Glasilo #5 - December 2013
MY DISCOVERY OF WENDISH IN JAPAN
I have previously mentioned that I am likely the only person who noticed that Wends had settled in Japanese Islands - and even farther afield, in America - thousands of years ago. So long ago that this fact does not seem to have been preserved even in the oldest Japanese legends. However, Wends have left a definite and quite impressive imprint on both languages spoken in Japanese islands. This is the best and most reliable evidence that Wends had once lived in Japan. Languages cannot be faked.
How did I become interested in modern Japanese? In the mid-1980s, I was reading the biography of an American who had grown up in Japan. He describes how his Japanese friend showed him one of his family's precious heirlooms, an ancient sword. According to him, it was called meich in Japanese. I was intrigued, my curiosity was aroused. How did a Wendish meich/mech, sword, reach Japan in “ancient” times? It crossed my mind that this particular word might have been introduced to Japan by Buddhists, by some Indian proselytizer-cum-warrior, who spoke Sanskrit, an ancient Indian language with a substantial Wendish vocabulary. My exploration began.
The first step I took to solve the mystery was to acquire a Japanese dictionary to check whether this word really exists in Japanese. Just in case the American had misunderstood or misspelled it. I bought Kenkyusha's New School Japanese-English Dictionary, and searched for meich. I did not find it, at least not in its M-section. Instead, when looking down the page, stunned but delighted, I noticed words that seemed familiar. In no time at all, I found at least a dozen terms with unmistakeably Wendish roots. Therefore, I was not too disappointed at not having found the word which had caused me to investigate Japanese. My dictionary is a cheap, concise edition, meant for students. I ought not to have expected it to include any ancient terms.
The larger my collection of Wendish words in Japanese grew, the more I realized that it was most unlikely for them to have been introduced to Japan by Buddhists. Some were agricultural terms and some pointed to a totally non-Buddhist lifestyle and philosophy.
THE PUZZLING ORIGIN OF WENDISH IN JAPANESE
I knew that Japanese aborigines, the Ainu, were a Caucasian people. They lived in present Japan already in the Ice Age, when this area was still part of the Asian mainland. They obviously had no contact with Europe after the islands had formed. Therefore, I thought it most unlikely that their language was related to Indo-European.
However, as Wendish in Japanese must have come from somewhere, I had to find out what the Ainu language was like, just in case it was related to Wendish, however unlikely this seemed to me. I purchased the only Ainu dictionary ever compiled, a rare Ainu-English-Japanese dictionary, priced accordingly. In it – I could hardly believe my eyes - I discovered at least as many Wendish words as I had previously found in Japanese, even in a purer form. I was awed, realizing the amazing antiquity of our language. These Ice Age people were using some Wendish words which one finds in modern Wendish, unchanged in form and meaning in the ten thousands of years that have passed since then.
Unfortunately, this amazing discovery did not solve my problem. Because Wendish occurs in both these languages, one might logically conclude that the new population of Japan was linguistically influenced by the language of their aborigines. Considering that Wendish in Japanese has undergone more changes than Wendish in Ainu, this would seem to support such a conclusion. Asian newcomers were learning a new language, changing it to suit their needs.
This discovery complicated my problem. Wendish in Japanese and Wendish in Ainu, despite their close linguistic relationship, must have evolved independently. Ainu unequivocally mirrors an Ice Age culture and an Ice Age spiritualism, while Wendish in Japanese clearly reflects an agrarian way of life and a sun-venerating religion. The entire reported history of Japan shows that the two populations did not mix. They were in constant state of animosity. Farmers were grabbing aboriginal land, using their Samurai cast as front-line warriors. This confrontation ceased only when the Japanese government had occupied and annexed the last remaining Ainu territories in the farthermost north. Until then, there does not seem to have been much room for friendly intercourse and intermarriage.
There is a small chance, of course, that when the first Asian settlers started to arrive about 3,000 years ago, some Ainu hunters and gatherers decided to leave their tribes, settled down to farming with these newcomers, taught them their language as best they could, and eventually forgot that they were related to the Ainu nomads. But why then are all the terms relating to the sun religion not Chinese or Korean? They are all Wendish.
Eventually I came to the conclusion that there must have been at least two Wendish migrations to Japan. The first one in the Ice Age, when Ainu ancestors arrived, probably from Siberia, and a second wave sometime after the end of the Ice Age (12,000 years ago), in the early Megalithic times, when most Wends were already farmers, venerating the sun. Even this theory has its problems. Where did this second wave of Wendish immigrants come from? Three areas, lying hundreds of miles apart, could have been their place of origin: Siberia, the Tarim Basin in Northern China or Mesopotamia and India.
At the beginning, I thought that Wendish sun-worshippers had arrived in Japan by sea, from Asia Minor or India, from the centre of the Megalithic culture, which had spread throughout the globe after the last Ice Age. This culture has left many megalithic structures in Japanese Islands. I believed I had solved the question of the source of Wendish in Japanese.
I have previously mentioned that I am likely the only person who noticed that Wends had settled in Japanese Islands - and even farther afield, in America - thousands of years ago. So long ago that this fact does not seem to have been preserved even in the oldest Japanese legends. However, Wends have left a definite and quite impressive imprint on both languages spoken in Japanese islands. This is the best and most reliable evidence that Wends had once lived in Japan. Languages cannot be faked.
How did I become interested in modern Japanese? In the mid-1980s, I was reading the biography of an American who had grown up in Japan. He describes how his Japanese friend showed him one of his family's precious heirlooms, an ancient sword. According to him, it was called meich in Japanese. I was intrigued, my curiosity was aroused. How did a Wendish meich/mech, sword, reach Japan in “ancient” times? It crossed my mind that this particular word might have been introduced to Japan by Buddhists, by some Indian proselytizer-cum-warrior, who spoke Sanskrit, an ancient Indian language with a substantial Wendish vocabulary. My exploration began.
The first step I took to solve the mystery was to acquire a Japanese dictionary to check whether this word really exists in Japanese. Just in case the American had misunderstood or misspelled it. I bought Kenkyusha's New School Japanese-English Dictionary, and searched for meich. I did not find it, at least not in its M-section. Instead, when looking down the page, stunned but delighted, I noticed words that seemed familiar. In no time at all, I found at least a dozen terms with unmistakeably Wendish roots. Therefore, I was not too disappointed at not having found the word which had caused me to investigate Japanese. My dictionary is a cheap, concise edition, meant for students. I ought not to have expected it to include any ancient terms.
The larger my collection of Wendish words in Japanese grew, the more I realized that it was most unlikely for them to have been introduced to Japan by Buddhists. Some were agricultural terms and some pointed to a totally non-Buddhist lifestyle and philosophy.
THE PUZZLING ORIGIN OF WENDISH IN JAPANESE
I knew that Japanese aborigines, the Ainu, were a Caucasian people. They lived in present Japan already in the Ice Age, when this area was still part of the Asian mainland. They obviously had no contact with Europe after the islands had formed. Therefore, I thought it most unlikely that their language was related to Indo-European.
However, as Wendish in Japanese must have come from somewhere, I had to find out what the Ainu language was like, just in case it was related to Wendish, however unlikely this seemed to me. I purchased the only Ainu dictionary ever compiled, a rare Ainu-English-Japanese dictionary, priced accordingly. In it – I could hardly believe my eyes - I discovered at least as many Wendish words as I had previously found in Japanese, even in a purer form. I was awed, realizing the amazing antiquity of our language. These Ice Age people were using some Wendish words which one finds in modern Wendish, unchanged in form and meaning in the ten thousands of years that have passed since then.
Unfortunately, this amazing discovery did not solve my problem. Because Wendish occurs in both these languages, one might logically conclude that the new population of Japan was linguistically influenced by the language of their aborigines. Considering that Wendish in Japanese has undergone more changes than Wendish in Ainu, this would seem to support such a conclusion. Asian newcomers were learning a new language, changing it to suit their needs.
This discovery complicated my problem. Wendish in Japanese and Wendish in Ainu, despite their close linguistic relationship, must have evolved independently. Ainu unequivocally mirrors an Ice Age culture and an Ice Age spiritualism, while Wendish in Japanese clearly reflects an agrarian way of life and a sun-venerating religion. The entire reported history of Japan shows that the two populations did not mix. They were in constant state of animosity. Farmers were grabbing aboriginal land, using their Samurai cast as front-line warriors. This confrontation ceased only when the Japanese government had occupied and annexed the last remaining Ainu territories in the farthermost north. Until then, there does not seem to have been much room for friendly intercourse and intermarriage.
There is a small chance, of course, that when the first Asian settlers started to arrive about 3,000 years ago, some Ainu hunters and gatherers decided to leave their tribes, settled down to farming with these newcomers, taught them their language as best they could, and eventually forgot that they were related to the Ainu nomads. But why then are all the terms relating to the sun religion not Chinese or Korean? They are all Wendish.
Eventually I came to the conclusion that there must have been at least two Wendish migrations to Japan. The first one in the Ice Age, when Ainu ancestors arrived, probably from Siberia, and a second wave sometime after the end of the Ice Age (12,000 years ago), in the early Megalithic times, when most Wends were already farmers, venerating the sun. Even this theory has its problems. Where did this second wave of Wendish immigrants come from? Three areas, lying hundreds of miles apart, could have been their place of origin: Siberia, the Tarim Basin in Northern China or Mesopotamia and India.
At the beginning, I thought that Wendish sun-worshippers had arrived in Japan by sea, from Asia Minor or India, from the centre of the Megalithic culture, which had spread throughout the globe after the last Ice Age. This culture has left many megalithic structures in Japanese Islands. I believed I had solved the question of the source of Wendish in Japanese.
Tocharian Tarim basin, in present northern China: mummy of a woman with blond pigtails date to four thousand years ago
CAUCASIAN TOCHARIANS OF NORTHERN CHINA ( 2,000 B.C.) AND BUDDHISM
Unfortunately, my theory seemed to have collapsed 10 or 15 years ago. I learned then that a white, blond, blue and green-eyed population was living already 4,000 years ago in the Tarim Basin, which is now part of northern China. They are referred to as Tocharians by scholars who had discovered their well-preserved mummies. These people too may have originally spoken Wendish. They could have easily explored lands to the east and crossed the channel to Japan. There was not yet a powerful Chinese Empire blocking their way, with well defined borders.
I also learned that Buddhism had reached Japan via China, not directly from India. Therefore, Indian Sanskrit could not have been the source of Wendish in Japanese. Buddhism was introduced to China in the 6th century A.D. by the descendants of these ancient Tocharians, still settled in the Tarim Basin. There are frescoes in ancient Chinese Buddhist temples showing gaudily dressed Buddhist elites. They are blond and redheaded men, with blue and green eyes, holding very long narrow swords, the so-called “long swords”. Was the Japanese meich brought to Japan in the 6th century by Tocharians? It may have been. I do not know what this meich looked like, I do not have its description. Was it long, was it short?
Judging from the few examples of the 6th century A.D. version of the Tocharian language to which I had access, it does not seem to have had much in common with Wendish. Though I did find a few Wendish words among them. However, we do not know what language these people spoke 3,000 years earlier. They lived on the Silk Road, where people from all over Europe and Asia were trading and travelling, speaking many languages. They could have learned new words from them and their Tocharian language could have changed substantially by the 6th century.
Judging from their toponyms, they likely spoke a Wendish dialect at the time of their arrival, when they were giving names to their first settlements:
Unfortunately, my theory seemed to have collapsed 10 or 15 years ago. I learned then that a white, blond, blue and green-eyed population was living already 4,000 years ago in the Tarim Basin, which is now part of northern China. They are referred to as Tocharians by scholars who had discovered their well-preserved mummies. These people too may have originally spoken Wendish. They could have easily explored lands to the east and crossed the channel to Japan. There was not yet a powerful Chinese Empire blocking their way, with well defined borders.
I also learned that Buddhism had reached Japan via China, not directly from India. Therefore, Indian Sanskrit could not have been the source of Wendish in Japanese. Buddhism was introduced to China in the 6th century A.D. by the descendants of these ancient Tocharians, still settled in the Tarim Basin. There are frescoes in ancient Chinese Buddhist temples showing gaudily dressed Buddhist elites. They are blond and redheaded men, with blue and green eyes, holding very long narrow swords, the so-called “long swords”. Was the Japanese meich brought to Japan in the 6th century by Tocharians? It may have been. I do not know what this meich looked like, I do not have its description. Was it long, was it short?
Judging from the few examples of the 6th century A.D. version of the Tocharian language to which I had access, it does not seem to have had much in common with Wendish. Though I did find a few Wendish words among them. However, we do not know what language these people spoke 3,000 years earlier. They lived on the Silk Road, where people from all over Europe and Asia were trading and travelling, speaking many languages. They could have learned new words from them and their Tocharian language could have changed substantially by the 6th century.
Judging from their toponyms, they likely spoke a Wendish dialect at the time of their arrival, when they were giving names to their first settlements:
- There is a town in Tarim called Kucha, Wendish Kocha, a cottage.
- There is also a Krorayna province which reminds one of Krayna or Krayina, borderland, a province on the border of an Empire - as Krainska was in the Holy Roman Empire. In fact, Krorayna province in the Tocharian state was the last Caucasian province bordering on China.
- There is also a town called Beilu, perhaps originally Beila/Bela, the white town.
- And another which has the telling Wendish name, found wherever Wends had settled, from Afghanistan to Japan and South America: Khotan, derived from kot, a place, a corner, or kotanya, a gorge, a basin-like area.
- There is also a town called Pulei, likely a cognate of Wendish polye/pole, meadow, field, plain. This is a very common name for agrarian settlements and plains all over Europe where Wendish farmers had settled. Names of places like Pullach (a Wendish locative form: u poliah/ w polah, in the fields) north of Munich in Bavaria (former Vindelicia) and the town Pula in Italy. Both of these toponyms are both derived from this word.
- A cognate of polye/pole, polyana/polana, plain, flat land, field, is reflected in the name of the Swedish province Palarna and the Corsican province Polana, where one finds also a town with the typically Wendish name, Kostanyevitsa, a place where chestnuts grow. Etruscans were living in Italy and in Corsica. They spoke a “refined” Wendish dialect, as Livy tells us in his Roman History.
A little girl from today's Uyghur tribe, from the Tarim basin, Tocharian descendants.
(Continued on this page)