ABSTRACT
Relationship between languages is demonstrated by correspondence in (1) grammatical structure and (2) vocabulary, as corroborated by phonetic law. With respect to grammar, Japanese is quite unlike Chinese, Austroasian, and Austronesian. But it has structural similarities with the Altaic group, which are puzzling because the vocabulary presents very few instances of correspondence. Korean and Japanese, however, share many points of grammar, including an ancient use of vowel harmony, and share about two hundred vocabulary cognates as well.
