The , also called and sometimes simply called "Medieval Japanese", is the literary form of the Japanese language that was the standard until the Shōwa period (1926–1989). It is based on Early Middle Japanese, the language as spoken during the Heian period (794–1185), but exhibits some later influences. Its use started to decline during the late Meiji period (1868–1912) when novelists started writing their works in the spoken form. Eventually, the spoken style came into widespread use, including in major newspapers, but many official documents were still written in the old style. After the end of World War II, most documents switched to the spoken style, although the classical style continues to be used in traditional genres, such as haiku and waka. Old laws are also left in the classical style unless fully revised.
The terms and are still used for classical and modern Japanese, respectively. Their literal meanings are only historical, as classical Japanese is no longer officially used, while modern Japanese is the only official written language, despite being labeled "spoken". These terms are often used in descriptions of grammar to distinguish classical and modern inflections. For example, the inflection of the verb is quadrigrade (, , , ), but its inflection is quinquegrade due to a historical sound change (, ← ← , , , ).
History
Classical Japanese began to be written during the Heian period, at which point it was very similar to the spoken Japanese of that time. It became the written standard for the Japanese language for many centuries, though the spoken language continued to evolve and by the Edo period was substantially different from classical Japanese.Komai, Akira. (1983) "Classical Japanese" Kodansha Encyclopedia of Japan Volume 1 pp.321–322. This is known as diglossia, a situation in which two forms of a language, in this case a written and spoken form, coexist.Árokay, Judit. (2014) "Discourse on Poetic Languages in Early Modern Japan and the Awareness of Linguistic Change" Divided Languages? eds. Judit Árokay, Jadranka Gvozdanović, and Darja Miyajima p.88. During the Meiji period, some intellectuals sought the abolition of classical Japanese, such as the movement, which proposed that written Japanese conform to the vernacular spoken language. Futabatei Shimei's 1887 novel The Drifting Cloud was one of the first novels to be written in vernacular Japanese rather than classical. By 1908, novels no longer used classical Japanese, and by the 1920s the same was true of all newspapers.Neustupny, JV. (1983) "Gembun Itchi" Kodansha Encyclopedia of Japan Volume 3 p.16. Government documents remained in classical Japanese until 1946.Trantor, Nicholas and Kizu, Mika. (2012) "Modern Japanese" The Languages of Japan and Korea ed. Nicolas Trantor p.268. Classical Japanese continues to be taught in Japanese high schools and universities due to its importance in the study of traditional Japanese literature and culture.
Orthography
Classical Japanese is written in an orthography that differs from modern Japanese in two major ways. These are the usage of old character forms (, kyūjitai) and historical kana usage (, rekishi-teki kana-zukai).
Old character forms are the forms of Chinese characters (, kanji) used in Japan before the spelling reforms that occurred after World War II. The modern, simplified characters are called .
A few examples follow, with the old characters on the left and the new characters on the right:
The kana spelling of a kanji is not unique; e.g. in modern Japanese, note the difference in the reading of between (, "physical body") and (, "forms of government"). The above spelling differences are etymological. For example, is just a native Japanese word labeled by a Chinese character with similar meaning, while is totally a new word derived from the combination of original meanings of two Chinese characters ( means "politics" and means "body").
In cases like those of the first two, the entire original character has essentially been replaced by a new one, independent of the original's etymology. This type, however, is relatively rare. Another approach is to essentially replace the character with a piece of it, sometimes slightly altered, as in the third and fourth characters. Finally, probably the most common type of simplification is to change one component of the character to reduce the number of strokes and/or make it easier to write, a strategy exemplified by the fifth and sixth examples. Note that, as in the case of the sixth character, the simplification may be very subtle.
In general, old character forms are identical to their traditional Chinese counterparts, but there are some exceptions. For the seventh example character (), the traditional and simplified Japanese versions coexisted as different forms of the same traditional character in Modern Chinese, while in Japan, what is now the new character form was at that time considered a variant and rarely used. And in a few cases, like that of the eighth character (), the old character form has always been considered a rare variant in Modern Chinese. (However, and are actually the formal forms in Middle Chinese and Old Chinese.)
Historical kana usage is the system of kana (i.e., phonetic character) writing used in Japan before the post-war reforms. More specifically, it is the version of kana orthography standardized in the Meiji Period (since before that time kana usage was not standardized). It is, broadly speaking, based on the pronunciation of Japanese in the Heian Period, the time-frame in which Early Middle Japanese (on which the grammar of classical Japanese is based) was spoken. There are several differences between historical kana usage—which is also referred to as —and the modern kana orthography, called or . Some of these differences apply primarily to Sino-Japanese readings of Chinese characters, while others apply primarily to native Japanese words, and still others apply equally to both groups of words.
Broadly speaking, the differences are:
rule
Some morpheme-medial sounds currently written as , , , , and (wa, i, u, e, and o) were written as , , , , and (ha, hi, fu, he, and ho), respectively. This is because these sounds (as well as all sounds still written with , , , , and ) originally had initial consonant in Old Japanese, which then changed to in Early Middle Japanese, and then, in Late Middle Japanese, split into one of five different phonemes depending on whether it occurred morpheme-initially or morpheme-medially, and then further depending on the following vowel. Morpheme-initially and before , , or , it became ; before , it became ; and before , it became ; these three sounds are still written with , , , , and . Morpheme-medially and before , , , or , it became ; before , it lost its consonant. Finally, later on in the same period of the language the initial was lost in all instances before , , and (note that never existed), leaving the current morpheme-medial pronunciations of , , , , and , but the spellings of , , , , and (which, in this context, are probably better thought of as , , , , and ; or , , , , and ). This rule primarily applies to native Japanese morphemes, although it is crucial to the mechanics of the long vowel rule that applies primarily to Sino-Japanese words, which is elaborated upon below. The modern usage of (ha) and (he) to represent grammatical particles pronounced as if written (wa) and (e), respectively, is a holdover from this rule.
Some examples follow (old spellings are on the left, new spellings on the right; kana in parentheses represent the pronunciation of the preceding character):
There are some exceptions to this sound change, although they are rare. They include (haha "mother", expected form hawa), (hoho "cheek", expected form hō), (ahiru "domestic duck", expected form airu), and (afure-ru "overflow", expected form aore-ru or ōre-ru. Sometimes, as in the case of the first two exceptions, the sound change form exists, usually with a slightly different meaning ( hawa is a hyper-formal and very respectful term for mother) or is used in different contexts ( hō is generally used in isolation, while hoho is generally used in compounds). In other cases, as is true of the second two exceptions, the unchanged form is the only one that exists. In addition to these exceptions, some dialects may preserve these sounds as they were at any stage of the language.
rule
This section uses Nihon-shiki romanization for , , and .
The obsolete characters (wi) and (we) are used, and the character (wo) is used in other words besides as the accusative or oblique case marker. This relates to the above rule, in that it reflects a pronunciation with initial before , , and that is no longer present in the modern language. This rule applies equally to native and Sino-Japanese words. The use of (wo) to write the aforementioned grammatical particle, which is pronounced (o) in modern Japanese (unless preceded by n or sometimes in song, although all morpheme-medial instances of , whether originally , , or , tend to become in song), is a holdover from this rule.
Some examples:
Native Japanese words → いる (only in kana) (wi-ru → i-ru "to be [animate objects]") (kowe → koe "voice") (notice that an old character is also involved in this example) (wotoko → otoko "male") Sino-Japanese words (yakuwin → yakuin "officer") (wen → en "Yen") (again, there is an old character used here) (kawoku → kaoku "house")
There are no known exceptions (besides the aforementioned ones regarding wo) in standard Japanese, and no dialects preserve the distinction between and , and , and/or and , but some of the Ryukyuan languages (which are also descended from Proto-Japonic) do.
rule
This section uses Nihon-shiki romanization for , , , .
The characters (di) and (du) are used in places other than changes caused by sequential voicing ( rendaku), where in modern kana (ji) and (zu), respectively, would be used. Again, this represents a former phonetic distinction, namely between a sound (in ji and zu) and a sound (in di and du). This rule applies equally to native and Sino-Japanese words, as well as a few loanwords ( Gairaigo).
Some examples:
Native words (adisawi → azisai "hydrangea") (notice that this example also contains a change from wi to i) (midu → mizu "water") Sino-Japanese words (kaidiyo → kaizyo "release") (notice the use of Y-row rule, explained below) (chidu → chizu "map") (notice again that an old character form is involved) Loanwords (radio → razio "radio") (this one is especially notable because it is an exceedingly rare example of a sound change that occurs in a loanword from English)
There are no known exceptions in standard Japanese pronunciation, although there are many dialects (such as the Tosa dialect) that preserve the distinction between historical and in speech, usually by using and for historical and and for historical (see Yotsugana). In writing, the distinction is preserved in single morphemes in cases where a sequence (chidi) or (tsudu) was historically produced by rendaku (such as in chidim-u, "shorten", and tsuduk-u, "continue", pronounced as if chizim-u and tsuzuk-u, respectively), or in compounds where a phonemic or has been voiced to or (such as in mi-dika "one's surroundings" and kana-dukai "kana usage", pronounced as if mi-zika and kana-zukai, respectively). This usage is a holdover from this rule.
rule
In modern Japanese, the small kana , , and (ya, yu, and yo) are used to indicate palatalized consonants ( Yōon) when following an I-column ( I-dan) kana of the K-, G-, N-, B-, P-, M-, or R-rows (; Ka-, Ga-, Na-, Ba-, Pa-, Ma-, Ra-gyō). For example:
(kyaku "guest") (nyojitsu "reality") (byakudan "sandalwood") (pyokopyoko "up and down") (sanmyaku "mountain range") (ryaku "abbreviation")