Language, Nation, Race: Linguistic Reform in Meiji Japan (1868–1912)

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Atsuko Ueda
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Studies ◽  
National Language ◽  
Japanese Language ◽  
Meiji Japan ◽  
Language Reform ◽  
Meiji Period ◽  
Specific Focus

Language, Nation, Race explores the various language reforms at the onset of Japanese modernity, a time when a “national language” (kokugo) was produced to standardize Japanese. Faced with the threat of Western colonialism, Meiji intellectuals proposed various reforms to standardize the Japanese language in order to quickly educate the illiterate masses. This book liberates these language reforms from the predetermined category of the “nation,” for such a notion had yet to exist as a clear telos to which the reforms aspired. Atsuko Ueda draws on, while critically intervening in, the vast scholarship of language reform that engaged with numerous works of postcolonial and cultural studies. She examines the first two decades of the Meiji period, with specific focus on the issue of race, contending that no analysis of imperialism or nationalism is possible without it.

Reviewing reform

2019 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-73
Author(s):  
Basil Cahusac de Caux
Keyword(s):  
Large Body ◽  
Policy Formulation ◽  
National Language ◽  
Japanese Language ◽  
Language Reform ◽  
Language Problems ◽  
Written Form ◽  
History Of ◽  
Development Of Language ◽  
And Function

Abstract The transformation of the contemporary Japanese writing system stemmed from the simultaneous political and cultural problematizing of so-called kokugo (national language) and kokuji (national script). Debates surrounding the structure and function of the written form of Japanese played an ongoing role in Japanese language reform proposals and policy planning initiated between the mid-1860s and early 1990s. Despite the long history of the debates and the large body of literature treating them, a comprehensive review of the scholarship dealing with the various dimensions of Japanese script reform is currently unavailable. This article provides a detailed overview and analysis of studies of the Japanese script reform debates that utilise contemporary works describing the origins and development of language problems and language rights issues. The article subsequently considers the possibilities for future inquiries involving transnational and post-national aspects of script reform, whilst reflecting on the conspicuously gendered and ethnic dimensions of contemporary Japanese language policy-formulation itself.

scholarly journals A Meiji-kori japán nyelv forrásai

2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (2018/1) ◽  
Author(s):  
András Zsigmond Albeker
Keyword(s):  
Japanese Language ◽  
Congressional Record ◽  
Meiji Period ◽  
Linguistic Research ◽  
Meiji Era ◽  
Word Forms ◽  
Linguistic Material

While the stenographic records of the Meiji era have been analyzed in thecontext of linguistic research into the unification of the spoken and writtenlanguage (gembun icchi 言文一致), vocabulary and grammar, there is somedebate as to the value of these records. This paper aims to clarify what kinds of difference occurred in the process of translating and typing the shorthand symbols into magazines andnewspapers. It has become clear that the stenographed speeches published in newspapers and magazines were not faithful reproductions of the original texts. Tomake it easier for the reader to understand, mistakes were rectified in the transcribing process, words and word forms were corrected by the stenographer and/or the editor. It seems that- as linguistic material - the value of a stenographic record ishigher than that of a shorthand book. However, very few shorthand manuscripts have so far been confirmed and in genre they are closer to stenographed speeches. We can assume that if a shorthand manuscript such as rakugo落語 or the Imperial Congressional Record were to be discovered, our understanding of the Meiji period Japanese language would be further enhanced.

From Custom to Right: The Politicization of the Village in Early Meiji Japan

1989 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
pp. 729-748 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. William Steele
Keyword(s):  
Political Development ◽  
Local Politics ◽  
Local Autonomy ◽  
Political Leaders ◽  
Meiji Japan ◽  
National Assembly ◽  
Meiji Period ◽  
The Creation ◽  
The Village

In 1874 Itagaki Taisuke and other critics of the newly established Meiji government submitted a petition demanding a popularly elected national assembly. This is said to be the origin of the Liberty and People's Rights Movement (jiyū minken undō). Around the same time a number of local political leaders intensified their campaign for the creation of village assemblies. Although the demand for local autonomy in the early Meiji period was both deep-felt and widespread, only a few scholars, notably Neil Waters, have diverted their attention from Itagaki and other political activists and thinkers at the center. An examination of Meiji local politics is nonetheless essential to understand Japan's modern political development.

The Japanese Encounter with and Appropriation of Western Philosophy

2015 ◽  
pp. 332-364
Author(s):  
John C. Maraldo
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Japanese Language ◽  
Western Philosophy ◽  
Meiji Period ◽  
Intellectual Traditions ◽  
Nishida Kitaro ◽  
Ongoing Formation

The appropriation of Western philosophy in Japan in the Meiji Period came about through a transformation of the Japanese language. It occasioned a new way of articulating thought that allowed Japanese to make philosophy their own, a discipline proper to the ongoing formation of their culture. This process helped redefine Japan’s past intellectual traditions, interpreting them in the light of Western philosophical concepts and problems. “Enlightenment” Scholars like Nishi Amane, Fukuzawa Yukichi, and Katō Hiroyuki created neologisms, altered traditional styles of writing, and introduced concepts new to Japanese tradition. Later philosophers like Inoue Tetsujirō and Inoue Enryō adapted European philosophical categories to recast old traditions and renew them as relevant for a modernized Japan. In their day, much of their terminology and argumentation was exotic and enigmatic, even while their style appears archaic today. A recognizably twentieth-century philosophical idiom had to wait for thinkers like Ōnishi Hajime and Nishida Kitarō.

The Conceptual Formation of the Category “Religion” in Modern Japan: Religion, State, Shintō

2012 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 226-245 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jun’ichi Isomae
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
English Word ◽  
Science And Religion ◽  
The State ◽  
Japanese Language ◽  
The West ◽  
Meiji Period ◽  
Religious Issues ◽  
Japanese Word

Abstract The Japanese word shūkyō was originally a coined word occurring in Chinese Buddhist dictionaries, but it became used as the translation for the English word “religion” when the English word was transmitted to Japan from the West after the opening of the country at the end of the nineteenth century. At that time, a new kind of Japanese language treating Shintō and Buddhism as ‘religions’ was born, with Christianity forming the axis, but while still intertwined with Buddhism and Shintō. Bearing in mind the Protestant influence on acculturation processes in Japan at the beginning of the Meiji period, this paper aims to offer an overview of how the term “religion” became embedded in Japan and how the Meiji government dealt with the competition of Shintō against Christianity and Buddhism. In that context it touches upon crucial historical and social developments such as the clash between science and religion of the late 1870s and the opposition between the state and religion in the early 1890s, together with well-known incidents such as the Uchimura Kanzō affair. The paper focuses in particular on the period from the end of the early modern Edo regime through the end of the Meiji period and analyzes how views of religious issues underwent transition within Japan.

Language and Politics: Turkish Language Reform

1964 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 191-204 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frank Tachau
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Close Relation ◽  
National Language ◽  
George Orwell ◽  
Language Reform ◽  
National Community ◽  
Language And Politics ◽  
Turkish Language ◽  
New Religion

The close relation between language and politics was noted by George Orwell many years ago. Undoubtedly, no other political phenomenon brings this relationship more sharply into focus than that of nationalism.“In our time, the national community has assumed paramount power,” notes Frederick Hertz. Along with this development, “the national language has become one of the idols of a new religion. All nations regard it as a symbol of their independence and honour, as the supreme expression of their personality, and they esteem its exclusive domination within their national territory more highly than obvious spiritual and material advantages.” Indeed, language has been widely (though in some cases erroneously) accepted as one of the prime indicators of national identity.

scholarly journals A Genealogy of Literal Translation in Modern Japan

2010 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 29-55 ◽  
Author(s):  
Akira Mizuno
Keyword(s):  
Information Structure ◽  
Significant Contribution ◽  
Japanese Language ◽  
Source Text ◽  
Dominant Position ◽  
Meiji Period ◽  
Literal Translation ◽  
Translation Strategy ◽  
Modern Japan

In modern Japan, especially in the Meiji period (1868-1912), translations occupied a dominant position in the literary polysystem. This paper claims that, since the Meiji period, “competing translational norms” have existed in the Japanese literary polysystem, which is to say that “literal” (adequate) and “free” (acceptable) translations have existed in parallel, vying for superior status. Moreover, this paper traces the literalist tradition in modern Japan. Though “literal” translation has been widely criticized, the styles and expressions it created have made a significant contribution to the founding and development of the modern Japanese language and its literature. Among the arguments in favor of literal translation, Iwano Homei’s literal translation strategy—the so-called “straight translation”—had different features than the others, and thus the potential to produce translations that maintain the cohesion, coherence, information structure and illocutionary effects of the source text.

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