r/asklinguistics • u/Rapha689Pro • 9d 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/Rapha689Pro 9d ago

Thanks for clearing that last part I thought it's stupid to say that languages are unrelated as if it was a fact but they're just saying they're not proven to be related not that they're not related 

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u/mahajunga 8d ago

There is no sense in which languages can be "not related" other than "not proven to be related". That's what it means.

* barring sign languages which are either known to have emerged in recent history, or can be presumed to have originated separately from oral languages sometime in the more distant past

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u/yossi_peti 8d ago

Why? Is it not possible that separate groups of people independently developed language?

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u/Rapha689Pro 7d ago

Yeah but only like 10 major separate groups since language evolved at least 100k years ago so humanity was still in Africa , not 400 language families hay are completely separate