＜prologue＞
I started a blog called “The Baby Boomer Generation’s Miscellaneous Blog”（Dankai-sedai no garakutatyou:団塊世代の我楽多（がらくた）帳） in July 2018, about a year before I fully retired. More than six years have passed since then, and the number of articles has increased considerably.
So, in order to make them accessible to people who don’t understand Japanese, I decided to translate my past articles into English and publish them.
It may sound a bit exaggerated, but I would like to make this my life’s work.
It should be noted that haiku and waka （Japanese short fixed form poems） are quite difficult to translate into English, so some parts are written in Japanese.
If you are interested in haiku or waka and would like to know more, please read introductory or specialized books on haiku or waka written in English.
I also write many articles about the Japanese language. I would be happy if these inspire more people to want to learn Japanese.
my blog’s URL:団塊世代の我楽多（がらくた）帳 | 団塊世代が雑学や面白い話を発信しています
my X’s URL:団塊世代の我楽多帳（@historia49）さん / X
I previously wrote an article introducing the etymology of some Japanese words, but even if I can explain the etymology of one word, there are still questions that remain. For example, even if you know that “sakura（桜）” is “saku（咲く）” (to bloom) with the suffix “ra（ら）” added, you will still be left wondering what the origin of “saku” is.
I’m not sure if this is the correct answer, but even if I explain that the etymology comes from “splitting a bud（「蕾（つぼみ）を割（さ）くというのが語源だ」）,” the question arises as to why it is called “saku（「割（さ）く」）.”
1. The origin of the Japanese language
What was Japanese (Wago, Yamato-kotoba) like before the introduction of Chinese characters from China and the invention of katakana and hiragana in Japan using those characters?
This is a specialized field of linguistics and Japanese language studies, so as a complete amateur I don’t know the details.
In addition to the “Ancient Tamil origin theory” proposed by Japanese linguist Susumu Ohno (1919-2008), there are also the “Altaic language theory,” “Austronesian language theory,” and theories about connections to Ainu, Chinese, and Korean, so it seems difficult to narrow it down to one theory. The conclusion is that “we don’t really know.”
Since Japan is an island nation known as the Japanese archipelago, it seems that comparative linguistics, like that of continental languages, does not have much meaning when it comes to Japanese.
There is no way of knowing what it was like over 10,000 years ago when the Japanese archipelago was connected to the Eurasian mainland. Of course, even after the Japanese archipelago was separated from the mainland, it would have been possible for people to travel by boat from the Korean Peninsula, and some people may have crossed the frozen seas from Russia and Sakhalin in the north. Some people may have been washed ashore by boat from the south, riding the Kuroshio Current.
In that sense, it is possible that there may be influence from the Korean Peninsula, South Asia, and the Ainu languages. However, in my amateur opinion, I believe that this is only an influence on a few languages, and that the majority are languages (language isolates) that have been independently developed by the Japanese over a long period of time.
The mainstream theory is that the Japanese language originated in the Yayoi period (around the 10th century BC to the mid-3rd century AD), but there is also the theory that it dates back to the Jomon period (around 14,000 BC to the 10th century BC), so there is no consensus.
By the way, I believe that the initial opportunity for the creation of Japanese language (Yamato kotoba) was when Japanese people came up with common “passwords,” “codes,” and “secret language” out of the need for communication among themselves to protect themselves from enemies, natural disasters, and the dangers of wild animals.
At this point in time, I believe it is impossible, and even pointless, to thoroughly investigate the etymology, origin, and origin of each and every word in the vast Japanese language that has been established over so many years.
2. The development of the Japanese language
(1) The introduction of “kanji”
Buddhism was introduced to Japan in 538, when King Seongmyeong of Baekje on the Korean peninsula presented Emperor Kinmei of the Yamato court with Buddhist statues, Buddhist implements, and scriptures. These scriptures were officially the “first large-scale material written in Chinese characters.”
However, it seems that Chinese characters were known before that, as the “Inscription on the Iron Sword of the Inariyama Kofun,” excavated from the Inariyama Kofun in Gyoda City, Saitama Prefecture, is dated to 471 and is “the oldest surviving Chinese character document.”
Before Chinese characters were introduced to Japan via the Korean Peninsula, Japan had no native characters. Therefore, people memorized and recited myths, folk tales, old tales, and legends to pass them down from generation to generation. In modern times, there are “storytellers” who tell the stories of the horrors of war and natural disasters, but this was probably a widespread practice in those days.
Hieda no Are（稗田阿礼） was also a “toneri（舎人）” who served Emperor Tenchi（天智天皇） and provided guard duties, but his exceptional memory was recognized and he became a professional “storyteller” who recited the “Teiki（帝紀）” and “Kyuji（旧辞）” texts, and likely assisted O no Yasumaro（太安万侶） in compiling the “Kojiki（古事記）.”
(2) The invention of “Man’yōgana(万葉仮名)”
Around the 7th century, characters were invented that borrowed only the sounds of “kanji” (“mana「真名」”) to express Japanese. These were called “Man’yōgana（万葉仮名）.”
It is called this because the “Man’yōshū（万葉集）” is a kind of apex.
(3) The invention of “katakana（片仮名）”
“Katakana” is an abbreviated form of kanji that uses some or all of the kanji from “Man’yōgana.” There is a theory that Kibi no Makibi（吉備真備） (695-775) created katakana, but it is generally believed to have originated among the scholarly monks of the ancient sects of Buddhism in Nara in the early 9th century, who omitted some of the strokes of Man’yōgana and added them as “kunten(訓点)” (reading marks) to read Chinese classics in Japanese.
(4) The invention of “Hiragana(平仮名)”
“Hiragana” is a cursive version of the Chinese characters of “Man’yōgana”.
There is a theory that hiragana was created by “Kukai(空海)” (774-835), a famous monk and calligrapher of the early Heian period, but it is generally believed that the “Man’yōgana” that was mainly used during the Nara period underwent further “cursive writing of kanji” after the capital was moved to Heian-kyo, and became independent of kanji, becoming hiragana.
(5) Dramatic improvement in readability and shorthand
Compared to Man’yōgana texts, texts written in a mixture of katakana and hiragana are much easier to read, and the speed at which texts can be written seems to have improved dramatically.
(6) The invention of “kunten”
A few years ago, while watching the NHK Educational TV program “Chinese Language Lessons,” a Chinese poem was being recited in Chinese. The lecturer was saying something along the lines of, “You can’t fully appreciate a Chinese poem unless you read it in Chinese.”
However, when I listened to the reading, I had an adverse reaction to the distinctively Chinese “intonic, off-kilter intonation with sharp ups and downs,” and it was far from my enjoyment of the poem.
The “kunten” marks used when reading classical Chinese texts and poetry into Japanese (kundoku) seem to have been invented around the 9th century, and I believe that without this invention, Chinese poetry would not have become so popular among Japanese people.
“Kunden” refers to characters or symbols added above or beside kanji characters in order to read classical Chinese literature and poetry. Specifically, it is a general term for “wokototen (乎古止点)”, “reten (re点, 雁点)”, “furigana（振り仮名）” and so on.
“Kundoku（訓読）” is a method of reading Chinese texts and poems in a Japanese style while keeping the original Chinese text intact, and I think it is an excellent way of reading that is not a translation. I like the unique, dignified tone and style of kundoku of classical Chinese literature and poetry. Chinese poetry is also often recited in shigin（詩吟）, a unique melody with a tone of pathos, indignation, and deep anger.
Furthermore, this “kundoku” is an interpretation of classical Chinese, which is originally the written language of Chinese, by changing the word order and adding particles to make it fit Japanese grammar. It is said that it can also be considered a type of “creole language”(*) in the sense that it goes beyond the level of simple translation and mixes Chinese and Japanese, which are separate languages, into a grammatically complete language.
(*) A “creole language” is a language that was created spontaneously between merchants or others who could not communicate with each other (pidgin language) and that came to be spoken as the mother tongue by the children of the speakers.
Could it be said that Japanese is a language and script that has evolved in a unique way, like the creatures on the Galapagos Islands, with Chinese characters as its base and a three-part set of katakana, hiragana, and kunten?
Unlike “phonetic characters” like the alphabet, kanji are “ideographic characters,” so I think that by combining them with the original Japanese language (kun readings), we have built an extremely excellent language and written culture. In the past, there was apparently a movement to abolish kanji, but I think this is an entirely ridiculous way of thinking that denies the merits of kanji.
(6) Changes in the Japanese Language
In ancient China, there was a “large-scale denial of past culture” such as “burning books and burying scholars（焚書坑儒）.” Fortunately, such outrageous acts did not occur in Japan, but I think that the “language reform（国語改革）” after the war was a foolish act.
The “simplified characters” that China created in the 1950s are still in use in China today. This is even worse than Japan’s national language reform…
I’ve written about this in detail in a previous article called “The stupidity of the national language reform that changed old characters to new characters.”
The Japanese language has undergone “changes” in the past, present, and future. The writings of Natsume Soseki’s novels from 100 years ago “do not feel old at all” even when read today, and are easily readable by people of today, but writings from before the Edo period become more difficult.
I think that present-day Japanese will be perfectly readable in about 100 years, but who knows what it will be like in a few hundred years. Recently, the National Diet Library has begun to preserve the blogs of Ichikawa Ebizo and others, but in a few hundred years, it may be as “unreadable” as “ancient documents.”
3. Japan’s oldest document
(1) Japan’s oldest book
Prince Shotoku’（聖徳太子）s “Hokke Gisho” (615)
(2) Japan’s oldest historical book:
The Kojiki (712), written down and compiled by O no Yasumaro after being recited by Hieda no Are
4. A company where official internal documents were written in katakana (an unnecessary remark)
As a side note, in 1971, when I was job hunting, a classmate of mine went to hear a company presentation at Itochu Corporation, so I accompanied him.
To my surprise, the documents were written in katakana, with no kanji or hiragana. At the time, general trading companies were said to be “from instant noodles to cannons (or missiles),” and I had the image of them being mysterious monsters that handled everything, so I was scared and never went there again.
At the time, I felt that the writing was written in katakana and that it looked strange, like a telegram, but I just thought to myself, “Is this how all trading companies are?” and have continued to do so until today.
I got curious and looked into it, and discovered that the advisor at the time, Chubei Ito II (1886-1973), was the “pioneer of the Kanamoji Movement” which promoted the use of katakana. He was a founding committee member of the Kanamojikai in 1920 and a director of the Kana Mojikai Incorporated Foundation in 1938.
The reason why Chubei Ito II tried to promote “katakana writing” was that it made it possible to input text using a “kana typewriter” just as quickly as “English typing.”
Partly as a result of this, I learned that “Itochu and Marubeni both used katakana in their official internal documents from before the war to after the war.” What I saw may have been the last “kanamoji documents.”
However, Ryuzo Sejima (who was the company’s managing director in 1971) and who is said to be the model for the protagonist in Toyoko Yamazaki’s “The Wasteland,” did not support this “kanamoji document” and would have his subordinates type letters written in calligraphy on Japanese paper.
It seems that the Kanamoji Documents were abolished after Chubei Ito II passed away in 1973. I only recently learned the following story about Chubei Ito II. It is about when Japanese linguist Susumu Ohno (1919-2008) received a scholarship from him when he was a student at the former First Higher School.
Mr. Ohno’s family, a merchant family, had fallen into ruin and he was so poor that he could not even afford to buy books, so he decided to receive a scholarship. The scholarship was 25 yen per month (at the time), but the average rent for a student’s lodgings at the time was 25 yen per month, excluding lunch.
The condition for receiving his scholarship was that “I want to have a meal with you once a year and talk.” At that meeting, he reportedly said the following: “I didn’t go to school, so I always look upon high school students with respect. I want to give money to students who need it. There are no conditions. I just want to talk to you once a year.
“If Japan doesn’t abolish kanji, it won’t be able to catch up with Europe. At my company, all of our paperwork is done with kana-moji typewriters. I want you to think carefully about this issue.”
At that point, Ohno apparently asked, “If Japanese people can no longer read kanji, what will happen to Japan’s historical culture?”
To this, Itou Chubei immediately replied, “That is the most difficult question.” It goes without saying that Ohno’s theory is correct.
Incidentally, although “Korea abandoned Chinese characters and introduced Hangeul,” it is not difficult to imagine that much of Korea’s historical culture based on Chinese characters would have been lost.
研究史日本語の起源 「日本語＝タミル語起源説」批判 推理・古代日本語の （推理・邪馬台国と日本神話の謎） [ 安本美典 ]