Japanese Language. Haruhiko Kindaichi

(convenience),

(speech),

(letter), and

(occasion). What must be noted, however, is that these words have not been adopted into Chinese with the Japanese pronunciation. The word nakagainin, for example, has become zhongmairen, and aite has become xiang-shou. That is to say, these Japanese-created Chinese character words are taken into Chinese but assigned Chinese pronunciation. Therefore, we must say that it is not the spoken Japanese language that they have adopted, but the written one.

      Thus, there is hardly any real introduction of Japanese into the Chinese language. A rare example appears in Kuo Mo-jo’s childhood reminiscences of how, during gymnastics in elementary school, the teacher commanded, Kiotsuke, migimuke migi! (Attention! Right turn!). This was a real adoption of Japanese. However, this practice existed for only a short period of time in a certain locality. Right after the Sino-Japanese War, China, in trying to become a modern state, invited constitutional scholars from Japan to help establish the first Chinese constitution. Sanet

Keish

, a student of Chinese literature, says that among the technical terms used on this occasion were tetsuzuki (procedure) and torikeshi (cancellation), which were pronounced as Yamato words.¹⁶ Of this, too, nothing now remains. The influence of Japanese on Chinese was exceedingly slight.

       Footnotes

*Seventeen-syllable form, the same as haiku.

      ^†Hitori, futari, yottari, futsuka, and mikka are Yamato words. Sannin, yonin, gonin, and ichinichi are Chinese character words.

* A form linked to verbs and adjectives, e.g., sakichiru (bloomingly fall), in which saki is the ren’y form of saku (to bloom) and modifies chiru (to fall).

      ^†This is the ren’y form of tsurete-aruku (to take along) and was used as a noun equivalent in ancient times.

       PART II ASPECTS OF SPEECH

       1Regional Differences

      What are the characteristics of the Japanese language? Although we simply call it “Japanese,” it is in reality a complex of a great many languages. English, German, Dutch, Danish, and the like are called Germanic languages as a group. The whole of the Japanese language is equal to the whole Germanic language group, as it were.

      Japanese is often said to be complicated anddifficult. One of the causes can be found in its nature as a language group. Herein also lies the reason why Japanese is said to be in a state of disorder. Formerly, people of Ky

sh

generally lived in Ky

sh

and people of

u lived their whole lives in

u. But now we hear dialects of other areas everywhere. Moreover, in former days each person’s use of language depended, to a large extent, on his or her social position and trade. Now that we are becoming socially homogeneous, speech differences according to sex and situation are also growing less distinct. It is no wonder that Japanese is said to be in disorder.

Differences in dialects

      Russia is a large country. Consequently, Russian is spoken over an area extending 2,000 miles from north to south and 1,500 miles from east to west. Dialects there differ very little. The daily conversations of the fishermen on the northern seacoast can be understood, it is said, by the farmers in the Ukraine, the southernmost area. This is natural, since people who speak Russian can understand Polish, Czech, and Serbo-Croatian, as mentioned above. It is as if a person in Siska, in the former Japanese domain of Sakhalin, and a person in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, could understand one another, each talking in his own native tongue.

      The differences among dialects in Japan, however, are conspicuous. A place like Kagoshima is an entirely different world. The everyday conversations of people of Kagoshima prefecture cannot be understood even by the people of the neighboring prefecture of Kumamoto, not to mention those on Honsh

ky

) had to speak with a person of Makurazaki two interpreters were needed, one who could interpret both Edo and Kagoshima dialects and another who could speak the Makurazaki and Kagoshima dialects. To use a Chinese classical expression, it was a place which “necessitated a threefold interpretation.”

      A case like the above can be seen even within T

ky

prefecture. The language of the residents of the island called Hachij

jima, south of T

ky

, is altogether unintelligible to T

ky

people. It cannot be understood even by those residing on islands of the same Izu island group. Moreover, on a tiny island called Kojima right near Hachij

jima, there is a village called Utsuki with only seventy-four people. It is perhaps the smallest village in