Professor Emeritus Hideo Hirooka ― A Legendary Kandai Philologist
Masahiro ISHIHARADA (Professor at Shitennoji University)
Hideo Hirooka, Professor Emeritus at Kansai University (henceforthKandai), was a prominent English philologist, best known for his books on
the English language and dialects. As a scholar of English studies, and also
as a joint editor of Anglica, he made substantial contributions to academic
societies. He completed ‘Studies in the South-Western Dialect Used in theWorks of Thomas Hardy’, compiled it into Thomas Hardy’s Use of Dialect(1983), and earned a doctorate from Kandai, which granted him the title ofProfessor Emeritus at retirement in 1989. After retirement, he was awarded
the Third Order of the Sacred Treasure (Kun Santo Zuihosho) on 3
November 1992, and on the autumnal equinox day in 2012 he peacefully left
us at the age of 94.
1. Experience
On 24 April 1918, Hideo Hirooka was born at Hoshida, Kita-Kawachi
County (now Katano City, Osaka) where he lived his whole life. After
education at local schools, he learned English at Kandai preparatory course
from Professor Jiichi Hattori (1903-52), who had learned from Dr Itsuki
Hosoe (1884-1947), professor at Osaka University of Commerce (now OsakaCity University). Hirooka went on to the Kandai English specialist course,
where he graduated in September 1943. And in March 1944, two months
after his teaching career launched at Riseisha Middle School (now Riseisha
High School), he was drafted and assigned to serve in China.
After the war, in March 1946, Hirooka returned home to resume office atRiseisha. In 1947 he became professor at Osaka Daiichi Normal School (nowOsaka Kyoiku University). In 1950 he came back to Kandai to work, retiringin March 1989. In his long career he taught thousands of students, but healso had the two teachers he respected most: Dr Hosoe and Dr Tadao
Yamamoto (1904-91), professor at Hiroshima Imperial University Teachers
College (now Hiroshima University).
2. Anglica and Others
When I was a graduate student in 1970s, Professor Hirooka was one of thepillars of Kandai English department. Prof. Sutezo Hirose (1911-2002),

eminent scholar of Chaucer, well-known for the collection of the Manyoshu
MSS, was President, and since he was busy in the president’s office, Hirooka
was really head of Kandai Philology. One of his activities deserving special
mention was to edit the scholarly magazine Anglica, published by Kandai
English Philological Society (later Kandai Anglica Society). It was the firstinternational journal of English studies in Japan and it made its first
appearance in November 1950, seven months after Hirooka was appointed atKandai. From the outset he became involved in the management of thejournal, which was to have far-reaching consequences in his career.
The journal title was chosen by Dr Tadao Yamamoto. The black letteringon the yellow cover was written by Dr Sanki Ichikawa (1886-1970). As thetitle suggests, Anglica (meaning ‘the English language in Latin) was thejournal of English philologists, as opposed to to new linguists emerging at
the time, in particular American structural linguists. The philologists loved
OED and MED, and they did not ask ‘What is language?’ but how English
had developed.
Anglica Vol. I, No. 1 begins with Dr Ichikawa’s essay ‘Be learning still,’
where he tells how hard Dr Tomitaro Makino worked even in later life andhow kind and generous Dr Hosoe was, and then referring to Professor
Yamamoto’s ‘Dickens Lexicon’, he expresses his great expectations for its
success. Soon after No. 4, Professor Hattori, founder and editor in chief ofAnglica, suddenly passed away. Prof. Kinjiro Enomoto and Hirooka
collaborated with their colleagues to carry on the publication, and Anglica
achieved international recognition. Editing papers and preparing for thepress may have been laborious, but those days must also have been theirhappiest and proudest days; they worked at a time when journal
publications were not so numerous as these days. Professor Hirooka recalled,‘Through Anglica I was lucky enough to get acquainted with the leading
philologists.’
Meanwhile, the journal was quite different from ordinary magazines inthat the staff never received any financial assistance. Professor Hattori
managed to pay all the publishing costs from the royalties of the textbooks
he had edited. The members of the Anglica Society, in tune with him,
followed his example and continued to publish the journal for nearly 20 years.
But, alas the day to stop publishing came at last. The final number, Vol. VI,No. 4 (the 29th volume of the set), was issued in March 1968.

Kandai English Philological Society also published Dr Tadao Yamamoto’s
best known work, Growth and System of Language of Dickens (1950), and in
May 1953 Dr Yamamoto received the Japan Academy Prize. Invited to thecelebration held in Hiroshima, Hirooka delivered a congratulatory address toexpress his pleasure.
3. Research Interests
Dr Hosoe had studied English dialects before anyone else in Japan. He wasto take up office at Kandai, but unfortunately, he died in March 1947 before
the new term started. Hirooka inherited his work and the bereaved family
allowed him to freely use the materials the deceased scholar had collected.
Kandai Library has housed part of the Hosoe Collection of books.
Professor Hirooka developed the study of dialects and left us many
achievements. His famous book Dialects in English Literature (1965) was alandmark contribution and stimulated popular interest in English dialectsthat had been given little attention. After the introduction to Old and Middle
English dialects, Hirooka exemplified all the main dialects in England,
which reflected his scholarship: a love of linguistic facts, good historicaljudgement, a good sense of humour, and, above all, a deep understanding of
human nature. His principle in research, he said time and again, is summed
up as follows:
Context (or situation) is important. Each word can be a linguistic material, andeach word has a human meaning. We must consider when and where and why
it is used.

He noticed, for example, that when you and ye are used in a dialect, theformer is a stressed form while the latter is not, and that the dialectal ye is
not the historical remnant of ME ye, but it is just a modern corruption of you.
Cf. ‘Ye in the Wessex Dialect,’ Anglica, No. 4 (1952), 60-72.
In the same way, in his ‘Is the Present Dialectal ’en, ’un, ’n the lineal
Descendant of OE. hine? (With Special Reference to Ancrene Riwle),’ Anglica,
No. 5 (1953), 16-89, he rejected the common belief that the [əәn]written ’en, ’un, ’n in dialects comes from OE hine, and claimed instead that
him and en cannot be interchanged because him is a stressed form while enis unstressed. That was already evident in Ancrene Riwle along with

Ayenbite of Inwyt, where him gradually took the place of hine, which in turnceased to be used in the ME period. A comeback? No. Hirooka thinks that bycorruption in Modern English him became im, um, m in Northern andMidland dialects while in Southern it became un, en, n.
Furthermore, concerning the origin of ’em, generally regarded as theremnant of ME hem, Professor Hirooka describes it as a modern
development from them with the loss of the initial fricative, giving manyother examples from dialects. He considers it questionable that, though ’emis a common form in Scotland, Ireland, England, America, etc., a modern
phonological theory naively decides that it comes from ME hem with the lossof the aspirate. Hirooka asks why hem, a possible emphatic form, didn’t
survive and never occurs, and why ’em always occurs along with them. Cf.
‘On ’em,’ Essays and Studies by Members of the Literary Faculty, Vol. XIV,Nos. 1, 2, 3, 4, Kandai, Osaka (1965), 275-289.
Archaic or obsolete words are often found alive in dialects, but dialect does
not always mean antiquity. Professor Hirooka argues, in ‘I Says and Similar
Forms in English Dialects,’ Anglica, Vol. 3, No. 3 (1958), 51-63:
The language is living and is destined to change everyday, and the reality ofEnglish would consist in living speech. It is really important to observe thelanguage from its function in the context as well as from the historical point ofview. We ought to watch what situations and what contexts the words are usedin. (53)

Thus emphasizing the functional and situational importance, he continues:
Historical explanation, of course, should not be neglected in this connexion, but
it is by no means all-powerful in every case. It would be dangerous to seek theorigin of dialectal forms always in their older stage without making
observation of their real use and function in the given situation. (63)

His research was based on sharp observations of the materials taken fromliterary works. It was, however, insufficiently recognized by some linguists
who objected, ‘Materials taken from literature are not real evidence bythemselves.’ Hirooka had realized this rather well; he made it clear inadvance that he was concerned with the dialect Hardy used, but not with

Dorset dialect itself. Hence the title ‘Wessex Dialect (I),’ “Thomas Hardy’sUse of Dialect”, Kansai University Studies in English Language andLiterature, No. 6 (1969), 26-43, in which he explains his belief as follows [inmy translation]:
The use of dialect is essential to Hardy’s Wessex Novels; the scenes are set in
Dorsetshire, where local people, whether laborers or farmers, speak in theirvernaculars. We should keep it in mind that literary products are not therecord of dialectal speech nor linguistic materials. A good literary work must beeasy to read, for which reason the author tries hard to choose the right word in
the right place. We call this ‘artistic creation’. (26-28)

4. Publications
One of his prime concerns was with the way Hardy used the dialect. He
made a close inquiry whether Hardy’s use of dialect had changed inaccordance with the context or the year of production, resulting in Thomas
Hardy’s Use of Dialect. That was ‘dedicated by his pupil to the memory ofItsuki Hosoe, a pioneer of English Dialect study in this country.’
His other publications are too many to mention here. They include A
Historical Survey of the Language of the English People (1956), its revisedand enlarged edition I (1969) & II (1970), and A Historical Survey of English
Pronunciation and Grammar (1975). He revised Dr Hosoe’s An Outline ofEnglish Syntax (1971), and, as a collaborator of Isamu Ono, he translated
The Sexton’s Hero by E. C. Gaskell (1955), edited with notes The Tragedy ofNan by John Masefield (1977), and, in collaboration with Hakuho Fujiki,
published a textbook of Charles Lamb’s A Dissertation Upon Roast Pig andOscar Wilde’s The Canterville Ghost (1988).
5. Membership
Professor Hirooka was instrumental in the foundation of the Medieval
English Literary Society 中世英文学研究会. When a biannual meeting washeld at Kandai, he was the regular discussion leader for researchpresentations. When the Round Table Conference on English Historical
Linguistics planned and organized by Prof. Akio Oizumi along with Prof.
Yoshio Terasawa and Prof. Tadao Kubouchi was held in 1983, Professor
Hirooka, one of the seven presenters, announced his recent research on

English dialects, on which Prof. Yoko Haneda gave a respectful comment
which was right on the mark. All the presentations at the conference areincluded in The Methods of English Historical Linguistics (1985).
6. A Legendary Figure
Professor Hirooka was a readily recognizable figure on campus. When I
first met him, he was in a black suit, with long hair and a mustache. He used
to carry books and all in a scarlet kerchief (furoshiki), and on a rainy day
held an old-fashioned umbrella in his hand, wearing a pair of black wellies,
already uncommon at the time.
His classes were full of humour. I was astonished how interesting English
could be and became immediately interested in his class. So many students
were likewise deeply moved by his unique teaching. After graduation, wevisited him with our essays, on which he gave inspiring comments, always
ending with ‘What’s the following theme? Show me the paper when you comenext.’ Indeed, he was a mentor who skilfully enhanced our studies.
In celebration of his 77th birthday, Professor Emeritus Koji Itoh at Nara
Prefectural University presented him with The Songs in Praise of English
Language and Literature (1994), for which a number of the leading scholars
and his former students contributed their papers (77 in all). At thecelebration, Professor Emeritus Hirose as guest of honour offered an
impressive message of congratulations.
7. Finally
As a nonagenarian, he was still hale in his old age. For hours without
reserve I enjoyed talking with him about a variety of topics. That was just afew years ago. Towards the very end of his life, nevertheless, he became
seriously ill. His wife had predeceased him. Mr Yoshitomo Hirooka, aworld-renowned painter, and his wife devoted themselves to caring for him.
But all their efforts were in vain. A funeral took place at Katano Memorial
Hall on 24 September 2012. Our legendary professor and his beloved wife,Ayako, will be ever with us. May their spirits rest in peace.