Are Japanese and Chinese people related?

Baloo55th

Any connection between nationalty/race and language is usually false. For example, the Turkic Bulgarian people settled down in Bulgaria, and proceeded to abandon their Turkic speech and took up a form of Slav instead. Japanese is a Japonic language, only closely related to Ryukyuan, while Chinese (all forms) is a Sino-Tibetan language. Japanese is a language that builds up words, and like English, is not tonal. Chinese is more or less tonal - all varieties are tonal but some have more than others. (Tonality is where the way you say a word changes the meaning - a bit like the way speakers of English indicate a question or an order.) Japanese works perfectly well in Latin characters, which Chinese doesn't. As to the people, yes, the Japanese are a genetically related people to the Chinese - but then so are a heck of a lot of Far Eastern peoples. The time of separation is highly debatable. Perhaps it is best to regard them as both descending from a common stock rather than one from the other. The Chinese have altered in this time as well as the Japanese. (Think of evolution - humans and chimpanzees are related, but neither is descended from the other! You are related to your cousins - but not descended from them.) This is all a bit simplified, and people might object to my terminology. Look at these for more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_language http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_people Jan 04 10, 1:36 PM