Talk:Ainu languages

Ainu languages and Korean
I've run into some parallels amongst Koreanic and Ainu that I wanted to discuss/ask about. So 1-5 in Ainu is Sinep, Tup, Rep, Inep and Asiknep. The ending suffix's seem to bear similarities with the Baekje numerals Gadəp, Iterəp, Saidəp, and Tasəp. Another minor point that feels a bit more than just a coincidence is the fact that 2 in Proto-Korean is Tup/Tupir which seems to be a direct intersection with 2 in Hokkaido Ainu. The Korean language prior to Hangeul was purely a spoken language meaning the records of Hanja do not reflect the language at all. After the creation of Hangeul, these records came to be read in modern times which is what created the concept of Sino and Native-Korean. The Altaic theory at least regarding the involvement of Korean, is definitely null and void considering all basic forms of vocabulary such as greetings, numbers, colours and existence have no parallels. The origins of Korean as well as the language is already understood to be "Siberian" in nature with lots of similarities to Ainu in terms of mythology and oral traditions. I don't see why Koreans relation to the areal grouping of Paleosiberan is less likely than to Altaic when they share more native similarities. This along with the fact that Ainu and Ancient Korean kingdoms already had established relations truly lead me to believe that Korean has more to do with Ainu than anything else. Areum1 (talk) 18:10, 6 November 2021 (UTC) HI1
 * Wikipedia is not a forum (WP:NOTFORUM). If you have WP:reliable sources which propose this linguistic relation, we may discuss here in the talk page about their inclusion in WP. But this is not the place to discuss the validity of such proposed relationships based on one's own musings (cf. WP:no original research). –Austronesier (talk) 19:35, 6 November 2021 (UTC)


 * Bear in mind that -p is a common suffix in Ainu, acting as a simple nominalizer. See the etymologies at cironnup or at reyep for two such examples.
 * In the Ainu numbers, this final -p is serving that same purpose: these parse out to sinep → "one thing", tup → "two things", etc. The basic form of the numeral words in other compounds omits this final -p, as we can see from various compounds starting with ine "four", as shown here in Batchelor's dictionary from the early 1900s.
 * Please note too that having "established relations" is no reason to assume linguistic relatedness. The Chinese had "established relations" with the kingdoms of Brunei and Sumatra, yet clearly Chinese and Malay are linguistically unrelated.  Likewise, various Koreanic kingdoms had relations with the Chinese, yet none of the Koreanic languages are deemed to be linguistically related to Chinese.
 * Cheers, ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │Tala við mig 18:35, 8 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Cheers, ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │Tala við mig 18:35, 8 November 2021 (UTC)


 * Comparing the reconstructed Proto-Koreanic numerals at and the reconstructed Proto-Ainu numerals here at, some similarities can be discerned, but they don't seem to be all that obvious or relevant, considering how materially limited they are – a simple CV syllable at best. Still methodically superior to a comparison of modern languages. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 00:53, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

Requested move 11 April 2023

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: not moved. (closed by non-admin page mover) Material  Works   (contribs)  19:25, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

Ainu languages → Ainuic languages – Per WP:CONSISTENCY with other language family articles. Also, better WP:NATDAB from Ainu language. From the sources, it seems that the language family is about equally known as Ainu and Ainuic. Therefore, we should use Ainuic, for the extra reasons stated earlier. 90.252.42.166 (talk) 19:45, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Oppose per WP:COMMONNAME. Consistency and disambiguation are not sufficient reason to move a page when no arguments about actual usage are presented (1. real world terminology is often inconsistent and 2. WP has dab-pages for the purpose of disambiguation). Per Google Scholar:
 * "Ainu languages": 162
 * "Ainuic languages": 9
 * And even without "languages":
 * "Ainuic": 51
 * –Austronesier (talk) 20:59, 11 April 2023 (UTC)


 * Oppose Last time we did this, people tried merging the family article into the language article because they didn't like the name "Ainuic". Okay, pandering to idiots is not a very good reason to oppose, but I really don't want to dredge up that debate again. — kwami (talk) 05:09, 12 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Oppose per common name. In ictu oculi (talk) 09:19, 12 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Oppose per WP:COMMONNAME and per above arguments against.  ミラー強斗武   (StG88ぬ会話) 10:31, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.