A study on the actual usage of standard glyphs in texts on educational kanji during the near-modern period

2020 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 18K12404
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Early-Career Scientists
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Review Section: Basic Section 02070:Japanese linguistics-related
• Research Institution: Kyushu Women's University
• Principal Investigator: YAMASHITA Mari 九州女子大学, 人間科学部, 講師 (80756411)
• Project Period (FY): 2018-04-01 – 2021-03-31
• Keywords: 正字 / 俗字 / 文字史

Outline of Final Research Achievements

This study investigated the actual use of standard glyphs（正字） and nonstandard glyphs（俗字） in texts on educational kanji during the near-modern period.As a result, it was found that there are some kanji that use a lot of standard glyphs and those that use a lot of nonstandard glyphs.The kanji that used many standard glyphs were "裏" and "歳", and the kanji that used many nonstandard glyphs were "群" and "間".
In early 20th century Japan, both standard and nonstandard glyphs were the normative glyphs.Therefore, this study examines the background factors behind the coexistence of the two types of normative glyphs of the time.In the Edo period, standard glyphs were used in chinese character dictionaries, nonstandard glyphs were used in thequick search setsuyoushu.This difference in usage during the Edo period was carried over until the early 20th century. This resulted in the existence of two normative glyphs.

Free Research Field

日本語学

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

国語政策において、幕末から終戦までの活字の字体を把握することは必要とされていて、そのために『明朝体活字字形一覧』が文化庁によってまとめられた。しかし、ここでは活字見本帳を対象としているため、活字においてどの字体が存在したかは把握できるが、どの字体がどの程度使用されていたのかという使用実態については不明であった。本研究によって、明治から終戦までの日本において、どの字体がどの程度使用されていたのかという使用実態の一端がはじめて明らかになった。