Japanese and Turks: Two Branches, One Root?

In their dialog, ' A Passage to Peace', Dr Daisaku Ikeda and Dr Nur Yalman point to some fascinating facts that suggest that the Japanese and Turkish people have a shared ancestry. Excerpts from the dialog...

Ikeda: I understand there is a Turkish legend to the effect that, long ago, in the very centre of the Eurasian continent there was a pure river, surrounded by beautiful hills, with green plains along its banks where people lived in harmony. At one point in history, oppressed by enemies, some of these people moved farther and farther eastward and crossed a sea. Others moved westward – to the remotest place from which the sea is visible. One group was the Japanese; the other, the Turks.

Yalman: That may have been, because the two peoples have very similar customs. They speak structurally similar languages – probably Altaic. They both sit on cushions on the floor and employ wrapping cloths – called furoshiki in Japanese and bohcha in Turkish. Ikeda: Another story suggests a further similarity between us. Once Tughril Beg (c.993–1063), founder of the Turkish Seljuk Empire, assembled his family and asked one member to break an arrow. This the family member did easily. Tughril Beg then asked him to break two together, then three together. This he did but then proved incapable of breaking four arrows held in a bunch. Tughril Beg used the arrows as a symbol of the need for tribes to stick together. A similar Japanese story is told about a member of the warrior class named Mōri Motonari (1497–1571). In the Japanese version, it was three arrows that could not be broken.

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Yalman:... As I mentioned before, the Japanese and Turkish languages are thought to be similar. Specialists tell me the grammatical structure of the two is similar. The object of a sentence precedes the verb, and the subject may be omitted, because inflections of the verb imply the subject. Japanese people learn Turkish fast. I once had a brilliant Japanese assistant who, to my amazement, learned to speak Turkish fluently in four or five months. Similarly, Japanese tourists are always surprised to discover how well ordinary Turkish shopkeepers have picked up Japanese. Ikeda: Are the languages similar in pronunciation?

Yalman: To my ear, Japanese sounds so much like Turkish that, when in Japan, I feel as if I ought to understand what the local people are saying. In Japanese, ii-desu means something is good; in Turkish, we say ii-dir – the same ii sound signifying good in both languages. There are many other similar instances. Black stone is kuro-ishi in Japanese and kara-tash in Turkish. God of heaven is tentei in Japanese and tanri in Turkish.

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Yalman: ... I should like to add loyalty to the traits you have already listed as common to both Japanese and Turks. The idea of loyalty is very strong in Japan, as it is in Turkey. Important cultural values – loyalty, discipline and courtesy – influence actions. Popular loyalty enabled Turkey to protect its independence from the nineteenth and into the twentieth century, in the face of imperialist incursions from the great European powers. The same is true of Japan. Ikeda: An interesting observation. But in Japan, historically, loyalty had the strong negative effect of fomenting rabid militarism.

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Ikeda: ...some Turkish folk music is like the kind of Japanese folk songs called oiwake-bushi. Both apparently have leisurely, conversational, melodic styles.

Yalman: Laurence Pickens,... a member of both the oriental languages (Chinese) and music departments of Cambridge University, argued that there is a strong historical connection, by way of ancient Central Asia, between the music of Turkey and the Gagaku music of Japan.

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Ikeda:... the reed flutes (ney) used to accompany the [Turkish Sufi whirling] dervishes resemble a Japanese instrument called shakuhachi.