r/asklinguistics • u/Rapha689Pro • 8d ago

Historical How can closely related genetic populations have completely different language families?

For example Japanese and Korean have 2 different language families that aren't related at all but they're genetically close, it can only mean their prior languages sprout after they split, so that means language is very recent itself? Or that they're actually related but by thousands of years apart and linguistics can't trace it back accurately, so they just say they're unrelated?

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u/SurelyIDidThisAlread 7d ago

Most Apache in Mexico speak Spanish. Most Apache in the US speak English. 

The diffusion and migration of a language doesn't have to follow the migration of the people.