Posts with Comments by jrbentley
Who’s the barbarian now? Empires of the Silk Road
I'm probably the only one here that has read Beckwith's earlier work "Koguryo: the language of Japan's continental relatives." I have a background in linguistics specifically E. Asian (Kr&Jp) so this book was right up my alley.
I don't want to review the book here, but suffice it to say this relationship, Beckwith's claim that Japanese is a Koguryo language, is based on the tenuous comparison of about 140 Koguryo etyma. To me this is like looking at the skin of an elephant through a microscope and trying to
guess what the animal is. It is not impossible, mind you, just highly difficult, and requires great skill.
Just to give a couple reservations I have with Beckwith's work in the book: it bothers me to see his lack of knowledge about Japanese historical phonology (which forms half of this theory) and his grouping of homonyms. Beckwith's grasp of Japanese historical phonology has serious weaknesses, so I'm suspicious of his other conclusions in this book. This doesn't mean his theory is wrong, mind you, but it hasn't solved the problem, in my opinion. Others have claimed that Koguryo and Japanese may be related, and I don't necessarily dismiss that claim. All I want is for the work to be well-grounded in the historical linguistic methodology (as well as phonology), and take account of what we already know about Japanese historical phonology and its development. Beckwith falls short in this regard and this makes me cautious in general of some of his claims. At times it feels like he is being provocative just to be provocative and stretching his claim when the support is tenuous at best.
Now having said this, Beckwith is a Central Eurasia specialist, so I imagine he makes much better arguments in "Empires of the Silk Road." Though after reading "Koguryo" I'm not surprised at all that Beckwith makes some rather provocative and tenuous claims in that book as well.
I don't want to review the book here, but suffice it to say this relationship, Beckwith's claim that Japanese is a Koguryo language, is based on the tenuous comparison of about 140 Koguryo etyma. To me this is like looking at the skin of an elephant through a microscope and trying to
guess what the animal is. It is not impossible, mind you, just highly difficult, and requires great skill.
Just to give a couple reservations I have with Beckwith's work in the book: it bothers me to see his lack of knowledge about Japanese historical phonology (which forms half of this theory) and his grouping of homonyms. Beckwith's grasp of Japanese historical phonology has serious weaknesses, so I'm suspicious of his other conclusions in this book. This doesn't mean his theory is wrong, mind you, but it hasn't solved the problem, in my opinion. Others have claimed that Koguryo and Japanese may be related, and I don't necessarily dismiss that claim. All I want is for the work to be well-grounded in the historical linguistic methodology (as well as phonology), and take account of what we already know about Japanese historical phonology and its development. Beckwith falls short in this regard and this makes me cautious in general of some of his claims. At times it feels like he is being provocative just to be provocative and stretching his claim when the support is tenuous at best.
Now having said this, Beckwith is a Central Eurasia specialist, so I imagine he makes much better arguments in "Empires of the Silk Road." Though after reading "Koguryo" I'm not surprised at all that Beckwith makes some rather provocative and tenuous claims in that book as well.
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