JUNE 1999 QUESTIONS
- (Robert, USA)
Is it true that the Japanese language has its roots in ancient
Finnish? If not, what language group is it related to?
There are different theories on the origins of the Japanese language,
but it's generally thought that its syntax (sentence structure) is
related to the Altaic languages and also to Korean, and that it's
had Malayo-Polynesian influences in its vocabulary and morphology
(the way words are formed). Finnish is a Uralic language, and so it
seems to be unrelated to Japanese.
- (Katrina)
What is a Japanese bath like? How do people take a bath in Japan?
Look at this page on Japanese
bathing customs.
- (Carolyn)
I'm looking for a book I read in school about a sick Japanese girl
who tries to fold 1,000 origami cranes, hoping that this will make
her well.
This is a true story retold in Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes
by Eleanor Coerr with paintings by Ronald Himler, published in hardcover
by Putnam and in paperback by Yearling Books. Ten years after an atom
bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, Sadako died of leukemia as a result
of radiation from the bomb. She had folded 644 when she died, and
her classmates folded the rest.
|