MODERN JAPANESE & OLD JAPANESE

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Old Japanese is the oldest attested stage of the Japanese language, recorded in documents from the Nara period (8th century). It became Early Middle Japanese in the succeeding Heian period, but the precise delimitation of the stages is controversial. Old Japanese was an early member of the Japonic language family. No genetic links to other language families have been proven.

Modern Japanese is considered to begin with the Edo period (which spanned from 1603 to 1867). Since Old Japanese, the de facto standard Japanese had been the Kansai dialect, especially that of Kyoto. However, during the Edo period, Edo (now Tokyo) developed into the largest city in Japan, and the Edo-area dialect became standard Japanese.

If you are interested to see your native language/dialect be featured here.
Looking forward to hearing from you!

[ilovelanguages]

Special Thanks to:

Modern Japanese:
あまひ₁ちゃんねる/amapichannel

Old Japanese:
Omizan Sakamoto

[Pmp]

Other languages: as time goes on long words become shorter.

Japanese: all words must be longer

[shosho_hrubblefongers]

I'm a Native Japanese speaker. Old Japanese seems to lack any Chinese originated words. Kanji are all in kun-yomi and there are no on-yomi. It feels like what Japanese would sound like if we took out all the Chinese influence.

[CirclesForever]

It's funny that the old Japanese word for the sea is "wata"

[izzyneubs]

As a non-native Japanese learner and linguist, it's so insanely interesting to see what changed, what didn't change, and the subtle phonetic differences! For such an old language, it has changed less than some people might expect, even though it is pretty much unintelligible for someone like me.

[ken.the.person]

As a japanese, the old japanese voice actor was obviously acting as if this was an anime

[Shanaoh]

I also commented this in your Old Japanese video but 頭/あたま/かしら in 2:56 does not translate to “heat.” It translates to “head.”

[히오스를지키는사람]

I see influence of old Japanese still left in Modern Japanese. Like the meaning of かしら still used to mention head of organization. Interesting video!

[Monkey.D.Shinchan]

Old : Aratasi
New : Atarasi
Old capital : Kyoto
New Capital : Tokyo


😆

[qwertykeyboard]

自づから おのづから onodzukara
自ら みずから mizukara
己 おのれ onore
自分 じぶん jibun
The kanji's meaning particularly are same, "myself, yourself, or someone-self" It is interesting to study old japanese and japanese dialect which is actually still relevant to this day

[ぶんぶん-ui]

コメ欄で英語使って会話してる日本人すごいな...
自分もこれぐらい会話できるようになりたい。

[dustgreylynx]

Old Japanese sounds even more similar to Finnish

[HaroldtheNihongoStudent]

This will be a fine addition to my vocabulary collection.

[pattymcfatty]

It's so weird seeing ち and つ be pronounced in the way I always thought it should sound based on the other characters in their group being pronounced like each other with these two being the outliers. Super interested in how they changed to be outliers from the phonetics!

[gilbertoez]

This is cool to listen to how language change over the years

[ncalba]

I like Old Japanese Language and thanks for the video. It will help to learn and study the old languages.

[thaiphanvevo]

The Japanese transition from "tu" to "tsu" reminds me of English. Americans pronounce YouTube like "Yoo-Toob" but British people pronounce it like "Yoo-Choob".

[imperadordoskcalendarios]

Hello, I'm also quite a student of the Old Japanese language, I wanted to ask if there are any sites that cover Old Japanese and Proto-Japonic, because most of the ones I found are about Classical Japanese, I wanted to know how I can go deeper into Old Japanese, how to create entire sentences because I'm creating a story where a character can only speak Old Japanese.

[frogbear]

I think its a bit of a shame that some of the words cognates didnt make a more clear appearance. for example, the word used for modern japanese is "okasan", then "papa" in old japanese. This is true, however its important to note that modern japanese has the word "haha" for mother as well which follows the "p turns to h" trend thats clear in this video. another example is sister being "shimai", and old japanese being "imo". japanese still has the word "imoto" for a younger sister though.

[rhzihlu]

This video may make you feel that the old Japanese and the modern Japanese are different, but if you look at the kanji alone, not much has changed.
If you study the classics, it is not difficult to translate them, and if you know Japanese, you will be able to predict the meaning even if you have not studied them!

ex) ･honto ni？（本当に？）→ makoto nari ya？ (真なりや？) 本当＝真
･sekai （世界）→ yo （世）
･tenku（天空）→ama（天）

And this is just one part of the story, and it is still used in novels and other works today.