Modernization of Japanese Language

Preface

Japan is often said to be the country of the culture of translation.Since the beginning of its history, Japanese culture has been that of translation. Once it was the translation from Chinese civilization, and after modern ages it has been the translation from Western civilization. In ancient times, the main instrument for translation was Chinese characters, which were also in modern ages, used for translation from Western civilization.

This book deals with the formation of modern Japanese culture through language, in particular the linguistic function of Chinese characters in Japanese, which is also called Sino-Japanese, and is called kanji (漢字) in Japanese. The role played by Chinese characters for the modernization of a nation, at which people might wonder, is however of quite importance. Looking at the matter from another viewpoint, the success of modernization in so called NIES in recent years is, I believe, because in these areas Chinese characters have been used. 'Translating word' which have hardly used in English is a key term in this book, which seems to show the fundamental character of 'the culture of translation'. Translating word means the word coined for translation, or mainly used for translation, these are just dealt with in this book. Many of them are made of two Chinese characters, namely kanji.

Kanji in Japan has been used mixing with traditional native Japanese, in this mixing structure of language kanji has played the role of accepting new meanings, and in particular foreign cultures. This function of kanji is called, in my way of expression, 'cassette effect',which I explain in this book. The function of this effect has its advantage and defect, which I may have been apt to stress the latter, because I would rather reflect on our modern history in this book.

Cassette effect is essentially not only in Japanese, but also to some extent in many languages in general, in languages using Chinese characters particularly, and still more, also in the modern Western languages, Greek and Latin words have played, I believe, in some cases the role similar to kanji in Japanese.

Preface

YANABU Akira