Klar

"Toward a Comparative Japanese-Austronesian I" by Takao Kawamoto demonstrates that Japanese is cognate with the Austronesian family of languages, the Pacific languages. The demonstration bases itself on pairing a few hundreds of words of Old Japanese (OJ) with words of Proto-Austronesian (PA) or one of its branches. What was this world like in those ancient times? I have heard theories that in ancient Pre-Columbian times, Pacific Islanders made voyages reaching as far as the Pacific coasts of the Americas. I believe such did happen. So, there were likely contacts between Polynesian tribes and Amerindian tribes. "Linguistic Evidence for a Prehistoric Polynesia—Southern California Contact Event" by Kathryn Klar and Terry L. Jones expounds on the theme, mentioning the Amerindian language groups Chumashan and Gabrielino in southern California. Some Pre-Columbian contact between the Americas and Polynesia is evident from the ubiety of the South American sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas) in Polynesian archaeological sites, most notably from Mangaia, Cook Islands (circa 1000 CE).