Developing an International Educational Program on Early Japanese Books

2016 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 15K12850
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Challenging Exploratory Research
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Japanese literature
• Research Institution: Osaka University
• Principal Investigator: IIKURA Yoichi 大阪大学, 文学研究科, 教授 (40176037)
• Co-Investigator(Renkei-kenkyūsha): OKAJIMA Akihiro 大阪大学, 大学院文学研究科, 教授 (50194345) ; GOYAMA Rintaro 慶應義塾大学, 文学部, 准教授 (00551946) ; YADA Tutomu 東京大学, 総合文化研究科, 准教授 (20262058) ; YAMAMOTO Yoshitaka 大阪大学, 文学研究科, 講師 (40783626)
• Research Collaborator: HASHIMOTO Yuta 京都大学, 文学研究科
• Project Period (FY): 2015-04-01 – 2017-03-31
• Keywords: 歴史的典籍 / 画像データベース / くずし字 / 変体仮名 / くずし字学習支援アプリ / 和本リテラシー

Outline of Final Research Achievements

In order to facilitate the scholarly and educational use of digital images of early Japanese books, we developed an international educational program for learning kuzushiji, classical calligraphic renderings of Japanese characters. In February 2016, we organized an international symposium to discuss various issues surrounding research and education using early Japanese books. At the symposium, we introduced our brand-new smartphone/android application for learning the major forms of hentai gana (variant hiragana) and kanji (Chinese characters) in cursive script, prior to its public release the following day. As of March 2017, the application, called Kuzushiji Learning Application, or "KuLA" for short, has been downloaded 60,000 times since its release, and has contributed to the learning of kuzushiji worldwide. In February 2017, we published Apuri de manabu kuzushiji [Learning Kuzushiji with an App], a guidebook on how to make use of our application, from Kasama Shoin.

Free Research Field

日本近世文学