Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1871-05-08

IRREGULARITIES OF THE JAPANESE Lam.
GUAGE.-F. L. o. Roehrig, the recently ap-
pointed professor of Japanese language at Cor
nell university, delivered, few days ago, his
initial lecture in the course, which makes plain
some not generally understood points in the
Japanese tongue. For instance, the Chinese and
Japanese tongues have no resemblance what
ever in lexical form or grammatical construc
ton. The Japanese construction wholly re-
verses our method of thought and speech-that
is to say, where our sentence leaves off theirs
begins; so that our thoughts really appear TO
them as inverted. Moreover, the word which
describes or determines another has to precede
it, so that not only as in our language, the adj
jective comes to stand before the noun, but also
the possessive or genitive case, the nOminative
and the objective before the verb. The princi-
pal verb always ends the whole SEN
tence, and all other verbs that occur in
the sentence are put in the form of a participe
or gerundive, whereby the sense remains in some
measure undetermined and suspended to the end
of the period; then, and then only, il can be
seen in great many cases, whether the SEN
tence is to be understood relating to the pres
ent or the future, as affirmative or negative,
whether a request has been granted or refused
or an offer accepted or rejected. The Japanese
construction is, therefore, the very reverse OF
the syntactic order of the language of China,
The Japanese language is extremely difficult to
learn; indeed, constitutes one of the greatest
and most invincibe obstacles which foreign ma
tions encounter in their intercourse with the in
habitants. 1t is necessary, however, in order to
distinguish between the spoken language
Of Japan and that which is used only
in literary composition. OF the former
the collOquial Japanese-as much as is
needed for the common purposes of every
day life can, in a measure be acquired by rou-
tine and prolonged study among the people of
that country. The correct utterance of the
Japanese sounds is by no means an easy mat
ter. Thus, the and the n final are pronounced
with apecuiar installation, especially the form
er; and are not always distinct, there being
particular mode Of ut:ering Them which can
not be easily initiated by our vocal organs.
There is also sound which seems to fluctuate
between and d. The Japanese have no !, the
! in foreign words being uniformally expressed
by r; when they pronounce English, they al
most invariably say right for light, wrong for
long, and ram for lamb, to read
for to lead, etc. Another great difficulty
results from the extreme ceremoniousness
and politeness of the japanese. Thus, in speak
ing with any person Except son or a servant,)
it is always of the greatest importance to choose
expressions which show respect for the individ-
ual addressed proportional exactly to his rank
or social standing. On the contrary, in speak
ing ofOnes self it is always necessary to use ex-
pressions of great humility. AS to the written
or book language, it is to a great extent a con-
glomeration Of puzzles and riddles even to the
initiated, and fraught with so many and such m
extricable difficulties that Father 0yanguren, in
his "Arte de la Langua Japona," Mexico, 1888,
declares "the whole thing to be simply an arti-
flee of the devil to keep the gospel out of that
country" In fact, the Bible has never vet
been published in Japanese.