Vocabulario da Lingoa de Iapam
The Vocabulario da Lingoa de Iapam com Adeclaração em Portugues (Japanese language vocabulary with Portuguese explanations), known in Japan as Nippo Jisho ( 日 葡 辞書 , Japanese-Portuguese dictionary), is a seminal dictionary printed in 1603 by the Societas Jesu in Nagasaki .
Compilation and publication
In contrast to the business of the merchants, who got by with a minimum of vocabulary, knowledge of the national language played an extremely important role among the European missionaries in Japan, which is why they joined the Society of Jesus soon after the pioneer Francisco de Xavier landed in 1549 Language studies began. Presumably the fathers created personal glossaries of vocabulary and idioms, which they exchanged, improved and made available to newcomers. As far as can be seen from the correspondence, a Japanese-Portuguese glossary was worked on in 1581 in Funai (today Ōita ) and in 1585 in the seminary of Arima (today Minami-Shimabara ). After the arrival of a European printing press in 1591, it was then possible to print Japanese texts in Latin letters.
In 1595 a Latin-Portuguese-Japanese dictionary appeared, in which the famous dictionary of the Italian lexicographer Ambrogio Calepino had been expanded to include Japanese translations. Between 1604 and 1608 a groundbreaking grammar Arte da Lingoa de Iapam was printed, which João Rodrigues , an eminent connoisseur of the language and culture, had created. Most likely it was Rodrigues (approx. 1561 / 62-1633) who was in charge of compiling the Japanese-Portuguese dictionary. The preparations involving Japanese Christians dragged on for many years. In 1603 the volume was printed in Nagasaki, the most important base for the Jesuits in Japan, and a "supplemento" was added the following year.
The circulation of the first edition from 1603 is not known. Many volumes fell victim to the intensification of the persecution of Christianity in those years. Today only four copies are known. A Spanish version was published in Manila in 1630 , and Leon Pagès published a French edition in the 19th century. The 1980 Japanese translation is useful for finding the Chinese characters. The 1603 edition was published in 1960 by the Japanese Iwanami publishing house as a facsimile print, and another reproduction was published by Benseisha publishing house in 1973 and 1975.
content
The "Vocabvlario da Lingoa de Iapam" includes 32,293 headwords that were transliterated into Latin letters and alphabetically arranged according to the Portuguese conventions of the time. Regional differences between the Kyūshū area and the region around Kyoto were also taken into account, as were differences between the colloquial and written language. Women's language, children's language, vulgar forms and Buddhist terms are also marked as such.
While many travelers to Japan in the 17th and 18th centuries, such as Engelbert Kaempfer or Carl Peter Thunberg, only recorded their phonetic impressions in Latin letters when recording Japanese words, the Jesuits took into account the morphological structure and the syllabary characters of Japanese in their transliteration and developed long before today the system of James Curtis Hepburn (1815–1911) spread a structured and quickly learnable system. It reflects phonetic characteristics of the Central Japanese language and is of great value to language historians. Today, Japanese lexicons and dictionaries also use the "Vocabulario" as a reference work for first-time references to certain words.
Editions
- Vocabvlario da Lingoa de Iapam com Adeclaração em Portugues ... feito por algvns Padres e Irmaõs da Companhia de Iesu . Nangasaqui: Companhia de Iesu, 1603.
- Vocabvlario de Iapon declarado primero en portvgves por los Padres de la Compania de Iesvs de aquel reyno, y agora en castellano en el Colegio de Santo Tomas de Manila . En Manila por Tomas Pinpin, y Iacinto Magauriua: Ano de 1630.
- Léon Pagès: Dictionnaire japonais-francais traduit du Dictionnaire japonais-portugais composé par les Missionnaires de la Compagnie de Jésus . Paris: Benjamin Duprat, 1868 (online MDZ Munich = Google Books ).
- Doi, Tadao / Morita, Takeshi / Chōnan, Minoru: Hōyaku Nippo Jisho . Tōkyō: Iwanami Shoten, 1980.
literature
- Cooper, Michael: Rodrigues the Interpreter: An Early Jesuit in Japan and China . New York: Weatherhill, 1974.
- Imaizumi, Tadayoshi: Nippo jisho no kenkyū (Research on the Japanese-Portuguese dictionary). Tōkyō: Ōfūsha, 1968.
- Laures, Johannes: Kirishitan bunko: a manual of books and documents on the early Christian missions in Japan . Tokyo: Sophia University, 1957.
- Maruyama, Tohru: Linguistic Studies by Portuguese Jesuits in Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century Japan. In: Otto Zwartjes, Even Hovdhaugen (ed.): Missionary linguistics: selected papers from the First International Conference on Missionary Linguistics, Oslo, March 13-16, 2003 . Amsterdam / Philadelphia: J. Benjamin, 2004, pp. 141-161.
- Michel, Wolfgang: Engelbert Kaempfers preoccupation with the Japanese language . In: Detlef Haberland (Ed.): Engelbert Kaempfer. Work and effect . Stuttgart: Boethius, 1993, pp. 194-221. ( Digitized version )
Remarks
- ↑ In modern Portuguese Vocabulário da Língua do Japão
- ↑ On the mission press see Laures (1957)
- ↑ Dictionarium Latino Lusitanicum, ac Japonicum ex Ambrosii Calepini volumine depromptum. Amacusa 1595. Reprint Tokyo 1953. Cf. Telmo Verdelho: O Vocabulario da lingoa de Iapam (1603), uma fonte inexplorada da lexicografia portuguesa. In: Giovani Ruffino (ed.): Atti del XXI Congresso Internazionale di Linguistica e Filologia Romanza (Palermo, 18-24 Setembro 1995). Vol. III (Lessicologia e semantica delle lingue romance). Tübingen 1998 ( PDF ).
- ↑ More on Rodrigues in Cooper (1974).
- ↑ For more on Kaempfer's method of transliteration, see Michel (1993).
- ↑ See CP Thunberg: Journey through a part of Europe, Africa and Asia: mainly in Japan in the years 1770 to 1779 (Berlin, Haude and Spener, 1794), 5th department, 8th section: From the Japanese language.