2004 Fiscal Year Final Research Report Summary
A Fundamental Study on History of the Chinese Language Education in Early Modern Japan
| Project/Area Number |
13610315
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| Research Category |
Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
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| Allocation Type | Single-year Grants |
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| Section | 一般 |
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| Research Field |
Educaion
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| Research Institution | Chiba University of Commerce |
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Principal Investigator |
SHU Zenan Chiba University of Commerce, Faculty of Policy Informatics, Associate Professor, 政策情報学部, 助教授 (20266183)
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| Project Period (FY) |
2001 – 2004
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| Keywords | the Edo era / Chinese language education |
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| Research Abstract |
The Japanese had no writing system when Chinese characters were introduced into Japan. First characters were used to write the Japanese language, then, in Chinese literature education, the practice of reading Chinese sentences as Japanese started. This made it harder for the Japanese to realize that Chinese characters were a foreign writing system, and made them feel that Chinese literature was not written in foreign sentences. Later, in the middle of the Edo era, OGYU Sorai (Sinologist) criticized the traditional way of Chinese literature education, and advocated radical reform. He insisted that Chinese sentences could be better understood by reading them with Chinese pronunciation and grammar, and translating them into Japanese, and so reading Chinese literature not as Japanese but as Chinese. His proposal was prescribed as the sixth article of the Jishukan (the Kumamoto Clan school) school regulations by AKIYAMA Gyokuzan (Sinologist). It was the first time that the right way to stud
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y Chinese Literature in school education was adopted, after the long history of the wrong way to study it.
The trade with the Chinese in Nagasaki during the national isolation of Japan (Sakoku) was behind the rise of Chinese language education in the Edo era. Over 10,000 Chinese had come through Nagasaki during the era, and the Chinese language was used widely for trade. The Tokugawa Shogunate needed the Chinese language skills to control the trade and to procure necessities. In 1603 the Totsuji (officers of Chinese translation) were established as hereditary posts to aid the public officer of Nagasaki. The first Totsuji were Chinese who came to Japan and settled there. But later Totsuji were their descendants, born of their Japanese wives, so they were Japanese. They were good at the language, not because they were Chinese, but because they had studied Chinese from their early childhood as a family skill. As the Nagasaki trade increased, the Totsuji's Chinese language education came to maturity, and it affected the language education of Sinologists. Less
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