1990 Fiscal Year Final Research Report Summary
A Study of Chinese Characters in Common Use in Documents of the Medieval Period
| Project/Area Number |
01510255
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| Research Category |
Grant-in-Aid for General Scientific Research (C)
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| Allocation Type | Single-year Grants |
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| Research Field |
国語学
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| Research Institution | Shimane University |
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Principal Investigator |
MIHO Tadao Shimane University, Faculty of Education, Professor, 教育学部, 教授 (60093811)
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| Project Period (FY) |
1989 – 1990
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| Keywords | Medieval language / Paleography / Kamakura shogunate government law / Classifier / Chinese characters in common use / Character usage |
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| Research Abstract |
This research is divided into three stages. The first stage is to draw up the fundamental materials for research and to collect documents of the Medieval period. The second stage is to grasp the fundamental usage of Kanji (chinese characters) under the actual conditions in existence. The third stage is to analyze the basic principles of character usage, make historic and comparative studies of the characters in common use, rarely used and others.
In each of the stages, good results were obtained. The first stage and second stage are eliminated due to a lack of time. A brief summary of the main part of the third stage is as follows:
1. Kamakura Shogunate Government Law (Goseibai-sikimoku and Tuikaho) is the law which is plainly enacted for the samurais and people of the time. This law was drawn up in a Japanized Chinese writing style based on the Kanji in common use to make it intelligible to the general public. Befoe then, the court noble laws, such as the Ritsuryo Legal Codes, used a ma
… More
inly authentic Chinese style.
According to the research of the number of characters used in the Kamakura Shogunate Government Law, the samurais and people had to learn around a thousand characters to lead normal daily lives.
2. The classifiers that are in common use in Japan are considered to have been established in the documentary languages. Japanese documentary languages were formed under the influence of Ancient China and the classifiers are the same. It is difficult to prove this with the material on hand at this time. As new research material becomes available, namely, bamboo or wooden strips with written language on them, will be given great attention. According to these new materials, it is being proved that the Japanese classifiers are originally from the "Ryo shi" of ancient China.
3. I did research on the common use and practical use principles with " Ten-bu" and "Chi-bu" as samples of the vocabulary of "Irohajiruisho"
4. I discovered that "Unshuo rai" was used as a good example for calligraphy and also as readers by the imperial family, the nobility and the Buddhist monks in the Medieval Period. Less
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