Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 11.djvu/162

* JAPANESE LANGUAGE. 142 JAPANESE LITERATURE. used, therefore, sometimes of the present and even of the tuturc. The future denotes uncer- tainty, and is used, therefore, sometimes of the present and even of the past. The i)asl tense is used in its ordinary sense of past Lime when the emphasis is upon the tense, but often a sec- ond verb is introduced in the present showing that it is the dominant point of view, as if one shouUl say 'Is it that you liave been in Russia?' The moods dill'er trom our own. There is no infinitive, and there are forms not found in our ordinary conjujr-itions, coneossivc, dcsiderative, hypothetical, and the like, with negative forms corresponding throughout. The terminations are other verbs, fragments of verbs, or postpositions. Most adjectives are conjugated like Aerbs, and the adverbs are adjectives with a certain termi- nation. Adjectives are in the positive degree only, though sometimes comparison is indicated by a word corresponding to "than,' and tile superlative by various words signifying 'most.' The lack of distinctions of persons is made good in part by the use of honorific prefixes, sullixes, and words which themselves convey difTercnces in the degree of estimation in which persons and things are held. Conjunctions are in part postpositions, and in part thpy are supplied through inflections of the verb. Two sets of numerals arc empluycd, the Chinese and the native .fapanese.but the latter ex- tend only to ten. Auxiliary nunilicrs are common. Similar numerals are >ised sparingly in Knglish, as sheets of paper, blades of grass. head of cattle and the like, but the .Japanese use such expressions lavishly, certain ones applying to whole classes of objects, so many long, round ones, so many flat ones, and as the usage is fixed a mistake in a nu- meral produces, as indeed in English, a ludicrous efTect. In pronunciation the vowel sounds closely resemble the Italian, and the consonants can be represented by the English letters, I, q, v, and x being wanting. In diphthongs each vowelretains its separate value. In many instances 'clear' con- sonants, i.e. surds, are changed to 'miuldled,' i.e. sonants. Syllables are open, and accent is so slight that it may be disregarded. The chief rule of SATitax is that the qualifying word or clause preeedes the word or clause qualified. The verb is last in the sentence, and as a sentence is sup- posed to contain a complete statement, however complicated, the mind is often held long in sus- pense. Most .affirmations are without true sub- jects, active verbs being employed often without a subject, the tendency being to remark 'with reference to' somebody or something. It follows that the distinction between active and passive voices and verbs is not precisely the same as in other languages. The Spoken" axd VTkittex Forms. The lan- guage differs in grammatical forms and in vocab- iilaiy in its spoken and written forms, making a twofold series of grammars and dictionaries neces- sary. In the written language there are also marked distinctions, the archaic, classical, Sinico- Japanese. epistolary, etc. The oldest sjiecimens we have go hack to the eighth century A,n., but they are unintelligible to all but special students.' At a still earlier period the Cliinese language had already influenced the Japanese, and many Chinese words are imbedded in the .Japan- ese, disguised and naturalized. But from the ninth centiry onward Chinese has been the lan- guage of the learned, taking the place of I^atin in Europe. The talk of educated men is unin- telligible to Ihe common people, so full is it of Chinese words and phrases. In our day the use of Chinese has increased, sinc-e its monosyllables oiler unequaled facilities for the coinage of scientific terms, and the whole terminology of modern science has been translated into Chinese compounds by the Japanese. The result is mysti- fying to a Chinaman, because of the unfamiliar use and collocation of the ideographs, as w<dl as from ilie retention of the order of the .lapancse sentence and its grammatical structure in the oidinary written styles. The pronunciation, too, of Chinese in .Japan is traditional, derived from teachers who spoke dialects which have ceased to exist in China. Unfortunately, there are two traditions and both in use, complicating a situa- ti<m which has inherent diffictilties enough. As the Japanese had no writing previous to the introduction of Chinese, the Chinese ideogra|ihs are used plionelically. as well as for the expres- sion of ideas. Thus in .Jajian names are written with the ideographs without regard to the mean- ing implied, and originally pure .Japanese litera- ture was thus written, certain ideographs being associated with definite sounds. But the result was cumbersome in the extreme, the lf)ng, poly- syllabic Japanese words not lending themselves to this treatment. In course of time the ideographs were abbreviated aiul finalh' took on the form of the kaiia, the syllabary. It is in two forms, the katakaim and the luragana, the former used chiefiv for names. The kataliaiia are fashioned out of the square or book form of Chinese charac- ters, the liiniiiaon, from the cursive. The kana, for mnemonic purposes, is arranged in two orders, one composing a verse of Buddhist poetry written by Kdbo Daishi (q.v.) which sets forth the vanity and luevity of life, and the other the table of 'fifty sounds,' though there are really but forty- seven. For convenience in transliterating Chi- nese, however, a letter representing n has l)een added. All purely Japane--e words and syllables end with a vowel sound. The kniui is thus used as an alphabet, representing .syllables instead of consonants and vowels. By the change of surds to sonants in certain instances, and by the distinction of long and short vowels, the number of syllables is considerably increased, BiRMOoiiAniY, Chamberlain, Tlnndhook of roUoqukd .fapanese (Tokio, ISSS) : id.. The Japanese Languarje (Tokio. 1887) ; Aston, Gram- mar of the Japanese Written Lantjiiage (Yoko- hama, 187") ; id,, Grammar of the Japanese fipoken Lanrjuarie (Yokohama, 1888) ; Imhrie, Ilandbook of EnfiUsh-Japanese Efymoloffn (To- kio, 1889) ; Gubbins, Dictionary of Chinese- Japanese Words (,"? vols., London, 1889) ; Satow and Masakata, EnqJish-Japancse Dictionary of the f^pnkcn l.anriuofje (2d ed., I^ondim, 1879) ; Hepburn, Japaitesc-Enrjiish and EnrjUshJapanese Dictionary (London, 1SS8). JAPANESE LITERATURE, The literature of Japan falls into three groups correspond- ing to three periods in the nation's histcu'y. The first represents primitive Japan still feeling foreign influence but slightly. The literature is in arcliaic .Japanese, though already Chinese words and marks of Chinese civilization may be de- tected. The traditions, hymns, and prayers of Shin- to, or 'the V;y of the r^O(Ls,'eame fromimmemoiial antiquity by oral tradition, and were reduced to written form in the beginning of the eighth cen- tury A.D. The Ko-ji-li. Record of Ancient Mat-