Early New Japanese Language

Early New Japanese
Period	Edo period (1603 to 1868)
Formerly spoken in	Japan
Linguistic ; classification	Tai-Kadai (controversial); Austronesian (controversial); Altaic language family (controversial) Japanese languages; Early New Japanese ;

Early New Japanese ( Japanese 近世日本語 kinsei nihongo ) was a language level of the Japanese language between Central Japanese and New or Contemporary Japanese . It was a transition period when the language shed many of its medieval features and approached its modern form.

Its period spanned approximately 250 years from the 17th to the middle of the 19th century. From a political perspective, this period is generally similar to the Edo period .

background

At the beginning of the 17th century, the political center of the country shifted under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate from Kamigata ( Kyōto area ) to Edo . Up until this event, the Kamigata dialect, the precursor to today's Kansai dialect , was the most influential dialect, but since the late Edo period, the Edo dialect, the precursor to today's Tokyo dialect, has played this role. The country closed its borders to foreigners. Compared to the previous centuries, the rule of the Tokugawa brought a high degree of stability and the warrior class lost influence over the merchants. There was a wave of economic growth and new artistic achievements such as ukiyo-e , kabuki, and bunraku . In addition, new genres developed in literature such as Ukiyozōshi, Sharebon (from the entertainment districts such as Yoshiwara ), Kokkeibon (from common people) and Ninjōbon. Important authors of this time were among others Ihara Saikaku , Chikamatsu Monzaemon , Matsuo Bashō , Shikitei Sanba and Santō Kyōden .

Phonology

Vowels

In early New Japanese there were the vowels / i, e, a, o, u /:

/ i /: [⁠ i ⁠]
/ e /: [⁠ e ⁠]
/ a /: [⁠ a ⁠]
/ o /: [⁠ o ⁠]
/ u /: [⁠ ɯ ⁠]

In the middle Japanese / e were / and / o / beginning of a word presented with a semivowel [⁠ j ⁠] or [⁠ w ⁠] realized. In both cases, the half-vowel disappeared in the middle of the 18th century. The closed vowels / i, u / were pronounced voiceless [i̥, ɯ̥] if they occurred between voiceless consonants or at the end of a word, as can be proven by a number of foreign texts:

Diego Collado's “Ars Grammaticae Iaponicae Lingvae” (1632) gives the following examples of voicelessness at the end of a word: gozàru > gozàr , fitòtçu > fitòtç , and àxi no fàra > àx no fàra .
Engelbert Kaempfer's “History and Description of Japan” (1777–1779) and CP Thunberg's “Resa uti Europa, Africa, Asia” (1788–1793), on the other hand, list a few examples of voicelessness in the middle of the word: kurosaki > krosaki , atsuka > atska .

Long vowels

While Central Japanese still differentiated two different long vowels, [ɔː] and [oː] , both were united in the 17th century to form [oː]. In the course of this union, the occurrence of ɔː in the Kamigata dialect fluctuated to become short at times.

nomɔː> nomo "drink"
hayɔː> hayo "quickly"

In addition, other vowels in the Edo dialect could also become long through fusions.

/ ai /> [eː]: sekai> sekeː "world", saigo> seːgo "finally, last"
/ ae /> [eː]: kaeru> keːru "frog", namae> nameː "name"
/ oi /> [eː]: omoɕiroi> omoɕireː
/ ie /> [eː]: oɕieru> oɕeːru "teach"
/ ui /> [iː]: warui> wariː
/ i wa /> [jaː]: kiki wa> kikjaː "listen"
/ o wa /> [aː]: nanzo wa> nanzaː

In contrast, the long / uː /, which developed in Central Japanese, remained unchanged.

Consonants

Early New Japanese had the following set of consonants:

	bilabial	alveolar	postalveolar	palatal	velar	uvular	glottal
Plosives	p b	t d			k g
Affricates		t͡s d͡z	t͡ʃ d͡ʒ
Nasals	m	n				ɴ
Fricatives	ɸ	s z	ɕ ʑ	ç			H
Flaps			ɺ
Approximants				j	ɰ

/ t, s, z, h / each have allophones that appear before the closed vowels [i, ɯ]:

t -> t͡ʃ / __i

t -> t͡s / __ɯ

z -> d͡ʒ / __i

z -> d͡z / __ɯ

h -> ç / __i

h -> ɸ / __ɯ

There have been a number of significant innovations:

/ zi, di / and / zu, du / fell together.
/ h / partly developed from [ɸ] to [h, ç]
/ se / lost its prenasalization and became [se]

In addition, the Middle Japanese had / t / in the final. This has been replaced by the open syllable / tu /.

Labialization

The labial / kwa, gwa / united with their non-labial counterparts to [ka, ga].

Palatalization

The consonants / s, z /, / t /, / n /, / h, b /, / p /, / m / and / r / could be palatalized.

In addition, a depalatalization can be identified in the Edo dialect:

hyakunin issyu > hyakunisi
/ teisyu /> / teisi / "Lord"
/ zyumyoː /> / zimyoː / "life"

Prenasalization

In Central Japanese there was a series of prenasalized voiced plosives and fricatives : [ ⁿ g, ⁿ z, ⁿ d, ^m b ]. These lost their prenasalization in early New Japanese and became [ g, z, d, b ].

grammar

Verbs

There were five levels of conjugation in Early New Japanese :

Verb class	Mizenkei 未然形 unrealis form	Ren'yōkei 連用形 conjunctive form	Shūshikei 終止形 final form	Rentaikei 連体形 attributive form	Cateikei 仮定形 hypothetical form	Meireikei 命令形 imperative form
four-stage ( 四段 )	-a	-i	-u	-u	-e	-e
upper single-stage ( 上一段 )	-i	-i	-iru	-iru	-Irishman	-i (yo, ro)
lower single-stage ( 下一段 )	-e	-e	-eru	-eru	-ere	-e (yo, ro)
K-irregular ( カ変 )	-O	-i	-uru	-uru	-ure	-oi
S-irregular ( サ変 )	-e, -a, -i	-i	-uru	-uru	-ure	-ei, -iro

The development of the verbal system that began in Central Japanese continued in this language level. The final form in classical Japanese was replaced by the attributive form and the number of conjugation classes decreased from nine to five. In particular, the R-irregulars, the N-irregulars and the lower two-stage verbs developed into regular four-stage verbs and the upper two-stage verbs merged with the associated one-stage verbs. This leaves the four-stage verbs, the upper and lower two-stage verbs, as well as the k- and s-irregular verbs.

Adjectives

There were 2 types of adjectives: regular adjectives and adjectival nouns .

Historically, the regular adjectives are divided into two subgroups, those that end in -ku in the adverbial form and those that end in -siku in this form. However, the difference became meaningless in Early New Japanese.

Mizenkei	Renyōkei	Shushikei	Rentaikei	Cateikei	Meireikei
-kara	-ku	-i	-i	-kere	-kare

The adjectival nouns have also been split into two subgroups, those ending in -nar and those ending in -tar. -Tar disappeared in early New Japanese, leaving only -na behind.

Mizenkei	Renyōkei	Shushikei	Rentaikei	Cateikei	Meireikei
-dara	-ni -de	-na -da	-n / A	-nare -nara

swell

Yasuhiro Kondō, Masayuki Tsukimoto, Katsumi Sugiura: Nihongo no Rekishi . Hōsō Daigaku Kyōiku Shinkōkai, 2005, ISBN 4-595-30547-8 .
Samuel Martin: The Japanese Language Through Time . Yale University, 1987, ISBN 0-300-03729-5 .
Akira Matsumura: Nihon Bunpō Daijiten . Meiji Shoin, 1971, ISBN 4-625-40055-4 .
Marc Hideo Miyake: Old Japanese: a phonetic reconstruction . Routledge Shorton, London / New York 2003, ISBN 0-415-30575-6 .
Norio Nakata: Kōza Kokugoshi: Dai 2 kan: On'inshi, Mojishi . Taishūkan Shoten, 1972.
Masayoshi Shibatani: The Languages of Japan . Cambridge University Press, 1990, ISBN 0-521-36918-5 .
Akiho Yamaguchi, Hideo Suzuki, Ryūzō Sakanashi, Masayuki Tsukimoto: Nihongo no Rekishi . Tōkyō Daigaku Shuppankai, 1997, ISBN 4-13-082004-4 .

Individual evidence

↑ Shibatani (1990), p. 119.
↑ Nakata (1972: 238-239).
↑ Nakata (1972: 239-241).
^ Nakata (1972: 256).
↑ Nakata (1972: 262-263).
↑ Yamaguchi (1997: 116-117).
↑ Nakata (1972: 260-262).
↑ Yamaguchi (1997: 150-151).
↑ Yamamoto (1997: 147-148).
↑ Yamaguchi (1997: 129).

[1] Shibatani (1990), p. 119.

[2] Nakata (1972: 238-239).

[3] Nakata (1972: 239-241).

[4] Nakata (1972: 256).

[5] Nakata (1972: 262-263).

[6] Yamaguchi (1997: 116-117).

[7] Nakata (1972: 260-262).

[8] Yamaguchi (1997: 150-151).

[9] Yamamoto (1997: 147-148).

[10] Yamaguchi (1997: 129).