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JAPANESE

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Originally appearing in Volume V15, Page 167 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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JAPANESE . Zenaku wo saiban suru tame no Virtue See also:

vice-judging See also:sake of mochiitaru yuitsu no hyojun we used unique See also:standard jiai no koi lade benevolence of conduct only kore nomi. this alone. It will be observed that in the above See also:sentence there are two untranslated words, wo and wa. These belong to a See also:group of four See also:auxiliary particles called te ni wo ha (or wa), which serve to See also:mark the cases of nouns, te (or de) being the sign of the instrumental See also:ablative; ni that of the See also:dative; wo that of the See also:objective, and wa that of the nominative. These exist in the Korean See also:language also, but not in any other See also:tongue. There are also polite and See also:ordinary forms of expression, often so different as to constitute distinct See also:languages; and there are a number of honorifics which frequently See also:discharge the See also:duty of pronouns. Another marked peculiarity is that active agency is never attributed to neuter nouns. A Japanese does not say " the See also:poison killed him " but " he died on See also:account of the poison;" nor does he say " the See also:war has caused commodities to appreciate," but " commodities have appreciated in consequence of the war." That the language loses much force owing to this See also:limitation cannot be denied: See also:metaphor and See also:allegory are almost completely banished. The difficulties that confront an Occidental who attempts to learn Japanese are enormous. There are three languages to be acquired: first, the ordinary colloquial; second, the polite colloquial; and, third, the written. The ordinary colloquial differs materially from its polite See also:form, and both are as unlike the written form as See also:modern See also:Italian is unlike See also:ancient Latin.

"Add to this," writes See also:

Professor B. H. See also:Chamberlain, " the See also:necessity of committing to memory two syllabaries, one of which has many variant forms, and at least two or three thousand See also:Chinese ideographs, in forms standard and cursive —ideographs, too, most of which are susceptible of three or four different readings according to circumstance,—add, further, that all these kinds of written symbols are See also:apt to be encountered pelt melt on the same See also:page, and the task of mastering Japanese becomes almost Herculean." In view of all this there is a strong See also:movement in favour of romanizing the Japanese script: that is to say, abolishing the See also:ideograph and adopting in its See also:place the See also:Roman See also:alphabet. But while every one appreciates the magnitude of the See also:relief that would thus be afforded, there has as yet been little substantial progress. A language which has been adapted from its See also:infancy to ideographic transmission cannot easily be fitted to phonetic uses. Dictionaries.—F. Brinkley, An Unabridged Japanese-See also:English See also:Dictionary (See also:Tokyo, 1896) ; Y. Shimada, English-Japanese Dictionary, (Tokyo, 1897) ; See also:Webster's Dictionary, trans. into Japanese, (Tokyo. See also:Lightning. Exhalation. See also:Electricity. Telegram.

Electric See also:

light. Negative electricity. See also:Positive electricity. Thermo-electricity. Dynamic-electricity. See also:Telephone.

End of Article: JAPANESE

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