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Notices of Japan, No. VIII.
APRIL,
Japan has long possessed the art of printing, after a fashion sufficient for the diffusion of literature, but not emulating the splendor of the London press, The Japanese printers are unacquainted with movable types, and they rather multiply manuscript copies by means of a very inferior sort of stereotype in wood, or by wood-cuts, than really print, as we understand the process. Still, they supply the public with books, and we are assured that reading is the favorite recreation of both sexes in Japan, especially at the mikado's capital.
Japanese literature comprises works of science, history, biography, geography, travels, moral philosophy, natural history, poetry, the drama, and encyclopædias. Of the merits of the productions of Japanese genius in most of these departments, the Dutch writers speak highly; but considering that the members of the Dezima factory are not likely in general to have enjoyed the most finished or scholarlike› education, we may be allowed to receive their judgment with some distrust. Nor is this want of confidence in the critical taste of these eulogists of Japanese liter. ature diminished by turning to the very few data upon which we, in this country, can form an opinion for ourselves.
syllable is an imperfect nasal sound, and was added subsequently to the formation of the preceding syllabary, (Klaproth says by one Saï-chiu, who employed the character king to represent it,) and apparently for the purpose of represent. ing Chinese sounds ending in ng. In composition its sound is always n (some. times m for sake of euphony in the middle of words), but alone it resembles a half enunciated ng, and is formed by putting the tongue on the roof of the mouth, and then making a sound in the throat.
The characters in the last square of the table are marks used in writing. The first, when used, shows a repetition of the preceding syllable; the second is placed between Chinese characters to show that they are to be read continuously, or joined together as a single word in Japanese; its use may be seen in the speci- men plate given below. It is also employed in kata-kana after a syllable to lengthen its sound. The last two niarks show that a dissyllable or word is repeated; for instance in the word kotogoto, this mark is written instead of goto, and with a nigori to show the change in the first syllable from ko to go.
The sounds of some of these syllables vary in different parts of Japan, and dif. ferent modes of writing Japanese words have also been adopted by scholars of different countries. Siebold writes lo, and Klaproth ro, for the second syllable, and so of ra, re, ri, and ru; those natives whom we have heard pronounce them, say ra, re, but yet cannot distinguish between the two sounds of ra or la. When either of these five syllables begins a word, the r is sometimes pronounced as if preceded by a soft d. Siebold remarks, “that the sound is difficult to express, but vibrates between 1 and r, something like the first efforts of children to sound it: in Yedo, the predominates, and in some principalities the obtains." Those syllables beginning with h, except fu, we have always heard pronounced ha, he, hi, ho, &c., but Klaproth writes fa, fe, fi, and fo, and this was the old Portuguese mode, now retained in Fatsisio, Firado, Figo, &c. Those whom we heard also Day
she and shi, but Siebold and Klaproth both writes se and si. There appears to be little or no difference between the sounds of the syllables i and wi, e and
ye,
and we have written them thus in this table because it can be hardly be supposed there are two syllables of precisely the same sound; the natives whom we have consulted, however, (and they are from three principalities,) make no difference between them either in sound or use.
In preparing Chinese books for the Japanese public, or when writing Chinese, the grammatical additions are more or less numerous according to the caprice of the editor or writer. Sometimes, however, the works are simple reprints. The cases of nouns, the terminations and tenses of verbs, and the marks to show the transposition of characters are seldom omitted. The perpendicular lines between characters, and the meaning of difficult and unusual characters or their sounds, are