Old manuscript pages offers insights into Japan's early English studies
The owner of an antiquarian bookstore in Takasaki, Gunma Prefecture, recently discovered working manuscript pages for the nation's first English-Japanese dictionary, published in the closing days of the Edo period (1603-1867). It was the first discovery of any drafts of the reference book.
Junichi Nagumo, 41, the owner of Nagumo Shoten bookstore, discovered the manuscript pages for Eiwa Taiyaku Shuchin Jisho (A Pocket Dictionary of the English and Japanese Languages) in January, including 21 pages for the dictionary's 1862 first edition and 61 others for its revised and enlarged edition four years later.
Nagumo made the discovery at an antiquarian book fair in Tokyo. He said he initially could not believe they were real as he turned over some of the pages, but then he found the name of Bansho Chosho--a research institution of the shogunate--written on one of them.
The papers, which have turned brown with age, show handwritten English vocabulary followed by Japanese translations, some of which are amended with corrections in red.
On the manuscripts of the first edition, for example, the word "castration" was originally given the translation "omoigakenaku" (unexpectedly) in kanji and katakana, which was corrected to "kirukoto" (cutting).
Comparing the two editions suggests how the dictionary was produced. For example, the first edition translated "dolphin" merely as "a name of a fish," but the entry in the revised and enlarged edition defined "dolphin" as "iruka," the correct Japanese name for the mammal, written in kanji.
The production of Eiwa Taiyaku Shuchin Jisho--"shuchin" means "small enough to be put in the sleeve of kimono"--was ordered by the shogunate after U.S. Navy Commodore Matthew Perry arrived in Japan aboard his Black Ships in 1853, the incident that forced the shogunate to realize the overwhelming power of the United States and the importance of English.
Hori Tatsunosuke, a Dutch interpreter at Bansho Chosho, and some other scholars of British and U.S. studies, were among the compilers. It was a transitional period when Dutch studies--the Netherlands was the only Western country that Japan dealt with directly during its isolationist period--were being supplanted by British and U.S. studies, and the compilers were said to be in a rush to produce their new reference work based on existing Dutch-English dictionaries.
The discovery has attracted the attention of the Historical Society of English Studies in Japan as important material for insights into the history of the nation's foreign-language education.
Takahiko Hori, professor emeritus of Nagoya Gakuin University and a counselor for the society, is himself a great-great-grandson of Hori Tatsunosuke. "[From the manuscripts,] we can clearly see the passion of the scholars of British and U.S. studies involved, the people who were on the front line of Japan's modernization, triggered by the nation's opening to the world from its isolationist days," he said.