John Batchelor

“ Whatever may be thought to the contrary, on account of the remoteness of the subject from ordinary topics, no sooner does one take up the study of Ainu in real earnest than he finds that the collection of words and arranging them in the form of vocabulary has by no means been neglected. For, to say nothing of those tabulated by Japanese (the Moshiogusa to wit) , since the year 1730, when Philipp Johann von Strachlenberg of Stockholm published his Der Word- und Destliche Theil von Europa und Asia, quite a number of lists of words have appeared. ”

“ In fact, I am of opinion that they have none. Were it not for the Japanese words Tsuchi-gumo and Ko-bito I find no grounds for supposing that the Ainu would speak of a race of dwarfs at all. But foregone conclusions are always hard to kill, so that it will be asked again, “but were there not the Koropok-guru here and does not that mean the people of the Petasites [2] plant?” Well; no it does not. Koropok cannot mean Petasites: it can only be translated by “under,” “beneath,” “below.” The full name is Koropok-un-guru, “persons dwelling below,” the un being a locative particle. ”

“ In fact, the habit of looking at all actions from an active point of view is one of the characteristics of Japanese thought, as expressed in the forms of Japanese grammar. By the Ainu, on the other hand, the passive is used more continually even than in English, although the abundant use of the passive is one of the features distinguishing English from all other Aryan tongues. ”

“ This is all most interesting when viewed in the light of Ainu studies. In Ainu the verb of existence is a, an, ash, on for the singular, and for the plural. Compare also the Greek ὁν and ὃντος. Further, if, as is said to be the case the sanscrit word as originally meant “to breathe,” the similarity between it and Ainu is yet more striking, for the present-day word for “to blow” in Ainu is as or ash. ”

“ Secondly, there is the question of the ancient Japanese name Tsuchi-gumo, “Earth-spiders,” and Ko-bito, “Little people,” applied to these pit-dwellers. And besides, the Ainu themselves sometimes talk about the “little men.” But nothing of value can be made out of the appellation “Earth-spiders,” for it implies no more than what is meant by “pit-dwellers.” Ko-bito really means “little people,” “dwarfs”; but the Ainu, when speaking of these so-called “dwarfs” use the word Ko-bito, which is pure Japanese. I have never heard a real native Ainu name meaning “dwarfs” applied to them. ”

“ And, however much amid rough living, and hard study one has sometimes longed and looked for the Clue of an Ariadne to guide himself by withal, such a help has not yet been found. Nor should it be forgotten that inasmuch as this language has never been tamed and fixed by any attempt of the people themselves to produce a native literature, what little is left of it is still, as ever it was, in its natural barbaric state. ”

“ THE NOUN.
Nouns, in the Ainu language, are at the present day subject to no changes to indicate either gender, number, or case.
THE GENDER OF NOUNS.
Gender is sometimes designated by a different word; as:—
When an object has no special masculine or feminine form, as for instance Chikap, “a bird” (cock or hen) , or seta, “dog” or “bitch,” and it should be necessary to specify to which sex it belongs, the words pinne,” “male,” and matne, “female,” “are placed before it ”

“ But the Welsh for “house” is T; and the original Cornish name was Ty, Sing and Tai plural. Shuyd’s Grammar informs us, however, that in modern Cornish t has been changed to tsh thus out of ty producing tshey, “houses.” One wonders whether the Ainu word for “house” has any connection. Again in Cornish and Welsh the word for “head” (caput) is pen. In Ainu pen means the “source” or “head” of a river; “the upper part of a valley!” It also appears in penram “the chest.” The words tu for “two” and re for “three” still keep us at home. So also tumbu. Tumbu means in Ainu “an appartment in a dwelling.” ”

“ The whole Japanese language, ancient and modern, written and colloquial, is saturated with the honorific spirit. In Japanese, honorifics supply to some extent the place of personal pronouns and of verbal inflections indicating person. Ainu, on the contrary, has no honorifics unless we give that name to such ordinary expressions of politeness as occur in every language. ”

“ Kanazawa’s work is one rather of industry than of true science, and the task he set before himself is one which would naturally require a long and varied experience among the Ainu themselves and in the various Northern and Southern districts in which they have lived before being performed. It is a work rather to be dreaded than undertaken lightly.
It will be found that in this Dictionary the Ainu word has been written in Japanese Kana as well as with the Roman letters. ”

“ Refering again to the resemblance of the Ainu language to those of the Chinese type in respect of tone, it is pertinent to remark that in the matter of agglutinazation also there is a strong family likeness, only that in Ainu it is much more developed than in Chinese. Chinese is a preëminently monosyllabic tongue, for each word may be used either as a noun, verb, adverb, adjective or particle according to desire ”

“ An Ainu. The Ainu as distinguished from their neighbours the Japanese, Russians, or present kamtchatdales.
Ya-un-kontukai, n. The eagle owl (lit: the servant of the world) .
Ya-un-kotchane-guru, n. The eagle owl (lit : the mediator of the world) .
Ya-un-moshiri, n. Ainu land. The country inhabited by the Ainu.
Yaushukep, n. A spider.
Yautek, adj. and v.i. To become hard, as the ground in winter by frost. To become solid or firm. To become stiff and cramped, as the limbs of a dead person if not laid out properly. ”

“ Yet it is of interest to remark that shimma is ordinarily used in Saghalien for “to-morrow” and appears all over Yezo in the words oyashim, “the second day after to-morrow” and oyashimshinge, "the second day after to-morrow.” Or again, in the Saru district the ordinary word for “father” is michi and for “mother,” habo. But in some villages in the Mukawa district, and not so much as ten English miles away from Piratori, michi stands for “mother,” and habo for “father”! ”

“ Now, I must remark at the outset that I am one of those who has quite abandoned the idea of a race of men existing in Yezo anterior to the Ainu. I frankly admit that I formerly acquiesced in the ordinary belief in the existence of such a people in the ages gone by. The assertions of those who were here many years before me; the assurances given me by the Japanese ”

“ Whilst studying the subject presented in this volume, the Author has been very much struck at times by the great similarity found to exist between certain Ainu and Hebrew words. And he has accordingly wondered whether or no there can be any real family connection between them. No doubt one could make no greater mistake in such a matter as this than to rely too much on mere sound. But the comparison of the words given below shows such a peculiar resemblance that it seems too much to conclude, without proof, that all is pure accident. ”

“ A transitive or verbalizing force is conveyed by the prefix e, as pirika, “good;” e-pirika, “to be good to,” i.e., generally, “to benefit oneself”; mik “to bark,” “e-mik,” to bark at; a-e-mik, “to be barked at.” The signification of verbs is sometimes intensified by means of the prefix i, as nu, “to hear;” i-nu, “to listen.” All this is completely foreign to the Japanese grammatical system, which denotes grammatical relations by means of suffixes exclusively.
(4) The Ainu passive has been mentioned incidentally under the preceding heading. ”

“ People wonder why students of language have not succeeded in establishing more than three families of speech—or rather two, for the Turanian can hardly be called a family, in the strict sense of that word, till it has been fully proved that Chinese forms the centre of the two Turanian branches, the North Turanian on one side, and the South Turanian on the other ”

“ As regards Japanese, in the year 1868 Mr. Edward Harper Parker of China wrote a paper on the relationship of Chinese with ancient Japanese, the object of which was to show “before Chinese was imported into Japanese, (1) directly, and (2) indirectly, through Corea—say before A. D. 1—the Japanese spoke a language the great majority of words in which came from the same language-stock as Chinese.” [1] And from anything appearing to the contrary be seems to have pretty well established his point. ”

“ Sixteen years have elapsed since the publication of the compiler's last Ainu Dictionary, and during that period of time he has had the work constantly before him correcting and enlarging it. It was not his original intention to print a new dictionary and the work of revision was only done by way of recreation and for the purposes of his private work as a Missionary among the Ainu. ”

“ There are in many village in Yozo, more formerly than now, quite a number of people who speak their words with a slight tonic accent as though the language was originally connected with Chinese or some kindred tongue. ”

“ It has been thought by many that there was a race of men inhabiting, not only Yezo but also Japan Proper, before the Ainu came; and that just as the Japanese have displaced the Ainu, so the Ainu drove out and succeeded the race preceding themselves. This was a theory I myself formerly accepted—but wholly upon trust like so many others. Laterly, however, I have paid special attention to this subject the result being a little brochure entitled The Koropok-guru or Pit-dwellers of North Japan, a rivision of which I now proceed to append, by way of preface to the Names of Places. ”

“ The number of the noun is, in the case of animals, generally indicated by the context or verb, and is therefore mostly left unexpressed by any addition to the noun. Thus, aiai, “baby” or “babies”; ainu, “man” or “men.” However, when it is necessary to express plurality utara, utare, or utari is used. e.g.
[The word utara is analyzed thus—u a plural prefix meaning “mutual”; tara, “appendages.” Hence utara is really “comrades.”] ”

“ At the present time, however, the tones are being lost and a Russian sound given to many of the consonants.
But to mention Yezo and Saghalien vocabulary. There is also a marked difference in the use of words here. Thus in Yezo the word for “sun” is chup, while in Saghallen it is tombe. Tombe is a compound word meaning in Yezo Ainu “the shiner.” Further, in Yezo the ordinary word for “fire” is abe; in Saghalien it is unchi, fuji, unji, hunji or funchi, according to the taste of the speaker, But in Yezo Ainu—unchi, huchi, unji or fuji is only applied to “fire” when it is being worshipped. ”

“ No doubt the two races are quite distinct in so far as physical aspect is concerned, allowing of course for that admixture which has been going on from time immemorial through marriage and concubinage. The Ainu have never indeed regarded the Japanese as of the same stock as themselves. ”

“ Chamberlain always wrote Aino but I have taken the liberty of changing the spelling into Ainu (which means “man”) wherever I have quoted him in this book so as to bring it into uniformity with the rest of this Grammar; for the people always speak of themselves as Ainu not Aino. Aino is an old Japanese way of calling this race. Dobrotvorsky also notes that the word Aino is a corruption of Ainu which he defines as “man.” With regard to this it is interesting to remark that the Eskimo call themselves innuit, “man” ”

“ But allowing for the sake of argument that Koropok-guru did mean “people under the Petasites” even that would not dwarf them in the least. I myself stand nearly 5 ft. 8 and have scores of times not only walked but also ridden on pony back among the leaf-stalks of the Petasites without touching the blades. I wonder how big the ancient Japanese and Ainu must have been! ”

“ It is also interesting to remark in this connection that the Ainu distinguish themselves from the Mongolian and Malay type of the human race by calling the latter Oyashikpuikotcha utara, “persons having a different class of eye-socket.” In speaking of men of their own race and cast of feature they say Shineshikpuikotcha utara, “people of the same eye-socket.” ”

“ What is it, I wonder!
............But iyepok-o is an adjective of the singular number and of the objective case meaning in plain English “bearing the hatred of others,” [2] while iyepokba guru is a noun plural of the person and singular of the object meaning “one who is hated by others.” ”