はじめまして。イェンチン図書館の日本語資料担当ライブライアン、マクヴェイ山田久仁子です。「井の中の蛙」の一員になれて光栄です。どうぞよろしく。
Hello, Japan scholars. I have been a librarian for the Japanese Collection at the Harvard-Yenching Library for five and a half years. I was a librarian at the Documantation Center on Contemporary Japan (DCJ) at Harvard for ten years before coming to Yenching. Before working at the DCJ and before a short interval of two years as a bookbinding student in Boston, I worked at the Museum of Modern Japanese Literature 日本近代文学館 in Tokyo for seven years. I guess some of you guys were born at a time when I was putting up literay exhibitions in Japan.
I encountered following phrase “Shall I at least set my land in order?” by T.S. Eliot while writing my senior thesis at ICU. I liked it and adapted as my motto. In the following year I entered the world of libraries and have resided there for most of the time since. Now I feel we librarians can no longer stay in this orderly world and need to explore this rich and chaotic information universe both physical and virtual. Being one of the “Librarians without borders” is my goal now. I hope I can learn a lot from you at the same time I offer something useful to you for your research.
FYI: I recently discovered the “Kanban jissoku Nihon chizu” (官板実測日本地図) printed in the Bakumatsu period, based on Ino-zu, in our library’s basement. Although our copy is missing one (Ezo) of four sheets that cover all Japan, including Ryukyu and Karahuto,
they are beautiful. If you are interested in taking a look, let me know. They are not cataloged in the collection.
Hello. Did you learn how to make bookbindings?
Hi Helen, yes I studied bookbinding at the North Bennet Street School in
Boston for two years. The world of bookbinding is so deep and rich that
I barely touched surface. But I have true respect on this world.
Hi Kuniko,
As a Ph.D. candidate in (Japanese) history I have developed an interest (or rather, deep love) for old manuscripts (in general). This, includes, maps and I would very much like to see “Kanban jissoku Nihon chizu” if possible. How detailed are they?
Hi Thomas, you are most welcome to stop by my office where the maps are kept for now.
You can see digital version at the following URL.
http://www2.library.tohoku.ac.jp/kano/kochizu/CJA08288001/CJA08288001-P1.html
This University of Tohoku library site offers 450 old maps as well as rich
resources on traditional Japanese mathematics 和算 and other treasures. It’s
worth exploring.
はじめて御意を得ます
靖國問題でこのサイトを知りました。
元出版社社員。翻字式のローマ字で擴張ヘボン式なるものを提唱してゐます。舊かなを轉寫してみると表音性において現代假名遣ひより優れてゐることが判る。それで假名遣ひを切替へたのですが、拗促音を小書きにしてゐるのでまったくの舊かなといふわけでもありません。
圖書館關係の方ならぜひ知っていただきたく一筆ご案内申し上げる次第です。
ローマ字相談室といふサイト
http://www.halcat.com/index.html
に
擴張ヘボン式の提唱 http://www.halcat.com/roomazi/doc/KakutyouHebonSiki/rohmazhi.pdf
擴張ヘボン式 http://www.halcat.com/roomazi/doc/KakutyouHebonSiki/kak_hbn.pdf
英文擴張ヘボン式 http://www.halcat.com/roomazi/doc/KakutyouHebonSiki/xtn_hbn.pdf
があります。
wikipediaのdiscussionにも書込みがあります。
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Romanization_of_Japanese#An_Extended-Hepburn_System
是非御一讀下さいますやう。
Hi! I am a prospective Japanese History PhD who is currently living in Japan teaching on the JET program, and reading through old Frog in a Well posts. Saw this and just had to mention that I also studied abroad at ICU and loved it there. Maybe I`ll get a chance to work with you in the future. 🙂
Dear Kuniko san,
It was four years ago that I wrote about Extended Hepburn Romanization system and said that it was the first transliterational system ever proposed. I was wrong. Dr ASAKA`A kwan’ichi (known as Dr. Kan’ichi Asakawa) wrote in his Documents of Iriki published in 1929 at Yale as follows;
// quote begins
Our system of writing follows the one that has long since been current in writing in English except in one respect: we have employed “zh” for the sonant for “sh,” and “j” for that of “chi,” instead of using “j” for both, as is generally done. The distinction is always important in the written Japanese; though in speech it is disregarded in the greater part of the country, it is strictly observed in Kyū-shū. “Zh” should be pronounced like “z” and “s” in “azure,” “usual,” and “fusion”; “j” is the same as the English “j” and soft “g.”
// quote ends
His method was a precursor of EHS but the residue of transcription method remained for it retained macron-capped letters for long vowels.
From the transliterational point of view, there is no such things as long vowels in Japanese syllabary. In my opinion, long vowels is an expedient to fold some vowel pairs into a single vowel. In the traditional KANA script vowel pairs were not so abundant because of w or media h, namely the consonant of ha column or wa column. They are no more than a visual marker realized as a bilabial semivowel only when followed by the most open vowel.
When a pair is composed of the same vowels, they should mostly be construed as two distinctive vowels. But when they are different, some pairs sound as a long vowel due to mutual assimilation.
Please read
http://www.halcat.com/roomazi/doc/KakutyouHebonSiki/xtn_hbn4.pdf
and related articles at
http://home.att.ne.jp/grape/shindo/kotoba5.htm#kotoba3
Sincerely yours,