Ancient Japanese / Hebrew connection

I have always wondered, if we all came from the same people, and area, then wouldn't there be some similiarieis in language and writting such as the simple greeting...

Hi
Hello
Howdy
How (Am. Indian)
Hallo (Germ.)
Hullo (Germ)
Hola (Spanish)
Ohayo (Jap.)
Aloha (Pac.Isl.)
Shalom - sHALOm (hebrew)
Salam - (Islamic / Mid.East)

Found any similarities?? Of course the latin based languaes are very similiar (German English Spanish), but what about the Japanese, S. Pacfic, Am. Indian and Hebrew. Was the Hebrew greeting the original "hello"and it went from there?? Also, would you be able trace the migration of humans using similatities in language?

I have been doing some research, going on an old hunch of mine. I wanted to see if there is a similarity to Katakana and Harigana (Japanese characters representing sounds) with Hebrew (one of the oldest writen languages). I have found so many similarites that is beyond creepy. So I have decided to write a small paper.

If anyone has any suggestions or questions that they would like me to address, please let me know.

I'm by no stretch of the imagination a linguist, but I've heard that in many languages, including a lot that are thought to be unrelated, the words for 'mother' are very similar, also.

You might also want to take a look at a group of languages called Indo-European. As should be obvious from the name, the languages come largely from Europe and western Asia. They all bear at least a cursory resemblance to one another, due to geography and history.

Once upon a time all humans lived together in a little place called Africa. Gradually them moved from Africa and conquered the world. Before they left they had invented a rudimentary language, this language would have included words like 'mum' and 'hi'.

This means that the words for mumand hi and such would be fairly similar around the world because they are already known by the settlers.

Originally posted by Uncle Joe
Once upon a time all humans lived together in a little place called Africa. Gradually them moved from Africa and conquered the world. Before they left they had invented a rudimentary language, this language would have included words like 'mum' and 'hi'.

This means that the words for mumand hi and such would be fairly similar around the world because they are already known by the settlers.

One of the question I am working on is, if this is so, why do places like Russia (and other slavic nations), China, India, France and other nations (even latin based ones) do not have greetings that are remotely similar to the ones I posted above.

Originally posted by menjo

Originally posted by Uncle Joe
Once upon a time all humans lived together in a little place called Africa. Gradually them moved from Africa and conquered the world. Before they left they had invented a rudimentary language, this language would have included words like 'mum' and 'hi'.

This means that the words for mumand hi and such would be fairly similar around the world because they are already known by the settlers.

One of the question I am working on is, if this is so, why do places like Russia (and other slavic nations), China, India, France and other nations (even latin based ones) do not have greetings that are remotely similar to the ones I posted above.

Maybe it's nothing more that the evolution of language - perhaps something like the difference between a more universally understood greeting, and then a localised form ?

Some form of universal greeting is going to be useful as communities begin to coalesce, then as the population becomes more and more settled, this form becomes increasingly less relevant, and the regional versions become more common, and the earlier (more universal) version simply falls into disuse, and eventually into obscurity ?

--or --

In some cases, is it not more likely that the inherent linguistic structures cannot actually transparently integrate words (and maybe even linguistic concepts) from outside of their language families?

As you'd expect, the ever useful wikipedia has some background stuff as a primer.

Hiragana is based off of the kanji that were used to represent those sounds. Any similarities to hebrew is definetely a coincidence.

I think that there is a slight possibility of there being a relation between all of those. Of course we are basing this off of the modern english spelling and letters of these words. Note that hebrew and native hawaiian have completely different character systems than the other languages, so the whole "h" theory between those can be ruled out. I would say its the pronunciation that counts but "hola" has a silent h. Anything is possible though. Might have been dislexic ancient self-proclaimed linguists that tried to remember their original language.

Originally posted by Uncle Joe
Once upon a time all humans lived together in a little place called Africa. Gradually them moved from Africa and conquered the world. Before they left they had invented a rudimentary language, this language would have included words like 'mum' and 'hi'.

This means that the words for mumand hi and such would be fairly similar around the world because they are already known by the settlers.

No...we all started in mesopotamia and Africa was conquered by Nordics after the tower of Babylon... read the African Chutari stories

Originally posted by scientia
Note that hebrew and native hawaiian have completely different character systems than the other languages, so the whole "h" theory between those can be ruled out. I would say its the pronunciation that counts but "hola" has a silent h.

Maybe the H in hola wasn't always silent, people who are fluent in Spanish speak it quite fast, and if you say "hola' pronouncing the H really fast you almost don't hear it. Maybe after awhile natural speakers just made the letter H silent.

***Based on assumption No facts to support***

Originally posted by okita_san
Hiragana is based off of the kanji that were used to represent those sounds. Any similarities to hebrew is definetely a coincidence.

Well... there are a lot of things the Japanese don't talk about. One of these things is the Korean invasion of Japan in 1274 under Kublai Khan, the Mongol. And what is REALLY not talked about, are Kublai's soldiers from the Shariki tribe of Persia (modern Iran/ Georgia). The Jews lived as captives under Mesopotamian regimes and are a Mesopotamian people, so common word roots should be expected. Many other Japanese words are of Portuguese origin, due to prolonged cultural interchange. And one should not forget Japan's proximity to cold Siberia and her Turkic peoples... there has been infrequent naval contact from Mesopotamia from ancient times; Kanji are of course of Chinese origin, Hiragana are syllabic- just like the Cherokee of the Americas.

Originally posted by Enkis_my_hero

Originally posted by Uncle Joe
Once upon a time all humans lived together in a little place called Africa. Gradually them moved from Africa and conquered the world. Before they left they had invented a rudimentary language, this language would have included words like 'mum' and 'hi'.

This means that the words for mumand hi and such would be fairly similar around the world because they are already known by the settlers.

No...we all started in mesopotamia and Africa was conquered by Nordics after the tower of Babylon... read the African Chutari stories

Um, if you look at a little anthropology you'll find that the first humans were born and bred in africa and gadually spread arond the world.