Page:Lange-Noss - A text-book of colloquial Japanese.djvu/18

 classical grammar which have little or no application to the matter in hand. The Japanese have scarcely begun to make a serious scientific study of their own conversational language. On the other hand, of the few who are interested, some reveal their inherited prejudice against zoku-go (vulgar language) by limiting its province to the small talk of everyday life. The student cannot be too wary in accepting Japanese opinions about the colloquial. But it goes without saying that in the language actually employed by the Japanese of the present day our authoritative guide must be found.

It can no longer be said that the colloquial of Tokyo is normative. Tokyo too has its dialectical peculiarities. We shall not go far wrong if we regard as the standard the language spoken in the higher educational institutions of the Empire. There is here a constant circulation and intermingling of teachers and students from all parts of the country, and it is here that the process of crystallization is going on most rapidly. This language of the schools, which will naturally be the language of the future, is being influenced both by the literary language and by English and other foreign languages. No obstacle should be placed in the way of the gradual assimilation of any needed material from the comparatively more terse and expressive literary language. The ideal of the Gem-bun-it-сhi-kwai (gen speech, bun literature, it-chi union, kwaiassociation) necessarily involves the modification of the colloquial, which in its present condition does very well for story-telling, but for other literary purposes is rather a clumsy instrument. Again, Japanese is being modified by the influence of English much as European languages have been influenced by Latin. The student will soon perceive that the speech of a Japanese versed in English is much clearer to him than that of a Japanese of the old school, even when both are speaking to their own people. As nearly all Japanese students are learning English or some other European tongue, the inference is obvious.

The development of the language has been most rapid around the centers Kyóto and Tókyó. The most peculiar dialects are those of the northern and western extremities of Japan proper.

Thus, for instance, in Tókyó one may say. ''Watakushi ni kudasaran ka. ''(Won't you give it to me ?), while in the dialect of Satsuma this becomes. ''Atai tamawan ka. ''These dialects in many points preserve more of the classical language than the standard colloquial. For example, the people of the