Published papers

PhD Thesis

1886 saw the Ministry of Education introduce a novel policy for elementary school reading books, in order to give a more sophisticated introduction to the hiragana graphemes. This was to divide the introduction into two stages: first, irohagana, a hiragana grapheme set particular to the Iroha-uta copybook, was to be learnt, and other graphemes would be introduced later. Within a few years, reading books produced by private sectors came to follow the same order. This previously unnoticed policy became clear through a closer inspection of the hiragana graphemes in reading books around that year. The two-stage introduction first appeared in ministry's reference reading books, Introduction to Reading and Writing (1 vol., 1886, Yomikaki Nyumon) and Reading Books for Ordinary Elementary School (7 vols., 1887, Jinjo Shogaku Tokuhon). It is clear that not all private sectors spontaneously enacted the phased introduction, as shown by the fact that even after 1886, some reading books contained no stages and consequently some received adverse comments in an authorisation review, which took effect in 1886. The fact that these comments were never reflected in updates to the textbooks shows why it took some years before the policy was fully adopted: the lack of support for substantive enactments and the passive direction of the authorisation reviews made it difficult to enforce. Ultimately, however, the success of the policy lead to the 1900 hiragana grapheme reformation, making it the beginning of a fourteen year-long process of standardising the hiragana graphemes.

[はじめに] 本稿では、近代活字鋳造・販売業者(以下、総称して活字業者と言うことがある)の用意していた平仮名活字について、業者の印字見本をたよりに整理する。近代活版印刷によって、明治期以降、日本語の表記体系が変容したとしばしば言われる。しかしながら、活版印刷はあくまで道具に過ぎない。また、活版印刷はすでに欧洲・中国において大枠を完成させてから輸入されたために、技術的問題よりも史的要因に左右される面も少なくない。それゆえに、道具としての活字の表現力と、それがどう使われたかの二点を把握することなく、活版印刷の具体的な影響は明らかにし得ない。本稿では、活字の表現力について、平仮名字体の観点から考えたい。

This essay will address differences in orientation in early Japanese lexicography withregard to the Japanese rendering of definitions in a Chinese language dictionary. Most,if not all,premodern Japanese dictionaries took the form of rendering the headword in Chinese charactersand Chinese words,while also offering a Japanese reading. This does not, however, entail thatearly Japanese lexicography was entirely oriented to the Chinese language:in fact,a representativeportion of Japanese oriented language dictionaries were produced. Japanese readings inJapanese language dictionaries explain the Japanese use of the headword. Alternatively,Chinese-Japanese dictionaries, including Chinese character dictionaries, explain the Chinese usein the Japanese language. By virtue of this fact,they are not distinctive in their form. This essayattempts to distinguish which orientation a dictionary inclines to by focusing on its rendering ofdefinitions of earlier Chinese dictionaries. Here,we will examine the nature of Japanese renditionsin a Japanese dictionary,Ruiju myogi sho 類聚名義抄, cited from the Chinese characterdictionary Tenrei bansho meigi 篆隷万象名義. Our findings suggest that Japanese renditionsillustrate Chinese use rather than Japanese use, which accounts for differences in the Japanesereadings and compiling strategies of the dictionaries.