East Asian languages belong to several language families that are generally believed to be genetically unrelated, but share many features due to interaction. In the Mainland Southeast Asia linguistic area, Chinese varieties and languages of southeast Asia share many areal features, tending to be analytic languages with similar syllable and tone structure. In the first millennium AD, Chinese culture came to dominate east Asia. Literary Chinese was adopted by scholars in Vietnam, Korea and Japan, and there was a massive influx of Chinese vocabulary into these and other neighbouring languages. The Chinese script was also adapted to write Vietnamese, Korean and Japanese.
Read more about East Asian Languages: Language Families, Mainland Southeast Asia Linguistic Area
Famous quotes containing the words east, asian and/or languages:
“My angel,—his name is Freedom,—
Choose him to be your king;
He shall cut pathways east and west,
And fend you with his wing.”
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“We are not about to send American boys 9 or 10,000 miles away from home to do what Asian boys ought to be doing for themselves.”
—Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)
“I am always sorry when any language is lost, because languages are the pedigree of nations.”
—Samuel Johnson (1709–1784)