Characteristics of Japanese Writing in a Historical Perspective: Focus on Miniscule Kana in Medieval Japanese Kanji-Katakana Mixed Script Texts

2017 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 25770174
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (B)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Japanese linguistics
• Research Institution: Sugiyama Jogakuen University
• Principal Investigator: MURAI Hiroe 椙山女学園大学, 国際コミュニケーション学部, 講師 (40610770)
• Project Period (FY): 2013-04-01 – 2018-03-31
• Keywords: 漢字片仮名交じり文 / 重点 / 踊り字 / 小字仮名 / 日本語書記史

Outline of Final Research Achievements

This study surveys the Japanese-language writing method during “the medieval,” a time in which the Japanese writing system was the most diversified . Covering the writing methods used in texts composed with a mix of kanji and katakana, this study aims to clarify miniscule kana usage characteristics, and how they were related to other segmenting methods of letters. Materials related to Shinran form a particular focus of the study. Clear trends were observed such as, in the Sanjo Wasan, for orthographical sequences of majuscule kana + miniscule kana, there was a definite partiality toward the miniscule kana ni (ニ); also, while sequences of repeated kana letters in Saiho Shinansho were concentrated at the beginnings of phrases, instances of the iteration mark (odoriji) “ヽ” were clustered in the non-initial parts of phrases. This study offered a consistent explanation by focusing on issues related to kana orthography as well as display of language articulation.

Free Research Field

日本語学