PREFACE. During the fourteen years which have elapsed since the publication of the last edition of this Dictionary, the Author has kept it constantly before him, correcting errors, improving and enlarging the definitions, and adding new words and illustra-tions, according as his time and other important engagements allowed him. But owing to the amazing changes and rapid advancement of the Japanese in every department, he has found it difficult to keep pace with the corresponding advance of the language in the increase of its vocabulary. He has endeavored, however, to collect these words, examine, classify and define them. Many, no doubt, have escaped his notice. Still there is an addition of more than ten thousand words to the Japanese and English hart. He might have increased this number by almost as many more, had he thought proper to insert the purely technical terms be-longing to the various branches of medicine, chemistry, botany, etc., etc., each of which should have a separate work especially devoted to it. He had to draw a line somewhere, and has limited himself to such words only as are in popular and general use. Most of these words are of Chinese derivation. He has a1so inserted all the archaic and now obsolete terms found in the Kojiki, Manyoshu, and the Monogataris which have come under his notice, hoping thereby to aid those who may desire to read these ancient books. To distinguish these words lie has marked them with a dagger (1 ). Though somewhat against his own judgment, but with an earnest desire to further the cause of the Romajikwai, lie has altered to some extent the method of transliteration which lie had adopted in the previous edition of this work, so as to conform to that which has been adopted by this society. These alterations are few and are fully explained in the Introduction. The English and Japanese part he has also carefully revised, corrected and considerably enlarged.
With all his care anc:. effort the author finds typographical errors have passed here and there undetected, especially among the Chinese characters. They are not many, however, and he ccmforts himself with the reflection that it is not human to be perfect, nor to produce a work in which a critical eye can detect no flaw. The Author commits his work to the kind forbearance of the public. Advancing age admonishes him that this must be his last contribution to lexicography. He has done his best under the circumstances. He has laid the foundation upon which others may build a more complete and finished structure ; and he is thankful that so much of the work has been given him to do. The Author cannot lake his leave without thanking his many friends who have encouraged him and sympathized with him in his work ; especially Rev. 0. H. Gulick of Kobe, and W. I'd. Whitney, M.D., Interpreter to the U. S. Legation, who have kindly rendered him no little aid. But above all others is he indebted to Mr. Takahashi Goro, whose assistance throughout has been invaluable. J. C. H. Yokohama, June, 1866,
INTRODUCTION CHINESE WRITTEN LANGUAGE. There is but little doubt that, previous to the study of the Chinese written language, and the introduction of Chinese literature into Japan, the Japanese possessed no written language or characters of their own. According to Japanese history, the first teacher of Chinese was ATOGI (阿屠岐), a son of the King of Corea, who cane on an Embassy to the Court of Japan in the 15th year of the Emperor OjiN, about A.D. 286. He remained but one year, and at his instigation, WANI (王仁) was invited to Japan from Corea to teach Chinese. He arrived the following year. About the nationality of Warn there is some dispute; but the best authorities regard him as a Corean, others as a Chinese from the kingdom of Go (呉), one of the three states which, from A.D. 222 to 280, included in its territory part of Fokien and most of the eastern provinces of China. It was thus that what is called the Go-on (呉音) was brought to Japan. From this time the Chinese classics, and literature in all its branches, gradually became the study of the higher classes,-of the nobles, military class, priests, and physicians,-and extended more or less even among the farmers and merchants. Education consisted in learning how to read and write Chinese. This has had more influence than all others in directing and shaping the development and civilization of a people, peculiarly impressible, inquisitive, and ready to imitate and adopt whatever may conduce to their own aggrandizement. Thus from China were derived the knowledge of agriculture, manufactures, the arts, religion, philosophy, ethics, medicine and science generally. The Chinese written language, without affecting at all the grammatical structure of the native language, has been a vast treasury from which to draw and enrich it with words in every branch of knowledge. Perhaps the great advantage of having such materials at hand from which to form new combinations was never moreapparent than at the present time, when the study of western science and institu-tions, necessitating a new and copious nomenclature and technology, has been entered upon with such .avidity. The Chinese ideographs have been found equal to the need. With the aid of these, a new nomenclature in all departments of knowledge is rapidly for ning, quite as expressive as appropriate as the words which have been introduced into the English language from the Greek and Latin, to which languages, in their influence upon the Angle-Saxon and English mind and philosophy, the Chinese -written language bears a wonderful resemblance. Only the highest stele and smallest part of Japanese literature is written in pure Chinese. The largest part, and that intended for the general reader, is written in a mixture of Chinese and Japanese Kana, called Kana-majiri, in which a large proportion of word;, the agglutinating particles, and grammatical structure, are purely Japanese. Be_ow this, there is yet a style of literature written in the Hira-kana, without any, or a very slight mixture of Chinese. The Chinese spoken. language has never been current in Japan. But in the language of the learned classes and officials, words derived from the Chinese abound; and from a false affects ion of learning the preference is generally given to such words, even when, in their own more beautiful native tongue, synonymous words exist. The native Japanese language seems to be spoken with greater purity by the women than by any other class. KAN-ON. If the Japanese had confined themselves to one system of phonetics for the Chinese characters, the study of the language would have been much simplified, at least to the foreigner. I -at, besides the Go-on mentioned above, and after it bad been current some 320 years, another system called the Kan-on (漢音) was introduced in the 15th year of the reign of the Emperor Izuiko, about A.D. 605, by some five Japanese students who had spent a year at (Cho-an) (長安), the seat of government of the Zui dynasty, now Singan, the capital of the province of Shensi. The Kan-on has gradnally supplanted the Go-on, bring now, for the most part, used by the literary and official classes. The Go-on is still used by the Buddhist, and is the most current pronuneciation of Chinese words in the common colloquial. Neither system, however, has beet exclusively used to the rejection of the other; long custom and usage seams to have settled and restricted their use to particular words. In the formation of new words .and scientific terminology, the Kan-on is now exclusively used. There is still another and more recent system of sounds for the Chinese characters, called the To-on (唐音), which resembles the present Mandarin sounds ; but this is little used.
JAPANESE SYLLABLES. The Chinese characters in their entirety were the first symbols employed by the Japanese in writing their native tongue. These characters were used phone-tically, each standing for the sound of a Japanese syllable, sometimes for a word. In this way it happened that the Japanese letters, instead of an alphabetic, took a syllabic form. The most ancient books, as the Kojiki (古事記). which dates from A.D. 711, and the Manyoshu(萬葉集), some fifty years after, were written in this way. The first effort to do away with these cumbersome characters, and simplify their letters, gave rise to the Kana, a contraction of Kari-na (假名), signifying burrowed names. The Kata-kana (片假字), or side letters, are the oldest and most simple. They are said to have been invented by Kiwi DAishi, a man of high rank in the Court of the Emperor KoJiN, who died A.D. 776. They are derived from the Chinese characters, where, instead of the whole, only a part of the character is used ; as, 4 from W, n from E, is from lu. Sometimes the whole character is used ; as, 1- for ー'. But these characters being separated, and not admitting of being run into each other as a grass hand, they have been little used, except in dictionaries, books intended for the learned, or to spell foreign names. The Hira-kaana (平假字), or plain letters, are also Chinese characters written in a running or grass hand, and more or less contracted. Thus, ゆ is the grass hand of 由, あ of 安, を of 遠. They are said to have been invented by Kukai, a Buddhist priest, better known by his posthumous name of Kobodaishi, who died in the 2nd year of the reign of the Emperor JIMMYO, A.D. 835. This man is also said to have arranged the syllables in their present order of i, ro, ha, forming them into a stanza of poetry. If the Japanese had confined themselves to a certain number of fixed symbols to represent their syllables, the labor of acquiring a knowledge of their written language would have been comparatively easy ; but having such a wide field in the Chinese ideographs from which to select, they have multiplied these symbols, making that which should be simple and plain, complex and confusing, to the great annoyance and trouble of all learners, and not unfrequently even perplexing them-selves. A great change, however, in this respect has been produced by the use of movable metallic types in printing and the abandonment of the old method of printing on blocks. The forms of the Iiiragana syllables have consequently been reduced to two or three varieties.
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