The morning news., 1897-06-06
JAPANESE JOURNALISM.
The Written Language Differs From
the Spoken Language.


From the New York Evening Post.
The remarkable thing about the Japa-
nese papers is not that they are so meager
in every department, but that they exist
at all. The first japanese newspaper was
published in 1872, by John Black, an Eng
lishman, who founded the Nisshin Shinji
Shi. Before that there had only been
occasional terror sheets, which the ''yomi
uri-the native chapmen-hawked about
after a particularly bloody murder or ca
tastrophe such as a great fire, flood
or an earthquake.
Blacks paper was followed by Others
among them the Kwampo. or Official Ga
zette; the Toxic Shimpo and the Kokai,
emi-official; the Mai Nichi Shimbun, the
Yomi Uri Shimbun and the Ubin Hochi
Shimbun, all liberal; the Jiu Shimbun and
the Nikin Shimbun, radical; the Nihon and
Chusei hippo, conservative and anti-for-
eign; the FuzakU Gwaho,. an interesting
illustrated record of manners and customs,
and the Maru Maru, a comic paper in
spired originally by Punch.
All thsee papers use the written Ian
guage, which differs from the spoken Ian
guage, both in it's grammar and its vo-
cabulary. Basil Hall Chamberlain, an
Englishman, who is professor of Japanese
and of philosophy in the Imperial Uni
versity of Toxic. says that the Japanese
are still in the condition of Europeans of
the twelfth century: "They do not write
as they speak. A man may know the spo-
ken language thoroughly. and yet not be
able to understand the daily paper when
it is read aloud, nor even the note he
has just asked his native clerk in his Of
flee to write and to send up to the house,
announcing that he will bring up a friend
to 'tiffin.' "
Speeches are taken down in shorthand.
but are almost always translated into the
written language before they are printed
The one exception to the rule is the Rec
ord of Parliament speeches, wherein the
words are published just as they were ut
tered When this Record first appeared
the rural members were filled with con-
sternation, for there they saw held up to
the public eye ali their peculiarties of pro-
vincial dialect. Old men, as some Of them
were, they got themselves teachers, and set
about learning to speak like townsfolk
This Record is the beginning of a tre-
mendous reform which will lead to the dis
use of the written language, first in news
papers, and finally, it is hoped. in books as
well. For the spoken language is the liv-
ing language, the language of the people.
With the present parliament a new order
of things may be established in Japan and
freedom of the press guaranteed. Minis
ters of state incline to think that the time
is almost come. But it is we'll to remem-
Der that while the present laws are cruelty
severe as judged by western nations, they
are, as Prof. Chamberlain points out, not
so severe historically speaking, because it
is hardly a quarter of a century since free
dom of speech was denied TO the mikado's s
subjects, not theoretically, perhaps, but to
all intents and purposes. 1t was capital
offense to memorialize the government
Those who did so, and history gives many
instances, were wont to write what they
had to say in the form of a letter TO the
prime minister, and then calmly kneeling
at the gate of some public building, commit
hara-kiri or. TO use the polite form, sep
puku. The police who may have stood
respectfully at a distance while the act
was committing, would find the letter on
searching the body Of the suicide, and re-
port it's contents to the minister