the three Korean kingdoms were not genetically related (except maybe for Koguryo and Paekche), and modern day Korea is decended from Silla, which was probably not ethnically related to Japan. Also, you mix up statehood with ethnicity…immigration to Japan predates any state in Korea…just like England is no heir of any German states, Japan (Yamato) is not decended from any of the kingdoms in ancient Korea. And even if there was ethnic relationship, cultures could be very different…like the example I gave…England and Germany. Or even Italy and England, or India, Iran and England (all same Indo-Europeans).tomato at occientalism
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Korea/HI16Dg01.html
An additional twist is added by the little-known fact that the few surviving Koguryo words seemingly demonstrate that its inhabitants did not speak a language ancestral to modern Korean. The language of Silla was proto-Korean indeed, but the known Koguryo words have close analogues in early Japanese, of all languages. It is not incidental that the only research book on the Koguryo language is called Koguryo: The Language of Japan’s Continental Relatives (by Christopher I Beckwith, published in 2004). Not all linguists would agree with this opinion, but it is shared by the majority and still never mentioned by participants of the discussion.
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/sci;300/5619/597
Around 400 B.C., intensive rice agriculture, new pottery styles, and new tools, all based on Korean models, appeared on the southwestmost Japanese island of Kyushu near Korea and spread northeast up the Japanese archipelago. Genes and skeletons of the modern Japanese suggest that they arose as a hybrid population between arriving Korean rice farmers and a prior Japanese population similar to the modern Ainu and responsible for Japan’s earlier Jomon pottery. Modern southwest-to-northeast gene clines in Japan and DNA extracted from ancient skeletons support this interpretation (59, 60). Japanese origins would thus rival Bantu origins as the most concordant and unequivocal example of an agricultural expansion, were it not for the flagrant discordance of the linguistic evidence. If Korean farmers really did become dominant in Japan as recently as 400 B.C., one might have expected the modern Japanese and Korean languages to be as closely similar as other languages that diverged at such a recent date (e.g., German and Swedish), whereas their relationship is in fact much more distant.
The likely explanation is language replacement in the Korean homeland. Early Korea consisted of three kingdoms with distinct languages. The modern Korean language is derived from that of the ancient Korean kingdom of Silla, the kingdom that unified Korea. However, the now-extinct language of one of the two ancient Korean kingdoms that Silla defeated, Koguryo, was much more similar to Old Japanese than is Sillan or modern Korean (61). Thus, a Koguryo-like language may have been spoken by the Korean farmers arriving in Japan, may have evolved into modern Japanese, and may have been replaced in Korea itself by Sillan that evolved into modern Korean.Tomato at occidentalism
Similarity between the words in old Koguryo and old Japanese are also described in the following PDF file. It also shows that the words used in Koguryo/Japan were radically different from Korean words.
http://www.msu.edu/~jk13/Abs.Beckwith.pdf
‘three’
Old Koguryo: mir ; Old Japanese: mi
‘five’
Old Koguryo: ütsi ; Old Japanese: itu
‘child’
Old Koguryo: ku ; Old Japanese: k ú, kwo, ko
‘tree, wood’
Old Koguryo: kir, key ; Old Japanese: kì, ki
‘deep’
Old Koguryo: puk ; Old Japanese: puka- ; Early Middle Korean: kiph u˙n
‘level, flat’
Old Koguryo: piar ; Old Japanese: pira- ; Early Middle Korean: ‘y o˙th o˙/ny o˙th o˙/’yath u˙n
‘valley’
Old Koguryo: tan ; Old Japanese: tani ; Early Middle Korean: kolk o˙iAki at occidentalism
No body denies that in Japan. And noody denies that Japan kept contact with Korean states and imported Chinese culture via Korea.
But this relationship did end very early, as Japan lost her allies in Korea (Koguryo and Paekche…interesting that these states may be ethnically related to Japan) and Silla and the later Koryo kingdom being essentially Japan’s enemy, Japan had to sail directly to China to learn advanced technologies and cultures of the day (which was very dangerous back in the 7th Centrury). So, the Korean claim on having cultural infulence on Japan is still much exaggeratedtomato
When Japan lost her allies Koguryo and Paekche, Japan was cut off from the Korean penninsula and had to cross the storm-infested East China Sea with primitive ships to get direct access. Many people were lost at sea, you know… So, whenever I hear Koreans saying that they taught the barbaric Japanese civilization, I would have to doubt how much they really know…and wonder where the arrogance comes from? Some Chinese risked their lives to give the Japanese enlightenment.tomato
See alsoKaya
Historical Controversy/The Asia Pages
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