[132]
a ka sa ta na ha ma ya ra wa
i ki shi chi ni hi mi (y)i ri (w)i
u ku su tsu nu fu mu yu ru (w)u
e ke se te ne he me (y)e re (w)e
o ko so to no ho mo yo ro wo
Those in italics are duplicates; and (w)i and (w)e, though written with different characters from i and e, have practically the same pronunciation.
It will be seen that both of these arrangements are more or less artificial; at least, they appear to be mnemonic contrivances, and are certainly very convenient, because they are flexible. For instance, the demands of modern times and European languages for a v sound has led the Japanese to represent it by the simple device of attaching the common diacritical mark to the w series. By a similar device they might utilize the r series for l and the s series for th!
The Japanese characters, not difficult or complex in formation, are modifications and simplifications of Chinese ideographs. There had been in Japan no written language until after the introduction of Chinese civilization in the sixth century A. D., when Chinese words and characters were absorbed by the wholesale. Later, two systems of contracting the complex and cumbersome Chinese ideographs were invented, and are still used to some extent, indeed almost entirely by the uneducated class.
The oldest and simplest modification is called Kata-kana (side-letters), and consisted merely in taking part of a Chinese ideograph. But, as these characters were separate, and did not easily run together, they have not been used much, “except in dictionaries, books intended for the learned, or to spell foreign names.”
The next modification was a contraction of Chinese characters into a running, or grass, hand, and is therefore called Hira-gana (plain-letters). These are all that the ignorant, especially the women, can read.
But a Japanese who aspires to the smallest degree of education must be familiar with many Chinese characters; and a pupil is, in fact, instructed in that language and literature from the primary school up through the university. Some books are written entirely in Chinese, and, of course, can be read only by the best educated. But the commonest method for newspapers and books which are not intended for a limited circulation among the erudite only, is the use of a mixture of Chinese and Japanese characters, of which the root forms are Chinese, and the connectives, agglutinative particles, and grammatical endings are Japanese; this is called Kana-majiri. For even more general circulation the Chinese characters will be explained by Japanese characters at the side; this is called Kana-tsuki.
This practice of mixing the characters of the two languages leads to some variety in pronunciation. That is to say, a word written with Chinese ideographs may be read with the Japonicized Chinese pronunciation or with that of the pure Japanese word of which it is the equivalent. For instance, the Chinese characters which make up the word meaning “Japan” are usually pronounced Nippon, or Nihon, by the Japanese, but may also be read, in pure Japanese, as Hi-no-moto. It is practically the same as when we are allowed to read “etc.” either as “et cetera” or as “and-so-forth” (or “i. e.,” either as “id est” or as “that is”).
In connection with this topic of reading, we may as well touch on the elocutionary element in reading by Japanese. Their style of reading, as amusing to us as ours is to them, may be called “sing-song”: they rise and fall by monotones, and, going very rapidly without attention to the beginning or the end of a sentence, catch breath now and then by a peculiar sucking sound. They seem to make no attempt to read “with expression,” as we call it; and, when they come to study English, are a great trial for a while to the foreign teacher!
The peculiarities of Japanese syntax have been so attractively discussed by Mr. Percival Lowell,[133] that any other writer on that subject must at the outset acknowledge his indebtedness to that author. It will be unnecessary in this chapter to go into details; it will be sufficient to mention several of the points in which Japanese and English syntax are different. For instance, a Japanese noun knows no distinction (in form) of gender and number; a Japanese adjective or adverb has no terminational comparison; a Japanese verb is proof to the distinctions of number and person. In the Japanese language the connectives which correspond to our prepositions are placed after their nouns; the verbs always come last; our personal and possessive pronouns are supplanted by honorific expressions; and the definite article, the relative pronoun, and the pure temporal conjunction are lacking. To illustrate the first point, it is enough to say that a teacher once asked a young Japanese pupil, “Have you any brothers?” and received this answer: “There are four men; but they are all women.” In the question, the generic term kyōdai, which may be applied to both sexes, although strictly it should be limited to the male sex, was employed; in the reply, the generic term for “man” was used in the first clause, and the proper specification was added in the second clause. What he literally replied was this: “There are [=I have] four [such] persons; but they are all women.” And, in Japanese, “man,” whether singular, dual, or plural, whether single or married, may be simply hito; and yet the idea of “men” may also be expressed by doubling the word into hito-bito; while that of “women” is expressed by suffixing domo or tachi to onna and making onna-tachi, onna-domo.