieces of evidence that show that Austronesians made it to Japan. Given their skill as seafarers, it's surprising to me that there isn't more of an Austronesian element in Japan besides crops and domesticated animals both have in common and a handful of possible loanwords.

My question is, what do you guys think would be the result of having a much stronger Austronesian presence in Japan? The Austronesian expansion out of Taiwan predates the Yayoi period in Japan. Say a reasonably large number of one or more tribes from Taiwan begin settling the Ryukyu Islands and Kyushyu. What would Japan be like if it had developed with three main contributing cultures/gene pools rather than two in its very early history? Could agriculture introduced by the Austronesians increase the Jomon population enough to make them a bigger genetic contribution to modern Japanese people?
 
I've read that the Austronesians did have a strong influence on the Japanese - Architecture. I'm at a Dairy Queen right now, so I can't quote my source on that.
 
I've read that the Austronesians did have a strong influence on the Japanese - Architecture. I'm at a Dairy Queen right now, so I can't quote my source on that.
I found one article that talks about possible influences on pre-Chinese contact architecture that is preserved in the Ise shrine, but that seems tenuous at best.

Any more thoughts?
 
Well, I have read some of the literature regarding the Japanese language, and there is the idea put forth that it is Austronesian in some way, and that it adopted some other aspects of language (I think grammar) from some of the languages on the Korean peninsula. The intellectual alternative to this seems to be the rather unwieldy Altaicist hypothesis. But there's still debate over that issue, so I'd at recommend that you look at it and determine if Austronesian influence on Japanese is limited to just a few loanwords.
 
Well, I have read some of the literature regarding the Japanese language, and there is the idea put forth that it is Austronesian in some way, and that it adopted some other aspects of language (I think grammar) from some of the languages on the Korean peninsula. The intellectual alternative to this seems to be the rather unwieldy Altaicist hypothesis. But there's still debate over that issue, so I'd at recommend that you look at it and determine if Austronesian influence on Japanese is limited to just a few loanwords.
I mean those are far from the only two options - most linguists believe that it is neither Austronesian nor Altaic.
 
I mean those are far from the only two options - most linguists believe that it is neither Austronesian nor Altaic.

True, for now it's classified as part of a unique language family, Japonic, that encompasses Japanese and the Ryukyuan languages. However, there's at least some epigraphic evidence that languages related to Japonic were once spoken in Korea and Manchuria, and many linguists have long suspected that there is some sort of distant genetic (in the linguistic sense) relationship between Korean and Japanese. The Altaic hypothesis is not implausible, but the problems is that it's been very, very difficult to determine whether the similarities among Turkic, Mongolic, Tungusic, Korean, and Japonic are due to a shared ancestor, or long-standing mutual influence, or both. A lot more work needs to be done on tracing the evolution of each family before the question can be resolved.

I should point out that Joseph Greenberg felt Korean, Japonic, and Ainu to be each others' closest relatives, and made this group a branch of his "Eurasiatic" hypothesis.
 
I mean those are far from the only two options - most linguists believe that it is neither Austronesian nor Altaic.
True, Japonic is its own language family as defined by the mainstream consensus, but every serious, non-mainstream attempt I've come across that tries to categorize Japonic as a member of an even broader language family seems to return to the Altaic hypothesis. Even the Austronesian argument seems extremely fringe.

It has been some time since I looked into the issue so I could of course be wrong.
 

PhilippeO

Banned
Try manga titled "professor munakata musings".

Several chapter is about influence of other culture in Japan.
 
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