Quantitative research on Japanese scripts in early Edo era, based on the comprehensive database of the Early Christian documents

Research Project

Project/Area Number	15520284
Research Category	Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
Allocation Type	Single-year Grants
Section	一般
Research Field	Japanese linguistics
Research Institution	Tokyo University of Foreign Studies
Principal Investigator	TOYOSHIMA Masayuki Tokyo University of Foreign Studies, Research Institute for Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa, Associate Professor, アジア・アフリカ言語文化研究所, 助教授 (10180192)
Project Period (FY)	2003 – 2004
Project Status	Completed (Fiscal Year 2004)
Budget Amount *help	¥3,400,000 (Direct Cost: ¥3,400,000) Fiscal Year 2004: ¥1,300,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,300,000) Fiscal Year 2003: ¥2,100,000 (Direct Cost: ¥2,100,000)
Keywords	Early Christian Mission Press / Early woodtype prints / printing techniques / imposition / usage of Kanji / GEFUNKI (a book title) / reduplication marker in Japanese / 踊り字 / キリシタン文献 / 組版様式 / 異体字 / 用字規範 / 製版規範 / 面付け(imposition) / 金属活字印刷 / 組版規範 / 漢字字体 / 和欧混植 / 版心
Research Abstract	Quantitative analyses of the Early Christian documents (late 16^<th> -early 17^<th> centuries, Japan) have been enabled by the comprehensive database of the Early Christian documents, developed by the Head Investigator. By the aid of this rudimental database, investigations have been conducted on the usage of KANJI's in the Early Christian documents, especially focusing on how they are composed into a printing page, based on the minute observations of the extant copies of the Early Christian press. Imposition, the printing technique to place multiple pages into one sheet to get a quarto (4), octavo (8), or dvodecimo (12), and other foliations, was (and still is) quite common in western prints. This research project has attested, for the first time, that the Early Christian documents used this imposition method not only for those printed with Latin characters, but also for those printed with KANJI's. This testifies that the basic printing method was exactly the same in the Japanese prints as in the western prints, in the Early Christian Era. The research project has also discovered that, there exist examples of the imposition method in the Early woodcut movable type prints (KO-KATSUJI-HAN), which were NOT printed by the Christian Mission. This remarkable fact reveals that the Japanese Early woodcut movable type prints have been greatly influenced by the Early Christian press. : the Japanese Early woodcut movable type prints may have been direct offspring of the western movable type printings. The rudimental database have been enlarged with the KO-KATSUJI-HAN data, enabling quantitative studies on the Kanji usage, as well as reduplication marks, diacritical marks, etc. in western and Japanese style prints. Basic comparisons of the Kanji usage are given in the research report (in Japanese).