| Old Japanese | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 上古日本語, 上代日本語 | ||||
| Spoken in | Japan | |||
| Era | Evolved into Early Middle Japanese during the Heian period | |||
| Language family |
Japonic
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| Writing system | Chinese characters and Man'yōgana | |||
| Language codes | ||||
| ISO 639-3 | ojp – but see caveat[1] | |||
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Old Japanese (上古日本語/上代日本語 jōko nihongo/jōdai nihongo) is the oldest attested stage of the Japanese language.
This stage in the development of Japanese is still actively studied and debated, and key Old Japanese texts, such as the Man'yōshū, remain obscure in places.
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Linguistic changes are gradual, and the periodization of Japanese is "both delicate and controversial", with multiple competing methods and criteria for division.[2]
For both practical and conventional reasons, these divisions often correlate to political events. As such, the accepted upper bound (end date) for Old Japanese is 794 CE,[2] when the capital Heijō-kyō moved to Heian-kyō. However, it is difficult to fix a lower bound. A limited number of Japanese words, mostly personal names and place names, are recorded phonetically in ancient Chinese texts such as the Book of Wei in the Records of Three Kingdoms (3rd century CE). Wooden tablets and relics with fragments of text written on them have also been excavated.
However, without discounting this fragmentary early evidence, the lower bound is generally placed circa 712 for practical reasons: 712 is the traditional date of composition of the Kojiki, the oldest extant written OJ text of substantial length. A lower bound circa 712 also coincides well with the Nara period (710-794). A more formal dating methodology might simply date OJ as "through 794", without recognizing a lower bound at all.
Besides the Kojiki, some other literary sources include the songs of the various Fudoki (713-737), the songs of the Nihon Shoki (720), and many poems from the Man'yōshū (ca. 759), and portions of the Senmyō (679-789).[3]
Japanese words written in Chinese characters are attested as early as the latter half of the 5th century CE (see Inariyama Kofun). However, most of the earliest texts found in Japan are written in Classical Chinese, although they may have been meant to be read as Japanese by the kanbun method. Some of these Chinese texts show the influences of Japanese grammar, such as word order placing the verb after the object (as in Japanese) rather than before (as in Chinese). In these "hybrid" texts, Chinese characters are occasionally used phonetically to represent Japanese particles.
Over time, the phonetic usage of Chinese characters became more and more prevalent, until Man'yōgana, a system of using the Chinese characters phonetically to record Japanese, was born. This system was already in use for poems and some proper nouns in Kojiki, and was used in a highly sophisticated manner in Man'yōshū.
On the other hand, Chinese characters were also used semantically to represent Japanese words with no phonetic connection to the Chinese. For example, 谷 was used to represent the Japanese word /tani/ ("valley"). Later, this extended to using the same Chinese characters to represent Japanese words with the same (or closely related) pronunciations as the semantically related Japanese words originally represented by the character. For example, using 谷 to represent the particle /dani/ ("even", "at least").
Consider the following example from the Man'yoshu:
Here, /yume/ ("dream") is represented by 夢 (semantic but no phonetic relationship), /ni/ and /-si/ and /wo/ by 尓 and 之 and 乎 (phonetic but no semantic relationship), and /dani/ by 谷 (semantic but no direct phonetic relationship; however, there is a secondary phonetic relationship via /tani/ meaning "valley", which is in turn connected to 谷 by semantics.)
Furthermore, /mizu/ ("see" + NEG) is represented as 不見 (NEG + "see"); the two-character compound as a whole is semantically equivalent to the Japanese, but the order of the characters is different.
More extreme examples of compound semantic relationships include such representations as 八十一 ("eighty-one") for the Japanese phrase /kuku/ ("nine nines"), and, similarly, 十六 ("sixteen") for /sisi/ ("four fours" but meaning "animal (獣 sisi, kemono)").
Using Chinese characters to write other languages created the following limitations.
Middle Chinese allowed open syllables and the codas /p/, /t/, /k/, /m/, /n/ and /ŋ/. Old Chinese had more closed syllables (some reconstructions, such as Li Fang-Kuei's and Akiyasu Tōdō's, eliminate open syllables entirely).
However, some written Old Japanese seems to include attempts to represent closed syllables. For example, sö (so2) and its vowel alternation sa, originally a binding particle (係助詞), are often written as 曽 (tsǝŋ) and 左 (tsar), suggesting a final consonant sound at the end of the syllable. (Etymologically those are thought as same as demonstrative söre (so2re) and saru.[4])
Another example of evidence for closed syllables (although not necessarily in Old Japanese) is the fact that 原 ("plain, field") is read hara (or bara) in standard Japanese, but paru/baru in southwestern and far western Japan. Combined with words like harappa, which has been analyzed as a reduplication: par(ar)par, this suggests that there may have been a proto-Japanese */par/ or */pal/.
In the opposite case, speakers of Old Chinese heard and wrote proto-Japanese. For example, in 3rd century, there was a queen named 卑弥呼 /pieg miěr hag/.
The word kana(-gana)(仮名) itself came from kari-na(loan-name/character) > karna > kanna > kana.
Kojiki distinguished shàngshēng (上声 jōshō, jōsei ) and qùshēng (去声 kyoshō, kyosei ). Those are thought as which
The study of Old Japanese phonology is based on the comparative study of synchronous pronunciation of Chinese, reverse analysis of diachronic change in Japanese pronunciation, and comparative study of the Ryukyuan languages. Although the majority of Old Japanese writing represents the language of the Asuka and the Nara court in the then central Japan, some poems in the Man'yōshū are from southern and eastern Japan, and represent different dialects of Old Japanese. Some of these dialectical differences are still found today.
Old Japanese differed phonetically from later periods of the language. An analysis of Man'yōgana reveals a peculiar system known as Jōdai Tokushu Kanazukai. See the Syllables section for details.
The transcriptions of Old Japanese words given in Kojiki (712) differ from those found in Nihon Shoki (720) and Man'yōshū (c. 759) in that it distinguishes the syllables /mo1/ and /mo2/ whereas the latter two do not. This has been correlated with the historical record of Kojiki being compiled earlier than Nihon Shoki, and thus preserved an older distinction that soon vanished.
Other characteristic differences of Old Japanese as compared with its modern counterpart include:
Some scholars have suggested that there might be a link between Old Japanese and some of the extinct languages of the Korean peninsula, including the Goguryeo language, but the relation of Japanese to any language other than Ryūkyūan remains undemonstrated. See Classification of Japanese for details.
Old Japanese distinguished between 88 syllables.
Sokuon (促音), that is a long/double/geminated consonant represented as /Q/, and hatsuon (撥音), that is independent /ɴ/, were not (or could not be) written. However, 奈能利曽-奈能僧 pair (762CE) suggested nanössö(nano2sso2), 意芝沙加-於佐箇 pair (720CE) and a middle-heian copy's boukun(傍訓) オムサカ suggested össaka(o2ssaka) or öɴsaka(o2ɴsaka).
Neither sokuon nor hatsuon represented morae yet.
| a | i | u | e | o | |||
| ka | ki1 | ki2 | ku | ke1 | ke2 | ko1 | ko2 |
| ga | gi1 | gi2 | gu | ge1 | ge2 | go1 | go2 |
| sa | si | su | se | so1 | so2 | ||
| za | zi | zu | ze | zo1 | zo2 | ||
| ta | ti | tu | te | to1 | to2 | ||
| da | di | du | de | do1 | do2 | ||
| na | ni | nu | ne | no1 | no2 | ||
| pa | pi1 | pi2 | pu | pe1 | pe2 | po | |
| ba | bi1 | bi2 | bu | be1 | be2 | bo | |
| ma | mi1 | mi2 | mu | me1 | me2 | mo1 | mo2 |
| ya | yu | ye | yo1 | yo2 | |||
| ra | ri | ru | re | ro1 | ro2 | ||
| wa | wi | we | wo | ||||
Shortly after the Kojiki, the distinction between mo1 and mo2 is quickly lost reducing the total syllable count to 87.
Many hypotheses have been proposed to explain the syllable doublets, including:
This issue is still hotly debated, and there is no general consensus.
Keep in mind that the transcription does not necessarily represent either hypothesis and that the subscript 1 or 2 could apply to either the consonant or the vowel.
There are several competing transcription systems. One popular system places a dieresis above the vowel: ï, ë, ö. This typically represents i2, e2, and o2, and assumes that unmarked i, e, and o are i1, e1, and o1. There are several problems with this system.
Another system uses superscripts instead of subscripts.
A phonetic description of the vowels depends on the hypothesis being followed.
There was an affix 斎 i- or yu- (sacred). This supposes that there was /*yi/.
Old Japanese had the following reconstructed consonant inventory[5]:
| Labial | Coronal | Palatal | Velar | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Voiceless obstruent | *p | *t | (*t͡s) | *s | *k | |
| Prenasalized voiced obstruent | *ᵐb | *ⁿd | *ⁿz | *ᵑɡ | ||
| Nasal | *m | *n | ||||
| Approximant/Flap | *w | *r | *j | |||
The voiceless obstruents /p, t, s, k/ had corresponding voiced consonants which were prenasalized. This prenasalization is seen through Late Middle Japanese.
Modern Japanese /h/ was phonetically realized as [p] in Old Japanese. This assumption is predicated upon the following textual and phonological analyses:
There is general agreement that between the 9th and 17th century /h/ was [ɸ]. The dialectal and distributional evidence suggest that at some point it must have been [p]. Recent scholarship reconstructs[6] this as *[p] for Old Japanese.
In 1934, Arisaka Hideyo(有坂秀世) and Ikegami Teizou(池上禎造) independently proposed a set of phonological restrictions permitted in a single morpheme. These are known as the "Arisaka-Ikegami Laws".
These rules suggest two groups of vowels: /-a, -u, -o1/ and /o2/. Vowels from either group do not mix with each other; -i1 and -i2 can co-exist with either group. Some take this phenomenon as evidence that Old Japanese had vowel harmony as found in Altaic languages.
The Old Japanese syllable was CV (consonant-vowel).
Vowel elision occurred to prevent vowel clusters:
Old Japanese was more synthetic than 20th century Japanese, and was both agglutinative and incorporative like the neighboring Ainu language. For example, na...mo2 or na...so2 pair could contain a very long phrase:
The e...zu pair survived in the western dialect as yō...(se)ɴ as of 20th century.
Typologically, Old Japanese was similar in word order (and some aspects of phonology) to Ainu and, according to some scholars, to Tamil.
Old Japanese had a canonical word order SOV, though the subject was often omitted. Plurals were indicated by a suffix. There was no grammatical gender. Sex could be explicitly marked with the suffixes -mi (female) and -ki (male) in the early language; later these became me1 (female) and -ko2, wo- (male), suffixed for humans and prefixed for animals or plants.
0(zero) is adjective nasi. From 1 to 10 has banalism of vowel alternation:
| 1 pito2 | 3 mi1 (*mi1t) | 4 yo2 (*yo2t) | 5 itu (*ta) |
| 2 puta | 6 mu (*mut) | 8 ya (*yat) | 10 to2wo2 |
Odd number 7 is nana, 9 is ko2ko2-no2.
20 has a special name pata. 30 is mi-so2, 40 yo2-so2, 50 i1-so2 or i1(*i1s), 60 mu-so2(-di), 70 nana-so2(-di), 80 ya-so2(-di), 90 ko2ko2-no2-so2-di and 100 is mo2mo2.
99 has a special name tuku-mo2.
800 is ya-po2 (< *yat-mo2), 1,000 is ti1, 10,000 is yo2ro2du [1].
82 is read ya-so2 amari puta.
Sacred number is 4 and 8 (cf. FYI: Ainu's is 6).
Ta(re) is who. Na(-ni) is why. Ika(-ni/na) is how, what way. Iku-da is how many. idu-(re/ti/tsi/ku/pe1/ra) is generally where. Idure is which. Idu-ti/tsi is which direction. Idu(-ku)-pe1 is around where. Itu(when) is attested middle-old, idure-no2-to2ki, instead.
Old Japanese distinguished between eight verbal conjugations: quadrigrade, upper monograde, upper bigrade, lower bigrade, k-irregular, s-irregular, n-irregular, and r-irregular. Lower monograde does not exist yet.[7][8][9]
| Verb Class | Irrealis | Adverbial | Conclusive | Attributive | Realis | Imperative |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Quadrigrade | -a | -i1 | -u | -u | -e2 | -e1 |
| Upper monograde | - | - | -ru | -ru | -re | -(yo2) |
| Upper bigrade | -i2 | -i2 | -u | -uru | -ure | -i2(yo2) |
| Lower bigrade | -e2 | -e2 | -u | -uru | -ure | -e2(yo2) |
| K-irregular | -o2 | -i1 | -u | -uru | -ure | -o2 |
| S-irregular | -e | -i | -u | -uru | -ure | -e(yo2) |
| N-irregular | -a | -i | -u | -uru | -ure | -e |
| R-irregular | -a | -i | -i | -u | -e | -e |
Verbs having a base that ends in a consonant are known as consonant-stem. These are exhibited by the Quadrigrade, the R-irregular and N-irregular verb classes.
There are only three N-irregular verbs, which were originally verbs in the Adverbial conjugation combined with the negative auxiliary -nu, but which were later reinterpreted as verbs in their own right.
Verbs having a base that ends in a vowel are known as vowel-stem. Upper Monograde represents monosyllabic vowel stems ending in -i.
Upper Bigrade is made up of polysyllabic roots ending in the vowel -i, while Lower Bigrade represents polysyllabic roots ending in -e. This ending vowel was elided in the conclusive, attributive, and realis conjugations.
K-irregular and S-irregular represent verbs whose stems appear to be composed of only one consonant each. These verbs behave as verbs with consonant stems, but they are originally vowel stems whose irregular conjugations are the result of vowel mutation and elision.
There are several verbs with irregular conjugations.
The conjugation class for each is named after the final stem consonant.
There were two types of adjectives: regular adjectives and adjectival nouns.
The regular adjective is sub-classified into two types: those where the adverbial form (連用形) ends in -ku and those that end in -siku. However, note that -si of -siku is the part of stem.
This creates two different types of conjugations:
| Adjective Class | Irrealis | Adverbial | Conclusive | Attributive | Realis | Imperative |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| -ku | -ke1 | -ku | -si | -ki1 | -ke1 -ke1re |
|
| -kara | -kari | -si | -karu | -kare | -kare | |
| -siku | -sike1 | -siku | -si | -siki1 | -sike1 -sike1re |
|
| -sikara | -sikari | -si | -sikaru | -sikare | -sikare |
The -kar- and -sikar- forms are derived from the verb ar- "be, exists". The adverbial conjugation (-ku or -siku) is suffixed with ar-. The conjugation yields to the R-irregular conjugation of ar-. As Old Japanese avoids vowel clusters, the resulting -ua- elides into -a-.
The adjectival noun has a single conjugation:
| Irrealis | Adverbial | Conclusive | Attributive | Realis | Imperative | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Adjectival noun | -nara | -nari | -nari | -naru | -nare | -nare |
Do not confuse this with the main verb naru (naturally become). Naru never takes the particle tu(*ntu) but takes nu(*nnu) after itself. However, this -nari sometimes takes tu. It is similar to the R-irregular ari. This peculiarity suggests that etymologically -nari came from -n-ari.
The Man'yōshū includes poems written in dialects in eastern Japanese (present Shizuoka, Nagano, Kantō region and southern Tōhoku region). For example, the imperative form of verbs -ro instead of -yo; the attributive form of the Quadrigrade and R-irregular verbs -o instead of -u; the negative verb ending -napu instead of -zu; the attributive form of adjectives -ke instead of -ki.
The Ryukyuan languages and Japanese diverged "not long before the first written evidences of Japanese appeared, that is to say, at some point before the 7th century" (See Ryukyuan languages). The following list shows an example of comparison between Old Japanese and Modern Okinawan language.
| Old Japanese | Modern Okinawan | Modern Japanese | |
|---|---|---|---|
| North | kita | nisi | kita |
| West | nisi | iri | nishi |
| South | (mi)nami | (mi)nami | minami |
| East | pimukasi | agari | higashi |
Nisi means where we passed away, where we came from (N-irregular (i)nu+si ("past tense, where"). Agari means (the sun) rose, and iri means (the sun) set. Pimukasi means pi1 ("the sun") + muku ("look (forward)") + si [> fimgasi > higashi].
The following fusional reductions (in most instances these are monophthongizations) took place:
Thus, the proto vowel system can be reconstructed as /*a, *i, *u, *o2/.
Distributionally, there may have once been *po1, *po2 and *bo1, bo2. Note that the distinction between /mo1/ and /mo2/ is only seen in Kojiki and vanished afterwards. If this is true, then a distinction was made between Co1 and Co2 for all consonants C except for /w/. Some take this as support that Co1 may have represented /Cwo/.
However, this hypothesis has some unreasonability. For example, Old Chinese study shows that one of ko1 古 had old – middle-old pronunciation /kag – ko/. It was kaikō(開口) and was not gōkō(合口). Gōkō means that there is /u/ before main vowel.
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