Susumu Nakanishi ( 中西進 , Nakanishi Susumu , born 21 August 1929 in Tokyo ) is a scholar of Japanese literature , particularly of the Man'yōshū . He earned his Doctor of Literature degree from the University of Tokyo (UTokyo) in 1962.
82-765: Reiwa ( Japanese : 令和 , pronounced [ɾeːwa] or [ɾeꜜːwa] ) is the current and 232nd era of the official calendar of Japan . It began on 1 May 2019, the day on which Emperor Akihito 's eldest son, Naruhito , ascended the throne as the 126th Emperor of Japan . The day before, Emperor Akihito abdicated the Chrysanthemum Throne , marking the end of the Heisei era . The year 2019 corresponds with Heisei 31 from 1 January to 30 April, and with Reiwa 1 ( 令和元年 , Reiwa gannen , 'the base year of Reiwa') from 1 May. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan explained
164-559: A pure vowel system, phonemic vowel and consonant length, and a lexically significant pitch-accent . Word order is normally subject–object–verb with particles marking the grammatical function of words, and sentence structure is topic–comment . Sentence-final particles are used to add emotional or emphatic impact, or form questions. Nouns have no grammatical number or gender , and there are no articles . Verbs are conjugated , primarily for tense and voice , but not person . Japanese adjectives are also conjugated. Japanese has
246-599: A Master of Arts in Literature from UTokyo in 1955. He wrote his doctoral thesis titled 'A Comparative Literary Study of the Man'yōshū (萬葉集の比較文学的研究)', and he earned a Doctor of Literature degree from UTokyo in 1962. Subsequently, he began comparative studies between ancient Japanese literature and Chinese literature. He is the honorary president of the Nara Prefecture Complex of Manyo Culture , president of
328-637: A benefit from the in-group to the out-group) means "[I/we] explained [it] to [him/her/them]". Such beneficiary auxiliary verbs thus serve a function comparable to that of pronouns and prepositions in Indo-European languages to indicate the actor and the recipient of an action. Japanese "pronouns" also function differently from most modern Indo-European pronouns (and more like nouns) in that they can take modifiers as any other noun may. For instance, one does not say in English: The amazed he ran down
410-594: A complex system of honorifics , with verb forms and vocabulary to indicate the relative status of the speaker, the listener, and persons mentioned. The Japanese writing system combines Chinese characters , known as kanji ( 漢字 , ' Han characters') , with two unique syllabaries (or moraic scripts) derived by the Japanese from the more complex Chinese characters: hiragana ( ひらがな or 平仮名 , 'simple characters') and katakana ( カタカナ or 片仮名 , 'partial characters'). Latin script ( rōmaji ローマ字 )
492-685: A controversial figure in Japanese politics, and due to his negative approval ratings, stepped down in September 2024 to be replaced as Prime Minister by Shigeru Ishiba . On 19 January 2024, Japan becomes the fifth country to successfully land on the surface of the Moon with the Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) lunar lander mission. To convert any Gregorian calendar year since 2019 to Japanese calendar year in Reiwa era, subtract 2018 from
574-541: A defense budget increase to 2% of GDP by 2027. This comes amidst growing security concerns over China, North Korea and Russia. This will make Japan the 3rd largest defense-spender (¥43 trillion ($ 315 billion) after the United States and China. On 1 January 2024, a magnitude 7.5 earthquake struck Ishikawa Prefecture in the Noto Peninsula , which killed 213 people and caused many more injuries. Following
656-414: A distinct language of its own that has absorbed various aspects from neighboring languages. Japanese has five vowels, and vowel length is phonemic, with each having both a short and a long version. Elongated vowels are usually denoted with a line over the vowel (a macron ) in rōmaji , a repeated vowel character in hiragana , or a chōonpu succeeding the vowel in katakana . /u/ ( listen )
738-419: A glide /j/ and either the first part of a geminate consonant ( っ / ッ , represented as Q) or a moraic nasal in the coda ( ん / ン , represented as N). The nasal is sensitive to its phonetic environment and assimilates to the following phoneme, with pronunciations including [ɴ, m, n, ɲ, ŋ, ɰ̃] . Onset-glide clusters only occur at the start of syllables but clusters across syllables are allowed as long as
820-484: A listener depending on the listener's relative social position and the degree of familiarity between the speaker and the listener. When used in different social relationships, the same word may have positive (intimate or respectful) or negative (distant or disrespectful) connotations. Japanese often use titles of the person referred to where pronouns would be used in English. For example, when speaking to one's teacher, it
902-408: A sentence need not be stated and pronouns may be omitted if they can be inferred from context. In the example above, hana ga nagai would mean "[their] noses are long", while nagai by itself would mean "[they] are long." A single verb can be a complete sentence: Yatta! ( やった! ) "[I / we / they / etc] did [it]!". In addition, since adjectives can form the predicate in a Japanese sentence (below),
SECTION 10
#1732765969351984-428: A single adjective can be a complete sentence: Urayamashii! ( 羨ましい! ) "[I'm] jealous [about it]!". While the language has some words that are typically translated as pronouns, these are not used as frequently as pronouns in some Indo-European languages, and function differently. In some cases, Japanese relies on special verb forms and auxiliary verbs to indicate the direction of benefit of an action: "down" to indicate
1066-624: Is compressed rather than protruded , or simply unrounded. Some Japanese consonants have several allophones , which may give the impression of a larger inventory of sounds. However, some of these allophones have since become phonemic. For example, in the Japanese language up to and including the first half of the 20th century, the phonemic sequence /ti/ was palatalized and realized phonetically as [tɕi] , approximately chi ( listen ) ; however, now [ti] and [tɕi] are distinct, as evidenced by words like tī [tiː] "Western-style tea" and chii [tɕii] "social status". The "r" of
1148-448: Is also seen in o-medetō "congratulations", from medetaku ). Late Middle Japanese has the first loanwords from European languages – now-common words borrowed into Japanese in this period include pan ("bread") and tabako ("tobacco", now "cigarette"), both from Portuguese . Modern Japanese is considered to begin with the Edo period (which spanned from 1603 to 1867). Since Old Japanese,
1230-527: Is also used in a limited fashion (such as for imported acronyms) in Japanese writing. The numeral system uses mostly Arabic numerals , but also traditional Chinese numerals . Proto-Japonic , the common ancestor of the Japanese and Ryukyuan languages , is thought to have been brought to Japan by settlers coming from the Korean peninsula sometime in the early- to mid-4th century BC (the Yayoi period ), replacing
1312-440: Is appropriate to use sensei ( 先生 , "teacher"), but inappropriate to use anata . This is because anata is used to refer to people of equal or lower status, and one's teacher has higher status. Japanese nouns have no grammatical number, gender or article aspect. The noun hon ( 本 ) may refer to a single book or several books; hito ( 人 ) can mean "person" or "people", and ki ( 木 ) can be "tree" or "trees". Where number
1394-701: Is associated with comedy (see Kansai dialect ). Dialects of Tōhoku and North Kantō are associated with typical farmers. The Ryūkyūan languages, spoken in Okinawa and the Amami Islands (administratively part of Kagoshima ), are distinct enough to be considered a separate branch of the Japonic family; not only is each language unintelligible to Japanese speakers, but most are unintelligible to those who speak other Ryūkyūan languages. However, in contrast to linguists, many ordinary Japanese people tend to consider
1476-466: Is better documentation of Late Middle Japanese phonology than for previous forms (for instance, the Arte da Lingoa de Iapam ). Among other sound changes, the sequence /au/ merges to /ɔː/ , in contrast with /oː/ ; /p/ is reintroduced from Chinese; and /we/ merges with /je/ . Some forms rather more familiar to Modern Japanese speakers begin to appear – the continuative ending - te begins to reduce onto
1558-469: Is cited, the expression 令月 (which characters constitute the word reigetsu in modern Japanese) has generally been academically translated or interpreted as "wonderful" or "good (Japanese: yoi ) month" in published scholarly works, such as by Alexander Vovin in English as wonderful month in his 2011 commentary and translation of Book 5, or by Susumu Nakanishi in Japanese as yoi tsuki ( 好い月 ) in his commentary and translation into modern Japanese that
1640-509: Is correlated with the sex of the speaker and the social situation in which they are spoken: men and women alike in a formal situation generally refer to themselves as watashi ( 私 , literally "private") or watakushi (also 私 , hyper-polite form), while men in rougher or intimate conversation are much more likely to use the word ore ( 俺 "oneself", "myself") or boku . Similarly, different words such as anata , kimi , and omae ( お前 , more formally 御前 "the one before me") may refer to
1722-417: Is important, it can be indicated by providing a quantity (often with a counter word ) or (rarely) by adding a suffix, or sometimes by duplication (e.g. 人人 , hitobito , usually written with an iteration mark as 人々 ). Words for people are usually understood as singular. Thus Tanaka-san usually means Mx Tanaka . Words that refer to people and animals can be made to indicate a group of individuals through
SECTION 20
#17327659693511804-755: Is less common. In terms of mutual intelligibility , a survey in 1967 found that the four most unintelligible dialects (excluding Ryūkyūan languages and Tōhoku dialects ) to students from Greater Tokyo were the Kiso dialect (in the deep mountains of Nagano Prefecture ), the Himi dialect (in Toyama Prefecture ), the Kagoshima dialect and the Maniwa dialect (in Okayama Prefecture ). The survey
1886-420: Is often called a topic-prominent language , which means it has a strong tendency to indicate the topic separately from the subject, and that the two do not always coincide. The sentence Zō wa hana ga nagai ( 象は鼻が長い ) literally means, "As for elephant(s), (the) nose(s) (is/are) long". The topic is zō "elephant", and the subject is hana "nose". Japanese grammar tends toward brevity; the subject or object of
1968-498: Is preserved in words such as matsuge ("eyelash", lit. "hair of the eye"); modern mieru ("to be visible") and kikoeru ("to be audible") retain a mediopassive suffix - yu(ru) ( kikoyu → kikoyuru (the attributive form, which slowly replaced the plain form starting in the late Heian period) → kikoeru (all verbs with the shimo-nidan conjugation pattern underwent this same shift in Early Modern Japanese )); and
2050-402: Is the version of Japanese discussed in this article. Formerly, standard Japanese in writing ( 文語 , bungo , "literary language") was different from colloquial language ( 口語 , kōgo ) . The two systems have different rules of grammar and some variance in vocabulary. Bungo was the main method of writing Japanese until about 1900; since then kōgo gradually extended its influence and
2132-471: Is used for the present and the future. For verbs that represent an ongoing process, the -te iru form indicates a continuous (or progressive) aspect , similar to the suffix ing in English. For others that represent a change of state, the -te iru form indicates a perfect aspect. For example, kite iru means "They have come (and are still here)", but tabete iru means "They are eating". Questions (both with an interrogative pronoun and yes/no questions) have
2214-405: Is why some linguists do not classify Japanese "pronouns" as pronouns, but rather as referential nouns, much like Spanish usted (contracted from vuestra merced , "your ( majestic plural ) grace") or Portuguese você (from vossa mercê ). Japanese personal pronouns are generally used only in situations requiring special emphasis as to who is doing what to whom. The choice of words used as pronouns
2296-418: Is widely believed to have conceived the name of the current era of the official calendar of Japan, Reiwa (令和, 2019-). However, it is a custom not to reveal the conceiver of the name of an era, and he has said, 'Era names are not for secular individuals like Susumu Nakanishi to decide, but are determined by divine inspiration. There is no such person as the inventor of the name "Reiwa"'. Nakanishi studied at
2378-618: The Kojiki and the Nihon Shoki . Official pronunciations and meanings of these names were not released, although the reading of Eikō was leaked; the other readings are speculative. The kanji characters for Reiwa are derived from the Man'yōshū , an eighth-century ( Nara period ) anthology of waka poetry. The kotobagaki (headnote) attached to a group of 32 poems (815–846) in Volume 5 of
2460-449: The 2024 Japanese slush fund scandal , Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida warned that three factions of Liberal Democratic Party ( Seiwa Seisaku Kenkyūkai , Kōchikai , and Shisuikai ) all announced their intention to dissolve to form a war cabinet. However, several LDP lawmakers were indicted, including incumbent lawmakers Yasutada Ōno and Yaichi Tanigawa , who both resigned from the party following their indictments. Kishida became
2542-512: The COVID-19 pandemic as several countries reported a significant increase in cases by March 2020. Japan and other countries donated masks, medical equipment, and money to China. In June 2020, Fugaku was declared the most powerful supercomputer in the world with a performance of 415.53 PFLOPS . Fugaku also ranked first place in computational methods performance for industrial use, artificial intelligence applications, and big data analytics. It
Reiwa era - Misplaced Pages Continue
2624-517: The Japonic language family, which also includes the Ryukyuan languages spoken in the Ryukyu Islands . As these closely related languages are commonly treated as dialects of the same language, Japanese is sometimes called a language isolate . According to Martine Irma Robbeets , Japanese has been subject to more attempts to show its relation to other languages than any other language in
2706-791: The Man'yōshū usage is allegedly based: 於是仲春 令 月，時 和 氣清；原隰鬱茂，百草茲榮。 Yú shì zhòng chūn lìng yuè, shí hé qì qīng; yuán xí yù mào, bǎi cǎo zī róng. Then comes young spring, in a fine month, When the wind is mild and the air clear. Plains and swamps are overgrown with verdure And the hundred grasses become rank and thick. According to the Japan Mint , all coins with the new era name will be released by October 2019. It takes three months to make preparations such as creating molds in order to input text or pictures. The Mint will prioritize creating 100 - and 500 - yen coins due to their high mintage and circulation, with an anticipated release by
2788-514: The Philippines , and various Pacific islands, locals in those countries learned Japanese as the language of the empire. As a result, many elderly people in these countries can still speak Japanese. Japanese emigrant communities (the largest of which are to be found in Brazil , with 1.4 million to 1.5 million Japanese immigrants and descendants, according to Brazilian IBGE data, more than
2870-569: The Ryukyuan languages and the variously classified Hachijō language . There have been many attempts to group the Japonic languages with other families such as the Ainu , Austronesian , Koreanic , and the now-discredited Altaic , but none of these proposals have gained any widespread acceptance. Little is known of the language's prehistory, or when it first appeared in Japan. Chinese documents from
2952-738: The United States (notably in Hawaii , where 16.7% of the population has Japanese ancestry, and California ), and the Philippines (particularly in Davao Region and the Province of Laguna ). Japanese has no official status in Japan, but is the de facto national language of the country. There is a form of the language considered standard : hyōjungo ( 標準語 ) , meaning "standard Japanese", or kyōtsūgo ( 共通語 ) , "common language", or even "Tokyo dialect" at times. The meanings of
3034-806: The de facto standard Japanese had been the Kansai dialect , especially that of Kyoto . However, during the Edo period, Edo (now Tokyo) developed into the largest city in Japan, and the Edo-area dialect became standard Japanese. Since the end of Japan's self-imposed isolation in 1853, the flow of loanwords from European languages has increased significantly. The period since 1945 has seen many words borrowed from other languages—such as German, Portuguese and English. Many English loan words especially relate to technology—for example, pasokon (short for "personal computer"), intānetto ("internet"), and kamera ("camera"). Due to
3116-448: The standard dialect moved from the Kansai region to the Edo region (modern Tokyo ) in the Early Modern Japanese period (early 17th century–mid 19th century). Following the end of Japan's self-imposed isolation in 1853, the flow of loanwords from European languages increased significantly, and words from English roots have proliferated. Japanese is an agglutinative , mora -timed language with relatively simple phonotactics ,
3198-527: The 1.2 million of the United States ) sometimes employ Japanese as their primary language. Approximately 12% of Hawaii residents speak Japanese, with an estimated 12.6% of the population of Japanese ancestry in 2008. Japanese emigrants can also be found in Peru , Argentina , Australia (especially in the eastern states), Canada (especially in Vancouver , where 1.4% of the population has Japanese ancestry),
3280-465: The 3rd century AD recorded a few Japanese words, but substantial Old Japanese texts did not appear until the 8th century. From the Heian period (794–1185), extensive waves of Sino-Japanese vocabulary entered the language, affecting the phonology of Early Middle Japanese . Late Middle Japanese (1185–1600) saw extensive grammatical changes and the first appearance of European loanwords . The basis of
3362-798: The Department of Japanese Literature at the University of Tokyo (UTokyo), where he was supervised by the Japanese literary scholar Senichi Hisamatsu (久松潜一). He graduated from the university in 1953 with a Bachelor of Arts in Literature. He continued his studies at UTokyo. His master's thesis was titled 'A Study on the Prosaic Nature in Early Japanese Literature (上代文藝における散文性の研究)'. Nakanishi continued to study under Hisamatsu during his postgraduate studies. In 1954, he lectured part-time at Yukigaya High School. Nakanishi earned
Reiwa era - Misplaced Pages Continue
3444-486: The Japanese language is of particular interest, ranging between an apical central tap and a lateral approximant . The "g" is also notable; unless it starts a sentence, it may be pronounced [ ŋ ] , in the Kanto prestige dialect and in other eastern dialects. The phonotactics of Japanese are relatively simple. The syllable structure is (C)(G)V(C), that is, a core vowel surrounded by an optional onset consonant,
3526-639: The Old Japanese sections are written in Man'yōgana , which uses kanji for their phonetic as well as semantic values. Based on the Man'yōgana system, Old Japanese can be reconstructed as having 88 distinct morae . Texts written with Man'yōgana use two different sets of kanji for each of the morae now pronounced き (ki), ひ (hi), み (mi), け (ke), へ (he), め (me), こ (ko), そ (so), と (to), の (no), も (mo), よ (yo) and ろ (ro). (The Kojiki has 88, but all later texts have 87. The distinction between mo 1 and mo 2 apparently
3608-488: The Ryūkyūan languages as dialects of Japanese. The imperial court also seems to have spoken an unusual variant of the Japanese of the time, most likely the spoken form of Classical Japanese , a writing style that was prevalent during the Heian period , but began to decline during the late Meiji period . The Ryūkyūan languages are classified by UNESCO as 'endangered', as young people mostly use Japanese and cannot understand
3690-543: The addition of a collective suffix (a noun suffix that indicates a group), such as -tachi , but this is not a true plural: the meaning is closer to the English phrase "and company". A group described as Tanaka-san-tachi may include people not named Tanaka. Some Japanese nouns are effectively plural, such as hitobito "people" and wareware "we/us", while the word tomodachi "friend" is considered singular, although plural in form. Verbs are conjugated to show tenses, of which there are two: past and present (or non-past) which
3772-427: The collection, composed on the occasion of a poetic gathering to view the plum blossoms , reads as follows: Original Kanbun text: 于時、初春 令 月、氣淑風 和 、梅披鏡前之粉、蘭薫珮後之香。 Classical Japanese translation ( kanbun kundoku ): 時に、初春の 令 月にして、気淑く風 和 ぎ、梅は鏡前の粉を披き、蘭は珮後の香を薫す。 Toki ni, shoshun no rei getsu ni shite, kiyoku kaze yawara gi, ume wa kyōzen no ko o hiraki, ran wa haigo no kō o kaorasu. English translation: It
3854-578: The effect of changing Japanese into a mora-timed language. Late Middle Japanese covers the years from 1185 to 1600, and is normally divided into two sections, roughly equivalent to the Kamakura period and the Muromachi period , respectively. The later forms of Late Middle Japanese are the first to be described by non-native sources, in this case the Jesuit and Franciscan missionaries; and thus there
3936-512: The emperor commanding ( rei ) the Toku gawa. On the other hand, according to Masaaki Tatsumi ( 辰巳正明 ) , professor of Japanese literature, and Masaharu Mizukami ( 水上雅晴 ) , professor of Chinese philosophy, interviewed by the Asahi Shimbun shortly after the announcement was made, the phrase has an earlier source in ancient Chinese literature dating back to the second century AD, on which
4018-616: The end of July 2019. Anticipating the coming of the new era, the Unicode Consortium reserved a code point ( U+32FF ㋿ SQUARE ERA NAME REIWA ) in September 2018 for a new glyph which will combine half-width versions of Reiwa 's kanji, 令 and 和 , into a single character; similar code points exist for earlier era names, including Shōwa ( U+337C ㍼ SQUARE ERA NAME SYOUWA ) and Heisei ( U+337B ㍻ SQUARE ERA NAME HEISEI ) periods. The resulting new version of Unicode , 12.1.0,
4100-454: The first Japanese era name with characters that were taken from Japanese literature instead of classic Chinese literature . Robert Campbell, director-general of National Institute of Japanese Literature in Tokyo, provided an official televised interpretation to NHK , regarding the characters based on the poem, noting that "Rei" is an auspicious wave of energy of the plum blossoms carried by
4182-609: The genitive particle ga remains in intentionally archaic speech. Early Middle Japanese is the Japanese of the Heian period , from 794 to 1185. It formed the basis for the literary standard of Classical Japanese , which remained in common use until the early 20th century. During this time, Japanese underwent numerous phonological developments, in many cases instigated by an influx of Chinese loanwords . These included phonemic length distinction for both consonants and vowels , palatal consonants (e.g. kya ) and labial consonant clusters (e.g. kwa ), and closed syllables . This had
SECTION 50
#17327659693514264-458: The languages of the original Jōmon inhabitants, including the ancestor of the modern Ainu language . Because writing had yet to be introduced from China, there is no direct evidence, and anything that can be discerned about this period must be based on internal reconstruction from Old Japanese , or comparison with the Ryukyuan languages and Japanese dialects . The Chinese writing system
4346-449: The languages. Okinawan Japanese is a variant of Standard Japanese influenced by the Ryūkyūan languages, and is the primary dialect spoken among young people in the Ryukyu Islands . Modern Japanese has become prevalent nationwide (including the Ryūkyū islands) due to education , mass media , and an increase in mobility within Japan, as well as economic integration. Japanese is a member of
4428-427: The large quantity of English loanwords, modern Japanese has developed a distinction between [tɕi] and [ti] , and [dʑi] and [di] , with the latter in each pair only found in loanwords. Although Japanese is spoken almost exclusively in Japan, it has also been spoken outside of the country. Before and during World War II , through Japanese annexation of Taiwan and Korea , as well as partial occupation of China ,
4510-424: The meaning of Reiwa to be "beautiful harmony". The Japanese government on 1 April 2019 announced the name during a live televised press conference, as Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga traditionally revealed the kanji calligraphy on a board. The Prime Minister Shinzō Abe said that Reiwa represents "a culture being born and nurtured by people coming together beautifully". A shortlist of names for
4592-454: The new era was drawn up by a nine-member expert panel comprising seven men and two women with the cabinet selecting the final name from the shortlist. The nine experts were: The day after the announcement, the government revealed that the other candidate names under consideration had been Eikō ( 英弘 ) , Kyūka ( 久化 ) , Kōshi or Kōji ( 広至 ) , Banna or Banwa ( 万和 ) , and Banpo or Banhō ( 万保 ) , three of which were sourced from two Japanese works,
4674-425: The only strict rule of word order is that the verb must be placed at the end of a sentence (possibly followed by sentence-end particles). This is because Japanese sentence elements are marked with particles that identify their grammatical functions. The basic sentence structure is topic–comment . For example, Kochira wa Tanaka-san desu ( こちらは田中さんです ). kochira ("this") is the topic of the sentence, indicated by
4756-470: The out-group gives a benefit to the in-group, and "up" to indicate the in-group gives a benefit to the out-group. Here, the in-group includes the speaker and the out-group does not, and their boundary depends on context. For example, oshiete moratta ( 教えてもらった ) (literally, "explaining got" with a benefit from the out-group to the in-group) means "[he/she/they] explained [it] to [me/us]". Similarly, oshiete ageta ( 教えてあげた ) (literally, "explaining gave" with
4838-415: The particle wa . The verb desu is a copula , commonly translated as "to be" or "it is" (though there are other verbs that can be translated as "to be"), though technically it holds no meaning and is used to give a sentence 'politeness'. As a phrase, Tanaka-san desu is the comment. This sentence literally translates to "As for this person, (it) is Mx Tanaka." Thus Japanese, like many other Asian languages,
4920-481: The proposed larger Altaic family, or to various Southeast Asian languages , especially Austronesian . None of these proposals have gained wide acceptance (and the Altaic family itself is now considered controversial). As it stands, only the link to Ryukyuan has wide support. Other theories view the Japanese language as an early creole language formed through inputs from at least two distinct language groups, or as
5002-459: The same structure as affirmative sentences, but with intonation rising at the end. In the formal register, the question particle -ka is added. For example, ii desu ( いいです ) "It is OK" becomes ii desu-ka ( いいですか。 ) "Is it OK?". In a more informal tone sometimes the particle -no ( の ) is added instead to show a personal interest of the speaker: Dōshite konai-no? "Why aren't (you) coming?". Some simple queries are formed simply by mentioning
SECTION 60
#17327659693515084-455: The significantly more common meanings of the character, especially so in both modern Japanese and Chinese. The Foreign Ministry also noted that "beautiful harmony" is rather an explanation than an official translation or a legally binding interpretation. Prior to and naturally irrespective of the era announcement, within the context of the Chinese essay in the Man'yōshū from which the excerpt
5166-817: The state as at the time the constitution was written, many of the elders participating in the process had been educated in Japanese during the South Seas Mandate over the island shown by the 1958 census of the Trust Territory of the Pacific that found that 89% of Palauans born between 1914 and 1933 could speak and read Japanese, but as of the 2005 Palau census there were no residents of Angaur that spoke Japanese at home. Japanese dialects typically differ in terms of pitch accent , inflectional morphology , vocabulary , and particle usage. Some even differ in vowel and consonant inventories, although this
5248-481: The street. (grammatically incorrect insertion of a pronoun) But one can grammatically say essentially the same thing in Japanese: 驚いた彼は道を走っていった。 Transliteration: Odoroita kare wa michi o hashitte itta. (grammatically correct) This is partly because these words evolved from regular nouns, such as kimi "you" ( 君 "lord"), anata "you" ( あなた "that side, yonder"), and boku "I" ( 僕 "servant"). This
5330-541: The topic with an interrogative intonation to call for the hearer's attention: Kore wa? "(What about) this?"; O-namae wa? ( お名前は？ ) "(What's your) name?". Negatives are formed by inflecting the verb. For example, Pan o taberu ( パンを食べる。 ) "I will eat bread" or "I eat bread" becomes Pan o tabenai ( パンを食べない。 ) "I will not eat bread" or "I do not eat bread". Plain negative forms are i -adjectives (see below) and inflect as such, e.g. Pan o tabenakatta ( パンを食べなかった。 ) "I did not eat bread". Susumu Nakanishi He
5412-531: The traditional dictionaries (such as Erya or the Kangxi Dictionary ), the word 令 is explained with the word 善 . Nakanishi criticized the understanding of the rei ( 令 ) in Reiwa as Japanese utsukushii ( 美しい , generally meaning "beautiful") , which was propagated by then-Prime Minister Shinzo Abe , pointing out that neither the etymology nor the exact sense are appropriate. "Reiwa" marks
5494-419: The two consonants are the moraic nasal followed by a homorganic consonant. Japanese also includes a pitch accent , which is not represented in moraic writing; for example [haꜜ.ɕi] ("chopsticks") and [ha.ɕiꜜ] ("bridge") are both spelled はし ( hashi ) , and are only differentiated by the tone contour. Japanese word order is classified as subject–object–verb . Unlike many Indo-European languages ,
5576-577: The two methods were both used in writing until the 1940s. Bungo still has some relevance for historians, literary scholars, and lawyers (many Japanese laws that survived World War II are still written in bungo , although there are ongoing efforts to modernize their language). Kōgo is the dominant method of both speaking and writing Japanese today, although bungo grammar and vocabulary are occasionally used in modern Japanese for effect. The 1982 state constitution of Angaur , Palau , names Japanese along with Palauan and English as an official language of
5658-480: The two terms (''hyōjungo'' and ''kyōtsūgo'') are almost the same. Hyōjungo or kyōtsūgo is a conception that forms the counterpart of dialect. This normative language was born after the Meiji Restoration ( 明治維新 , meiji ishin , 1868) from the language spoken in the higher-class areas of Tokyo (see Yamanote ). Hyōjungo is taught in schools and used on television and in official communications. It
5740-407: The verb (e.g. yonde for earlier yomite ), the -k- in the final mora of adjectives drops out ( shiroi for earlier shiroki ); and some forms exist where modern standard Japanese has retained the earlier form (e.g. hayaku > hayau > hayɔɔ , where modern Japanese just has hayaku , though the alternative form is preserved in the standard greeting o-hayō gozaimasu "good morning"; this ending
5822-420: The wind, and "Wa", the general character of peace and tranquility. Accordingly, the name marks the 248th era name designated in Japanese history. While the "wa" character 和 has been used in 19 previous era names, the "rei" character 令 has never appeared before. The character appeared in a proposed era name in 1864— Reitoku ( 令徳 )—that the ruling Tokugawa shogunate rejected, as it could be interpreted as
5904-548: The world. Since Japanese first gained the consideration of linguists in the late 19th century, attempts have been made to show its genealogical relation to languages or language families such as Ainu , Korean , Chinese , Tibeto-Burman , Uralic , Altaic (or Ural-Altaic ), Austroasiatic , Austronesian and Dravidian . At the fringe, some linguists have even suggested a link to Indo-European languages , including Greek , or to Sumerian . Main modern theories try to link Japanese either to northern Asian languages, like Korean or
5986-511: The year in question. Japanese language Japanese ( 日本語 , Nihongo , [ɲihoŋɡo] ) is the principal language of the Japonic language family spoken by the Japanese people . It has around 123 million speakers, primarily in Japan , the only country where it is the national language , and within the Japanese diaspora worldwide. The Japonic family also includes
6068-539: Was based on 12- to 20-second-long recordings of 135 to 244 phonemes , which 42 students listened to and translated word-for-word. The listeners were all Keio University students who grew up in the Kanto region . There are some language islands in mountain villages or isolated islands such as Hachijō-jima island , whose dialects are descended from Eastern Old Japanese . Dialects of the Kansai region are spoken or known by many Japanese, and Osaka dialect in particular
6150-547: Was co-developed by the RIKEN research institute and Fujitsu . A year later than originally scheduled, the 2020 Tokyo Olympics were held in the summer of 2021. In September 2021, Suga announced he would not stand in the Liberal Democratic Party leadership election , effectively ending his term as prime minister. He was succeeded by Fumio Kishida who took office as prime minister on 4 October 2021. Kishida
6232-411: Was elected leader of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) a week prior. He was officially confirmed as the country's 100th prime minister following a parliamentary vote. The first general election under the Reiwa era took place on 31 October 2021 . The LDP retained its majority despite losing seats. In March 2022, Russian invasion of Ukraine caused Japan to join sanctions against Russia. Japan
6314-680: Was imported to Japan from Baekje around the start of the fifth century, alongside Buddhism. The earliest texts were written in Classical Chinese , although some of these were likely intended to be read as Japanese using the kanbun method, and show influences of Japanese grammar such as Japanese word order. The earliest text, the Kojiki , dates to the early eighth century, and was written entirely in Chinese characters, which are used to represent, at different times, Chinese, kanbun , and Old Japanese. As in other texts from this period,
6396-429: Was in new spring, in a fair ( rei ) month, When the air was clear and the wind a gentle ( wa ) breeze. Plum flowers blossomed a beauty's charming white And the fragrance of the orchids was their sweet perfume. The Japanese Foreign Ministry provided an English-language interpretation of Reiwa as "beautiful harmony", to dispel reports that "Rei" ( 令 ) here is translated as "command" or "order" – which are
6478-474: Was lost immediately following its composition.) This set of morae shrank to 67 in Early Middle Japanese , though some were added through Chinese influence. Man'yōgana also has a symbol for /je/ , which merges with /e/ before the end of the period. Several fossilizations of Old Japanese grammatical elements remain in the modern language – the genitive particle tsu (superseded by modern no )
6560-446: Was published in 1978. Susumu Nakanishi , a scholar of Japanese literature , particularly of the Man'yōshū , is widely believed to have conceived the name Reiwa . Following the announcement of Reiwa in 2019, Nakanishi advocated for understanding the character rei ( 令 ) of the era name through the help of the Japanese word uruwashii ( うるわしい , fair (of sight, weather), beautiful, fine (also of mood) etc. ) , stressing that in
6642-466: Was released on 7 May 2019. The Microsoft Windows update KB4469068 included support for the new era. On 19 November 2019, Shinzo Abe became the longest-serving prime minister of Japan and surpassed the previous 2,883-day record of Katsura Tarō . Abe also beat Eisaku Satō 's record of 2,798 consecutive days on 23 August 2020. He resigned for health reasons in September 2020 and was succeeded by Yoshihide Suga. In early 2020, Japan began to suffer from
6724-458: Was the first Asian country to exert pressure on Russia. In July 2022, the former prime minister Shinzo Abe was assassinated by Tetsuya Yamagami in Nara . By comparison, Japan had only 10 gun related deaths from 2017 to 2021 and 1 gun fatality in 2021. On 16 December 2022, Second Kishida Cabinet announced a departure from Japan's defense-oriented policy by acquiring counterstrike capabilities and
#350649