Paper short abstract:

Certain regions along the Japan Sea coast share both agreements and differences in segmental and tonal phonology. These can be explained as resulting from migrations that can be dated with reasonable certainty, based on comparison with archaeology, genetic research and Japanese historiography.

Paper long abstract:

Insights on the position of Izumo in the Yayoi period have changed dramatically over the years. For a long time, the reasons for the prominent role given to Izumo in 8th century chronicles stemming from the Yamato kingdom of central Japan was a matter of debate. The find of a cache of 358 2000-year-old bronze swords in Izumo in 1984 however, made clear that it had been one of the most powerful regions of Japan in the Mid to Late Yayoi periods. The attention given to Izumo in chronicles from central Japan reflected its role as Yamato's main rival.

Not only mythology and archaeology, but historical linguistics and dialect geography too, can contribute to our knowledge of the role played by Izumo in Japanese prehistory: There are two regions along the Sea of Japan coast, the Noto peninsula and the Tohoku region, where the dialects share resemblances in segmental and tonal phonology with the dialect of Izumo. The resemblance in segmental phonology is present in all three regions, but the resemblance in the tone systems is much stronger between Izumo and the Tohoku region than between either of these with the Noto peninsula in-between.

In my talk, I will argue that this puzzling distribution of agreements and differences between the dialects can be explained as resulting from migrations from Izumo in different time periods. These migrations can be dated with reasonable certainty based on comparison with archaeology, genetic research and Japanese historiography.