Japanese Dictionaries - Modern Japanese Lexicography

Modern Japanese Lexicography

The development of early Japanese lexicography from Chinese–Japanese dictionaries has cross-linguistic parallels, for instance, early English language lexicography developed from Latin–English dictionaries. Nonetheless, modern Japanese lexicography adapted to an unparalleled second foreign wave from Western language dictionaries and romanization.

During the Nanban trade Period (1543–1650 CE) when Japan was opened to Europeans, the Jesuit Mission Press published two groundbreaking dictionaries. The 1598 monolingual Rakuyōshū (落葉集, "Collection of Fallen Leaves") gave Sino-Japanese and native Japanese readings of characters, and introduced the small raised circle (handakuten 半濁点) to indicate the p sound (compare ha は and pa ぱ). The 1603–1604 bilingual Japanese-Portuguese Nippo Jisho or Vocabvlario da Lingoa de Iapam dictionary is still cited as an authority for early Japanese pronunciation. The year 1604 was at the beginning of the Edo Period and also, as Nakao (1998:37) points out, the date of the first monolingual English dictionary, the Table Alphabeticall.

During the Sakoku Period (1641–1853) when Japan was closed to foreigners, with the exception of the Dutch East India Company, Rangaku ("Dutch/Western learning") influenced Japanese lexicography through bilingual Japanese and Dutch dictionaries. Another notable publication was the 1712 Wakan Sansai Zue encyclopedia, which was based on the 1609 Chinese Sancai Tuhui.