12
“Ko-ji-ki,” or Records of Ancient Matters.
[Vol. II.
ing to the phonetic method would make the story of events unduly lengthy.[1] For this reason have I sometimes in the same sentence used the phonetic and ideographic systems conjointly, and have sometimes in one matter used the ideographic record exclusively. Moreover where the drift of the words was obscure, I have by comments elucidated their signification; but need it be said that I have nowhere commented on what was easy?[2] Again, in such cases as calling the surname 日下 Kusaka, and the personal name written with the character 帶 Tarashi, I have followed usage without alteration.[3] Altogether the things recorded commence with the separation of Heaven and Earth, and conclude with
- ↑ I.e., if I adopted in its entirety the Chinese ideographic method of writing, I should often fail of giving a true impression of the nature of the original documents (conf. the preceding Note). If, on the other hand, I consistently used the Chinese characters, syllable by syllable, as phonetic symbols for Japanese sounds, this work would attain to inordinate proportions, on account of the great length of the polysyllabic Japanese as compared with the monosyllabic Chinese. The author’s meaning may be illustrated by referring to the first clause of the “Records,” 天地初發之時 (“when Heaven and Earth began”), which is thus written ideographically with six Chinese characters, whereas it would require no less than eleven to write it phonetically so as to represent the sound of the Japanese words ame tsuchi no hazhime no toki, viz., 阿米都知能波士賣能登伎. It should be noticed that in this passage the author employs the technical expressions on and kun (音 and 訓) and in a manner which is the precise reverse of that sanctioned by modern usage, on being with him the phonetic, and kun the ideographic, acceptation of the Chinese characters.
- ↑ It will be seen by perusing the following translation that the author can scarcely be said to have vouchsafed as much exegetical matter as this statement would lead us to expect. Indeed his “comments” are mostly confined to information concerning the pronunciation of certain characters. See however Motowori’s remarks on this sentence in Vol. II. pp. 19–20 of his Commentary.
- ↑ The author here refers to a certain class of Japanese words which offer peculiar difficulties because written neither ideographically nor phonetically, but in a completely arbitrary manner, the result of a freak of usage. His manner of expressing himself is, however, ambiguous. What he meant to say is, as Motowori points out: “Again in such cases as writing the surname Kusaka with the characters 日下, and the personal name Tarashi with the character 帶, I have followed usage without alteration.” It is his imperfect mastery over the Chinese construction that makes him fall into such errors,—errors easily rectifiable, however, by the more widely read modern Japanese literati.
