Japan and the Japanese

JAPANESE LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE. 555
f especially in foreign words) of ha, hi, hu, he, ho (written by Remusat fa, fi,
fe, fo, fu), sometimes into the softer sounds, ba, be, bi, bu, bo, and some-
times into the harder sounds, pa, pi, pu, pe, po, is indicated by another
mark. In writing foreign words, especially from the Chinese, an additional
character, indicating n or m final, is also employed, which sound seems,
however, to be much oftener introduced into the spoken than the written
language. Just as we say ABC, this collection of syllables is called, from
the first three, the i-ro-fa, or i-ro-ha.
Generally, in composition, the syllables retain their full sound ; but often
the vowel part is contracted, or elided, especially at the close of a word.
Thus, all syllables, ending in i, followed, in composition, by syllables begin-
ning with y (otherwise _;'), lose the final i: tsi-ya being pronounced ts'ya ;
ni-yo, n'o, &c. Mi-sa is sounded mis' ; mit-si, mits' ; fu-tsu, frits' ; ma-
tsu, mats' ; ku-wa-u, k'u ; ko-ko-ju, kok'f ; fi-ya-ka, f yak' ; si-ya-tsu,
s'yats'. The syllable tsu in the middle of a word, loses its own sound
and takes that of the syllable; that follows; thus, i-tsu-ki becomes ikki
i-tsu-si, issi, &c. Where the final u sound is elided, the antecedent consonant
sound is, as it were, reduplicated, especially in the. infinitive of verbs.
of which the termination is alwaj's in u ; or if that preceding consonant be
k, an/ sound is added to it ; thus, i-do-ru becomes idorr' ; ma-ku, makf '
to-bu, tobb', to indicate which reduplication a fourth sign is employed.
As the Japanese language is made up so largely of vowels, it ought to be
musical, and, as it is composed of so limited a number of syllables, it might
be supposed to be easy to represent the sound of Japanese words by Euro-
pean letters. But, in doing this, every writer, from the Jesuit missionaries
downward, has been inconsistent, not only with others, but with himself.
In addition to the difficulties growing out of the elisions, there is another in
the peculiarities of the Japanese sounds.*
To represent the forty-seven syllables, of which, with the variations above
stated, their language is composed, the Japanese appear first to have em-
ployed a like number of perfect Chinese characters, chosen sometimes, per-
haps, with reference to their sound in Chinese, but in some cases, at least,
with reference to the sound of the corresponding Japanese word Thus, for
* " The Japanese pronunciation," says Gnlownin,
who was in the constant habit of hearing
it for two years, during which he acquired a good knowledge of the language spoken, though
not allowed to learn to read "
it,
is excessively difficult fur us Europeans. There are syllables
which are not pronounced like te or de, but something between them, which we are
quite unable to produce. In the same manner, there are middle sounds, between be and fe,
JKt, and sche, ge and cAe, che and se. No European would succeed in pronouncing the
Japanese word for fire. I have studied it for two years, but in vain ; when pronounced by
the Japanese, it seemed to sound like_/f, cAz, p.ti, fsi, pronounced through the teeth ; but,
however we turned and twisttd our mouths about, the Japanese per.-isted in their ' not
right ;' and such words are very numerous in the Japanese language." Siebold says that
the spoken dialects of different provinces vary greatly. The attempts of Europeans to represent
Japanese words, often produce words which, on paper, have very little resemblance.
Who would suppose that Oxu and Mouts were different attempts to represent the same
word the name of the north-easternmost and largest province of Japan ?
;