77595
Is reading early Medieval Japanese for a modern Japanese speaker like reading
Chaucer for a modern English speaker? Ie, slow and head-scratching but
otherwise can get the gist of it.
CC BY-SA 4.0
2020-05-25T00:30:17.603
77579
2020-05-25T11:13:13.573
39126
question
classical-japanese
Medieval Japanese
Chaucer's time was the 14th century. I don't know much about the Japanese from
that time, but it happens that Project Gutenberg has [a 1975 English
translation of a 1632 text on the Japanese
language](http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/21197), by Portuguese author Diego
Collado, originally written in latin.

The book can be a tad hard to read, as all the pronunciations are given in
Portuguese phonetics. But there are a number of example sentences in there,
and I will grab a few of them and (attempt to) translate the Japanese from the
book's peculiar phonology into more appropriate rо̄maji. The English
translations are the book's, not mine.

The following, at least, would seem to be at pretty accessible to a modern
reader:

  * mizzu fitotçu nomitai **mizu hitotsu nomitai** I would like to have a drink of water
  * anofito no vo toró **ano hito no wo torou** I shall take what belongs to that man.
  * mairu mai to no dancó ni qivamatta **mairu mai to no dankou ni kiwamatta** it was resolved that he not go [modern Japanese would use **mairanai** and **kimatta** ]
  * xô tame no chôgui gia **shou tame no chougi ja** this is the plan (ars) according to which it will be done [ **chougi** might be 朝議?]
  * maitte nochi no dancó **maitte nochi no dankou** the consultation he arrived after

But on the other hand, there seem to be plenty of verb tenses that don't exist
in modern Japanese. For the verb **ageru** ( **aguru** in the book), **aguru**
is given as the present tense, with **agenu** as the negative. So far so good
( **agenu** would be recognized by a modern reader, though it clearly sounds
old). But in addition, **ageouzu** is given as a "future" tense, with **aguru
mai** as the negative future tense. The equivalent of **ageru kedo** seems to
be given as **ageredomo**. The past tense of **agenu** is **agenanda**. I'd
guess some of these at least might cause some headaches.

A section on pronouns lists **watakushi** , **soregashi** , **ware** ,
**warera** , **mi** , **midomo** , **midomora** , and **ura** as the first
person pronouns; I'm guessing three of those are widely understood, and the
rest not so much (though, given context, perhaps **ura** would be connected to
**oira** or **ore**?)

On second person pronouns (translating from the Portuguese phonology:)

> In speaking to inferiors there are three particles used for 'you'; **ware**
> , **onore** , and **sotchi**. If **me** or **mega** is added as in
> **wareme** or **waremega** it means we very much despise the person being
> spoken to. If we speak to people who are on our own level, or just a little
> inferior, we use one of the three particles **sonata** , **sono hou** , or
> **waresama**. If we speak to a superior person, or someone on an equal level
> but with whom we must speak elegantly, we use one of the seven particles
> **konata** , **kisho** , **kihou** , **gohen** , **kiden** , **konatasama**
> , and **sonatasama**.

I'd expect **sonata** , **sono hou** , and **sotchi** to be understood. I
think about half of the rest would be incorrectly understood as first person
(and of course some of them are _also_ listed as first person), and maybe the
rest is gibberish.

* * *

Apparently by this time, the standard mix of kanji and hiragana ( **majiri
bun** ) would have been in common use... but the kanji would be the old,
traditional Chinese forms (compare 会 with its old form 會, or 声 with 聲), and
the hiragana too would look very different, far more cursive and stylized, and
there was less standardization and more hiragana characters than exist today.
So reading it as _actually written_ might prove very challenging indeed. On
the other hand, I'm not actually sure how the modern English reader might fare
trying to read an actual contemporary manuscript of Chaucer either, in, what,
handwritten, stylized blackletter and with the "long s" character, and a "y"
used to represent "th" (replacing the older thorn character). But I'm sure
we'd have the easier time.

* * *

Even without going nearly so far back as the 1600s, just taking written
Japanese from the early 1900s would pose something of a challenge to modern
readers I think (and of course, any of the things that make that period
difficult will apply at least as well to much older Japanese). I've a number
of books from that time; the word かいましょう was written かひませう, おんな was written
をんな, いっています could be written いつてゐます. And the kanji characters were still being
written in their old, traditional Chinese forms (see above). Jim Breen has a
page with [a decent overview of spelling differences from that
time](http://nihongo.monash.edu/j_oldkana.html).
CC BY-SA 4.0
2020-05-25T11:13:13.573
77595
2020-05-25T11:13:13.573
39129
77579
answer