Joseph Edkins

“ Poets, historians and philosophers have all of them owed not a little to the languages they used. Greatness in literature is impossible to those who have not been born to the use of an elevated language. Hence all the Japanese have attained they owe to the assiduous cultivation of borrowed literature. Unfortunately when they adopted the Chinese writing and books they made no improvement in the native syntax, and after 1600 years the laws of the collocation of words are as objectionable as they were in the infancy of the language. ”

“ There has been none of that boldness in innovation which might have modified the grammar, shortened the words in the native vocabulary, struck out much of the painfully extensive honorific element, and revolutionized the syntax.
We had in the Anglo Saxon a very good basis for our living English tongue. But before A.D. 1,300 it was practically impossible for great writers to achieve an immortality. ”

“ The government has great power on account of the submissiveness of the people. In China the improvement of the native language by foreign educators is utterly impracticable. It is not so in Japan. The institutions of the country are in the hands of the Government. The gradual abandonment of a Chinese education by the Japanese would open their minds to a true philosophy, and allow of a much more useful education being imparted to the youth of both sexes than that which they now receive. ”

“ By this time the whole nation would have been accustomed to freedom in the place of the verb and of the case marks. There would then be a better prospect of progress in the formation of a good native literature.
The introduction of English words into the Japanese language should also by all means be encouraged. It is not an opprobrium to a vocabulary to be rich in words, derived from various sources. Poverty in a vocabulary indicates poverty in ideas. Our English words are instinct with the life of modern science, art, and learning. ”

“ It is an instance of a noteworthy fact, viz, that the grammar of the Tartar languages is more advanced than that of Japan, and possesses a verb tree more like that of European grammar. All languages are, in a state of transition from one state to another, guided by the principles which are peculiar to them. It is possible for them to be improved by the adoption of new principles. Those who have the control of education and literature wield a power which should always he used for the progressive improvement of languages. ”

“ Grammar is the work of the human mind, operating systematically on linguistic elements within its reach in an instinctive and unconscious manner. One language shews some special process better then others. Take the expression in Hepburn’s Dictionary, “hanashi wo kiki ni itta,” he has gone to hear what is said, “kiki”, hear, with the suffix “ni”, to, is a verb in the supine in a crude state, where the suffix is still disconnected from the verb to which in favourable circumstances it may subsequently become indissolubly allied. The book Mongol, has a true supine ending in “re.” ”

“ He cannot alter the position of the nominative or objective noun or of the transitive verb. So it is also in Japanese. For the human mind to resign itself to the control of so inconvenient a law is a decisive proof of intellectual inferiority. It does not belong to the speech of nations with creative genius. There can be no just or well-founded hesitation in calling the Japanese a sister language to the Turkish, Mongol and Manchu when it is remembered that this and similar laws reign in the domain of its syntax. ”

“ Instead of abandoning the native language in favour of English, it should be enriched by large additions and the extension of its idioms after the European type of language. The more able pupils in schools will learn to speak English thoroughly. For an inferior class books should be provided by a commission under the superintendence of foreign educators and of the Mombusho. For them a new idiom should be furnished on some such system as that recommended in this paper for a judicious amalgamation of the English and Japanese idioms. ”

“ In accounting for this remarkable adoption of Chinese words and phrases the aid of Buddhism must not be overlooked. Religion is always a powerful factor in modifying language. For three centuries the Go on, the pronunciation of Chinese words common among the Buddhist monks, prevailed exclusively in Japan. Early in the seventh century Japanese students were sent to the Chinese capital, in the province of Shensi, to study the Chinese language more thoroughly and to bring back books and information bearing on the Confucian religion. ”

“ Perhaps, however, English teachers will consider that their task is done if they teach good English to pupils. They will not readily be persuaded that it is part of their work to improve the native language. ”

“ The growth of the European verb tree may be illustrated from Japanese and kindred languages. The European languages are the most perfect and finished in the world. Rudimentary forms are therefore more lost to view in Latin and Greek Grammar than in the more primitive speech of Eastern Asia where the verb is in a sort of chrysalis condition. ”

“ They should be adopted with forethought and with due attention to the principles of philology.
There is no more ill-founded prejudice than that which takes for granted the equality of languages in excellence and in suitability for literary development. ”