210
Notices of Japan, No.
No. VIII.
APRIL,
ble, being written in one character, and the next in another: no small addition to the difficulty of making any progress in Japanese literature.
In order to bring the various syllabaries which are employed in Japanese writing into view at once, we have combined them together in a tabular form. This table is made out from those in Rodriguez' Grammar, and Siebold's Epitome linguæ Japonica. The list of synonymous Chinese characters employed to repre. sent the sounds of the syllables given by Rémusat in Rodriguez' Grammar amounts to 382; a few of them are, however, used to represent the sound of two syllables. Sounds of the Japanese Iroha, or Syllabary.
chi
yo
ra or la ya
ye
ta
ro or lo
ri or li
68
mu
ma
da
za
་སྦ ་ཌ་པ
hi or fi
bi
pi
ha or fa
ke
ba
nu
re or leu
ge
pa
gi
03.2
ki
mo
fu
ni
ru or lu
SO
i & wi
ZO
252
bu
yu
se or she ze or zhe
pu
282
ho or fo
bo
WO
tsu dzu
no
po
he or fe
be
wa
ne
•
ye & e
mi
'n
pe
to
ka
ku
te
si or shi
na
do
ga
gu
de
zi or zhi
30
ko
BU
me
go
zu
This syllabary is read perpendicularly, commencing on the left side, and each space corresponds to a space in the table on the opposite page. In each square are inserted: 1. The kata-kana, which occupies the centre, having the inflected syllables immediately underneath them, as ha, ba, pa; the addition of two marks, (") called a nigori, changes the initial into a harder or rougher sound; the addi- tion of a maru (°) or circle, changes the initial h or ƒ of six syllables into p. 2. The Chinese characters, from which the kata-kana is derived, placed in the top corner on the left side of each square. 3. The yamato-kana immediately beneath it, in the left lower corner; it will be seen that this is sometimes a contraction of the preceding, and sometimes not. 4. The hira-kana occupying the upper right hand corner; a few of these syllables are derived from the Chinese charac- ters in the opposite corner. 5. The syllabary of Ziaku-so immediately underneath the hira-kana, together with some other forms used for certain syllables, as in ta, ma, no, na, &c. Many of the syllables in this are identical with those in the hira kana. There are also other forms of hira-kana besides these, for which see Ro- driguez' Grammar, or Klaproth in Journal Asiatique. The last and forty-eighth