JAPANESE LANGUAGE. Japanese is an agglutinative language. Its origin is still a matter of conjecture. Korea was probably the first foreign country with which Japan had relations; but whether and to what extent she borrowed from its language is uncertain, and it is not till she came into contact with China that we are on sure ground. From that country she borrowed the ideo graphs now in general use, attempting at the same time to follow the Chinese pronunciation of the period. In the process of time, however, the true Chinese sounds and their Japanese imitations drifted so far apart that save in a comparatively few instances they are to-day quite different. Originally introduced into Japan at the end of the 3rd century A.D., the ideographs were then pro nounced according to what is called the Go-on (Wu sound) ; but in the 7th and 9th centuries this was superseded by the Kan-on (Han sound), which is that now in general use. The following are examples : Kan-on. Japanese equivalent. Meaning.
Nin. Jin. Hito. Person.
Mon. Bun. Fumi. Letter.
The ideographs run into many thousands ; but the number which the ordinary educated Japanese is able to read and write correctly probably does not exceed seven or eight thousand. When first in troduced they were used for phonetic purposes as well as for their regular one ; but, as they proved too cumbersome for the former, two syllabaries, called respectively the Katakana and the Hira gana, were eventually derived from them and are in use to-day. Each contains 5o characters ; but the Hiragana, which is used in writing, has many variants. The movement to dispense with ideo graphs entirely and to substitute for them Roman letters (Romaji) has not so far achieved much success. The original native vocabulary was very limited ; but the introduction of the ideographs and Chinese literature and philosophy enriched it mate rially, and since the invasion of Western ideas and scientific terms expansion has been most marked. Chinese ideographs being singu larly well fitted to express these ideas and terms, it is by combina tions of them in groups of two or more that the modern Japanese vocabulary has been built up. Very many of these words have found their way into the ordinary spoken language ; but the proc ess of colloquialization is not complete and perhaps never will be. Many words, too, have been adopted from European languages, some before the Meiji restoration, most since. Examples are biidoro (vitrio), glass; kasii tera (castilla), sponge cake ; kohi (kof fij), coffee; boto, boat; naifu, knife; etc. The most generous bor rowings have been from English, and it is no unusual thing to see in a newspaper an expression printed in Chinese ideographs with the English equivalent in kana at the side. There are two distinct languages in Japanese, the colloquial and the written ; but the newspaper and the complicated needs of modern life are gradually breaking down the barriers between them.
Grammar.—With regard to pronunciation it may be said in general terms that both vowels and consonants are softer than in most European languages, the vowel sounds resembling the Italian. The long vowels are pronounced approximately as follows : a, as a in father.
e, in grey.
in siege.
f t o in cone.
There is hardly any tonic accent in pronouncing words. The older Japanese grammarians recognized only three parts of speech, the substantive, the predicative, and the postposition (teniwoha), European categories are not particularly suitable. The following are some salient points of Japanese grammar and syntax expressed in the broadest and most general terms. There is no article, and the noun, which is indeclinable, has neither number nor gender. It is in fact a "universal" and not a "particular." Gender is ex pressed by the use of the prefixes o (male) and me (female), modified occasionally for purposes of euphony, or by the words otoko, osu (male) and onna, mesu (female) ; e.g., "a boy," otoko no ko; "a girl," onna no ko. Abstract nouns are generally expressed by Sino-Japanese words or by the combination of an adjective or a verb with the word koto (thing). Inanimate objects are rarely personified, and compound nouns are common. Case is shown by the postpositions ga or wa (nom.), no (poss.), and
wo (acc.). Wa emphasises the word it follows. Adjectives have three endings—in i (attributive or predicative), in o, and in ku (adverbial). There are no inflections to indicate degrees of comparison; but so-called secondary inflections, produced by combinations of the verb aru (is) with the adverbial form of the adjective, exist to indicate tense and mood. The personal pronoun is avoided whenever possible and person shown by the context. The stock form of "I" is watakuslii, of "you" anata or kimi (polite) and omae (depreciatory). There is no relative pronoun, its place being taken by a verb used adjectivally; e.g. "the dog which barks," hoeru inu (barks dog). Verbs may be conveniently divided into two conjugations (Lange; Chamberlain gives three). In those of the first conjugation the stem ends in e or i and remains unchanged, in those of the second it ends in i but changes in conjugation. There are a few auxiliary and irregular verbs and many compound. There is also a desiderative form ending in -tai, really an adjective and subject to inflection. The passive voice is rarely used in Japanese, and there is no special conjugation for it. But passive and potential forms are derived by adding rareru to the stem of verbs of the first conju gation, and reru to that of verbs of the second. Similarly, causative verbs are formed by adding saseru and seru to the stem respectively. In all three the vowel a is also added to the stem in the case of verbs of the second conjugation.
There are two series of numerals, one Japanese, the other derived from Chinese. They are as follows : Japanese Chinese Englishhitotsu ichi one.
futatsu ni two.
mitsu san three.
yotsu shi four.
itsutsu go five.
mutsu roku six.
nanatsu chichi seven.
yatsu hachi eight.
kokonotsu ku nine.
to ja ten.
Poo is hyaku, i,000 is sen, and 1,000,000 is hyaku man. There are also a number of auxiliary or classifying numerals. For instance, "two books" is hon ni satsu (books two volumes), and "two horses," iima ni to (horses two heads), satsu and to being respectively the classifying numerals of the objects specified. Ordinals are formed by prefixing dai (order) to the Chinese car dinal number, by adding me or bamme to it, or by using dai and me or bamme together ; as, "the second," dai ni, ni bamme, or dai ni bamme. The place of the preposition in English is taken by the postposition. There are two kinds; postpositions proper and quasi-postpositions, the latter really substantives to which the postposition no is prefixed; e.g., "outside," no soto (exterior of ). Adverbs proper and conjunctions scarcely exist. Honorifics, whether in the shape of special prefixes, nouns, or verbs play a very important part in the language, and particular care must be exercised in their use.
The fundamental rules of syntax are briefly: (a) qualifying words precede the word qualified, (b) the object precedes the verb, (c) the verb is at the end of the sentence. There are no expressions in Japanese corresponding exactly to "Yes" or "No," and in replying, for instance, in the affirmative to questions such as "Is that so?", "Did you go?", etc., a Japanese would say "It is so" or "I went." Similarly, if the answer were in the negative he would say "It is not so," or "I did not go." The following points deserve the attention of the student : (r) long and short vowels should not be confounded, (2) the use of personal pronouns should be avoided, (3) honorifics should not be applied to himself by the person speaking, but care should be taken to apply them to superiors.