Cross-cultural values: Japan and Africa share striking cultural similarities. Thanks for sharing this important information. Worthy of deep research. @roots.galleria. Bantu languages of west, central, east, southern African and Japanese can be very phonetically similar. Even with sounds that are less common in Japanese, like the “L” sound, similarities are still there in Chilenge and Zambia’s Chichewa. In Nigeria, the similarities between Japanese and Igbos extend to their geographical names as