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CAPITULO PRIMERO
1. LOS JAPONESES Y EL IDIOMA JAPONES
1.1.Alphabet
A little before 3,000 B.C., a system of writing was invented by the Sumerians, who inhabited the land we now call Iraq. Separate words and concepts were each given a particular sign, so that there were several thousand different signs. Naturally, such a written language was hard to learn, and those who could read and write were regarded much as we regard college professors in our own culture.
About 1,400 B.C., however, some Phoenician had a brilliant idea. Why not work out a sign for each different sound, and then build up words out of those sounds? Only about two dozen different signs would be needed, and they would suffice for any number of different words, millions if necessary. It seems a simple idea to us now, but as far as we know it was thought up only once in man’s history. All systems of signs for sounds in the entire world since seem to have been developed from that one Phoenician notion.
For their signs, the Phoenicians used some marks that were already being used to represent words. The sign for an ox (“aleph” in Phoenician) was used to represent the sound “ah”, with which the word for ox began. The word for house (“beth”) represented “b”, the word for camel (“gimel”) represented “g”, and so on. These signs became what we call “letter”.
The Greeks adopted the notion, and even the letters, modifying them somewhat. However, they distorted the names, which made no sense in Greek, anyway. “Aleph” became “alpha”, “beth” became “beta”, “gimel” became “gamma”, and so on. The Romans adopted the system, too, again with distortions, and their alphabet became the basis of our own, the familiar A, B, C......
We can call the list of letters the “A-B-C’s” and sometimes do, but it is much more common, for some reason, to use the Greek names for the letters and speak of the “alpha-beta” or alphabet.
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1.2. The Birth of a Pictographic Script
Until recently it was believed that the earliest examples of Chinese characters were those found in oracle bones used in divination rites dating back to the eighteenth century B.C. However, excavations made in China in 1986 have shown that at that time Chinese characters had already had a history of 1200 years, which means that the Chinese script first appeared almost 5000 years ago.
The earliest characters were simple pictures of the things they represented. Although all the pictorial writing systems of the world began with pictures, these were in almost all cases simplified to abstract symbols that were eventually used for their sound values, giving rise to the major alphabet systems of the world. This happened everywhere but in China, where the primary function of the characters has always been to express both meaning and sound, rather than just sound.
Typical Pictographs
The table shows examples of early character forms and their modern counterparts. The earliest characters were pictographs, which were simple pictures of things. Pictographs may be combined to form new characters, especially characters that express complex or abstract ideas. Thus 木 “tree” is combined with木 to give 林 “wood” while three trees give森 “forest”; a line added to the bottom of a tree gives本, which means “root” or “origin”; and so on.
The shapes of the characters underwent a great deal of change over the several thousand years of their history. Many calligraphic styles, character forms, and typeface styles have evolved over the years; furthermore, the character forms were simplified as a result of various language reforms in China and Japan.
1.2.1. Formation of Chinese Characters
Traditionally, Chinese characters are classified into six categories known as 六書rikusho. Introduced some 1900 years ago in the Chinese classic dictionary説文解字setsumon kaiji, these have placed a central role in Chinese lexicography. The first four categories are based on the character formation process; the last two are based on usage.
1. Pictographs (象形文字 shookei moji) are simple hieroglyphs that are rough sketches of the things they represent. Example: (modern 目moka “eye”.
2. Simple ideographs (指事文字 shiji moji) suggest the meanings of abstract ideas, such as numerals and directions. Examples: 三 san “three”.
3. Compound ideographs (会意文字 kaiji moji) consist of two or more elements each of which contributes to the meaning of the whole. Examples: 休kyuu “rest” (person人 resting under a tree木).
4. Phonetic-Ideographic Characters (形声文字 keisei moji) consist of one element that roughly expresses meaning (usually called the radical), and another element that represents sound and often also meaning. Examples: 茎 kei “item, stalk” consists of “plant” and “straight”, i.e., the straight part of a plant.
5. Derivative Characters (転注文字 tenchū moji) are characters used in an extended, derived, or figurative sense. Example: 令rei changed from its original meaning “command, order” to “person who gives orders” to “administrator, governor”.
6. Phonetic Loans (仮借文字 kashaku moji) are characters borrowed to represent words phonetically without direct relation to their original meanings, or to characters used erroneously. Example: 豆too originally referred to an ancient sacrificial vessel, but is now used in the borrowed sense of “bean”.
The great majority of characters are phonetic-ideographic (type 4 above). 民、for example, originally a picture of an eye pierced by a needle ( ), represented a slave blinded by his master to keep him from escaping, but later changed to “ignorant masses” or “people” in general. As a phonetic-ideographic element in the formation of other characters, it represents the sound min and has a basic meaning of “sightlessness” or “blindness”. For example, 民 (abbreviated to 氏) is combined with 日 “sun” to give 昏 “darkness, dusk”; 眠 “sleep” consists of an eye (目) in a state of sightlessness (民). An interesting example is 婚 “marriage”, which consists of 女 “woman” + 昏 “darkness”. According to one theory, this is because wedding ceremonies were held at night. In this way, a basic unit like民 contributes its shape, its reading, and its meaning to the formation of other characters.
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1.3. Origin of the Japanese People and Language
The author states that this post is not a definitive piece of work, but presented more to satisfy some curiosity among readers of the sci.lang.japan group. The origins of the Japanese people and language are usually difficult to trace, but this post makes a good beginning overview to the issues and periods involved. Thanks to muchan for taking the time to present this to us!
From: muchan ()
Subject: The Origin of the Japanese People & Language
Date: Mon, 23 Mar 1998 13:16:53 +0100
1.3.1. Preface
We can read the oldest written form of Japanese from the 7th century. Since that time, the Japanese language has changed, but we can see the continuity very clearly, and we can safely conclude that this is basically the same language that is spoken now on the same islands. Calling this oldest known form “Old Japanese”, this message is about the time before that, how this language was formed and where the people who spoke this language came from--about the origin and prehistory of the Japanese people and language.
Because it is about a time before the written history, studies and even many guesses in the fields of archeology, anthropology, mythology, etc., together with linguistical analysis, are also important to knowing the past.
This message does not give the definitive answer to the question, but is just to illustrate the image of prehistory that we can have from the studies that have been done up till now. Most of information here is based on the Book ‘Nihongo-no kigen’ (Origin of the Japanese Language) by Susumu Oono, Iwanami. I’d be happy to hear if there are some newer findings to replace or confirm the basic image of prehistory that I’m presenting here.
1.3.2. Legends
In Chinese classical literature, at least two texts mention the prehistory of Japan.
Wei Zhi - Dong Yi Chuan (Official history of Wei, about Eastern Strangers, /Gishi-touiden/ -- jp, or known as /Gishi-wajinden/) reports about Japanese in AD 3c. Beside a description of the female governor and the tattooed faces of men, there is a part that says, “When asked, everyone answered they were descendants of TaiBo of Wu (/taihaku/ of /Go/ -- jp )”.
Sima Qian (/Shibasen/ -- jp) wrote that Xu Fu (/Johuku/ -- jp) said to Shi Huang Di of Qin (/Shikoutei/ of /Shin/), that he was leaving for the Eastern Sea to search for a medicine for eternal life in Fenglai (/Hourai/ -- jp) islands, which the Chinese people consider to be Japan. He left with about 3000 people, but didn’t come back because he became the king there.
From these texts, still many people seem to believe Japanese is just a branch of Chinese. It’s too arrogant to ignore these texts, but too naive to believe the legend blindly...
1.3.3. Timetable
To illustrate the prehistory of Japan, I’d put two lines on the timetable. The first line comes around 400 to 300 BC. This is the time when wet rice culture and iron processing came to the Japanese Islands, and the way of life there changed. Yet an older form of the Japanese language started to be spoken from that time. I’d call this phase of the language “proto-Japanese”, which later evolved to our Old Japanese.
The second line comes around 200 to 300 AD. By this time, the transformation of people, culture, and language is almost complete, and we see the Yamato people, who will later reign over all the islands of Japan. From this time on until the 7th century, about 2/3 of Japan was under the Yamato people, who spoke Old Japanese.
The historical time between these two lines is called the Yayoi era, named from the name of place where the typical wheel-turned pottery of this time was found.
1.3.4. Pre-Rice Culture Era
Studies of archeology and anthropology suggest that there were at least three groups of people who lived in the Japanese islands before the wet rice culture came.
1.3.4.1. The Ainu People
In the Hokkaido islands and the northernmost part of Honshu, there were the Ainu people. Biological study suggests that the Ainu people are closer to the people who form European nations. Linguistically, the Ainu language has similar syntax structure to Japanese, but differs in the use of pronouns used as verbal prefixes. Some linguists consider the Ainu language as a distant family of the Finno-Ugric subgroup of Ural-Altaic language group. Some archeological findings and anthropological studies suggest that the Ainu people are probably a branch of a group of people who originally came from the North Ural mountains, and spread from Finland to Northeast Siberia between 700 BC and 700 AD. This is from the cultural & religious similarity found in old ruins, but culture can be transferred by contact of people, so the origin of Ainu people is still not known for sure.
1.3.4.2. Azuma-hito, People of the Northeast region of Japan
There still remains a sharp distinction of people, culture, language (dialect) northeast and southwest of a line across the Honshu, the Japanese main land. The line is almost identical to the southwest borders of Niigata, Nagano, and Aichi prefectures now. Northeast of this line, there lived people who probably called themselves Emchu, Enju, or Enzo as a word for man (human being). Probably this word was transformed to Emisi or Ezo in the Japanese language, which later just meant ‘northern strangers’, so the same word is used to name Hokkaido and the Ainu people a thousand years later. From this word “Ezo”, some people wonder if the Ainu people lived in half of Honshu before, but this wasn’t the case. These people had a culture with beautiful earthen vessels, which normally are called “Jomon-style vessels”. Jomon-style vessels were made in the Southern part of Japan, too, but the center of this culture was more in the north, and later, when the southern people started to use a more advanced style of vessels, these people continued to use Jomon vessels. Here we can see the continuity of the people to a later time.
Most of what are now the Hokuriku, Chubu, and Kanto regions were under the Yamato people’s control until the late 6th century. Natives of the seized land were then called ‘tori-no saezuru Aduma-hito’ or “Bird-song Easterners”, who spoke Old Japanese with strange accents. (/Adzuma/ in modern Japanese means “East”, as does the word /higashi/, but East as direction in Old Japanese was /himugashi/ “the wind to the sun”, /Aduma/ was used to refer to the region). Many males of the Aduma region were sent to Kyushu as a guard force.
From the 10th century, the Yamato people tried to seize the Northern part of Honshu, Michinoku, but here the native people, then called Ezo, maintained their autonomy until the end of the 12th century.
The origin of these people (for prehistory they are called Jomon- jin) is not well known. They seem to be a Northern branch of the ‘Mongolian’ race, and their language is more consonant oriented than the languages of their Southern neighbors. But the language they spoke before contact with the Yamato people is not known. Someone has suggested that Mt.Fuji meant “Fire Mountain” in their language, but we don’t have any evidence.
1.3.4.3. People of the Southwest Coastal Region
The rest of Japan, before the wet rice culture, was populated by people who probably came from the south by sea. Some cultural characteristics of the Japanese are thought to be from these groups of people. Males had tattoos on their faces, and there was a widespread custom of removing the canine teeth. Women’s teeth were dyed black when they married. Marriage and families followed maternal lines, the husbands visiting their wives. The young members of the society were organized into groups of same generations, etc.
Their language, though we don’t know what syntax structure it had, must have had the open vowel syllables which remain in the Japanese language today. Modern Japanese still conserve many of the words for body parts from this time.
As a conclusion, these people probably belong to the Malay-Indonesia-Polynesia group, and their closest relations are now found on some islands in Polynesia and Micronesia. I’m interested, but I don’t know where these people originated, or how they spread over the Pacific Ocean.
1.3.5. Rice Culture, Shock Wave from Korea
Here we will see about how the wet rice culture was introduced into Japanese life. It changed life and language, and surely we imagine there was a movement of people who came with rice and started to live on the Japanese islands. But before that, we’ll look around to see who near Japan had wet rice culture at that time.
1.3.5.1. The Origin of Rice, and the Mon-Khmer People
Wet rice culture is started in the area around the current border between Myanmar and China. In around 400 BC, it spread widely over the lower Yangtze region, where the Han (Chinese) people had not yet come. Here in the region, now the southern part of China (Zhejiang, Fujian, etc.), many kinds of people seem to have been living. Chinese literature of the time describes the people in this southern region as strangers, with customs like tattooing, dying and removing teeth, etc.
Among them, people called “Mon” attract our attention. The Mon people were widespread over the lower Yangtze and had their peak in about the 7th century AD. Now they are living as a minority nationality in China and Myanmar. One of 1996 issues of the Japanese edition of National Geographic had an article on visiting this people. The reporter was impressed by their having faces very similar to Japanese, and found customs similar to some commonly found in Japan, such as carrying babies on the mothers’ backs, etc. Their language, belongs to the Mon-Khmer language group. However, it is not considered to be close to Japanese, except some of the words for body parts and the system of indexing pronouns, known as ko-,so-, a-, idu(do) in Japanese. This pronoun system for distinguishing near, near(common), far, and indefinite things are common to Korean and Japanese but not in northern neighbors of Altaic languages.
1.3.5.2. Rice Moving to the Southern Part of the Korean Peninsula
It was still during the time that the Han people considered these southern parts of China as a land of strangers, so we don’t know exactly which of the people among those who were here with rice started to move out. It seems that they didn’t go directly to Japan, but settled first in the southern part of the Korean peninsula until 300 BC. The reason for their moving is unknown, but I imagine it was the time of war between countries in the ancient world of China, and people may have moved out seeking a peaceful land.