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Voortgang. Jaargang 19 (2000)

Voortgang. Jaargang 19

(2000)– [tijdschrift] Voortgang–rechtenstatus Auteursrechtelijk beschermd

Vorige Volgende

The publications of the Maatschappij tot Nut van 't Algemeen in Japan
Henk de Groot

Abstract - The unique position which the Dutch and their language occupied in Japan for more than two hundred years came to an end in 1854. Yet the years from 1855 to 1857 saw the appearance in Japan of a surprising number of reproductions, translations and adaptations of a Dutch grammar textbook for schools called Grammatica, which had been published in the Netherlands earlier that century.

A number of circumstances lay at the root of this phenomenon. A woodblock print reproduction of Grammatica was published in 1842, followed in 1855 by the publication of a Japanese translation, rendering the work accessible to a much wider audience. Furthermore, although the end of Japanese national isolation policies in 1854 brought with it a sudden and dramatic increase in the demand for Western knowledge, there was a delay of several years before many Japanese understood that Dutch was not the major European language they had thought it to be. It was during this short period of adjustment that Grammatica had its brief moment of Japanese glory.

Introduction

In 1853 an American naval squadron led by Commander Matthew C. Perry sailed into Japanese waters and set in motion the process that would end more than two hundred years of Japanese national isolation. During the preceding two centuries, a Dutch trading post on a tiny man-made peninsula called Dejima in the harbour Nagasaki Bay had been the only contact the Japanese had had with Europe. Over the intervening decades Japanese awareness of and interest in Western science and technology grew, until by the middle of the 19th century Rangaku,1 as the study of things Western was called, had become a popular pastime for hundreds of academics and enthusiastic amateurs around the country.

However, while medical and technological knowledge were adopted at a relatively steady pace over the years, the vehicle which carried all this into the country, the Dutch language itself, was one of the last disciplines to be approached in a systematic and academic fashion by the Japanese. Knowledge of

Dutch grammatical structures and terminology did not permeate Japanese awareness until the end of the eighteenth century, almost 160 years after the Japanese government put in place a guild of officially appointed Dutch interpreters.

One major reason for this is that the interpreters, who found themselves in the very lucrative position of sole intermediaries in the trade between two countries made every effort to maintain their monopoly by treating their Dutch skills as a secret art to be passed on between members of the guild only. Furthermore, with a few conspicuous exceptions the Dutch language skills of the interpreters themselves left much to be desired. As members of the samurai class, they were reluctant to elevate the lowly Dutch merchants to teacher status by taking lessons from them.2 Instead, interpreters were taught by their Japanese seniors within the guild.

A critical breakthrough in the study of the Dutch language in Japan came with the appearance of the linguistic works of Shizuki Tadao (1760-1806). Shizuki retired after serving only one year as an officially appointed apprentice interpreter in Nagasaki, and spent the rest of his life in seclusion, producing translations of Dutch books and treatises on Western grammar. This was the first departure from the traditional glossaries and collections of model dialogues that normally circulated among students of Dutch. Although Shizuki was a recluse, and no linguistic work of his ever appeared in print, his innovations reached other parts of Japan through his followers, and had a crucial influence on the way Dutch language studies were pursued around the country.

The arrival of Rudimenta, Syntaxis and Grammatica

Shizuki's pioneering work eventually cleared the way for a major new arrival on the stage of Dutch language learning towards the end of the period of national seclusion: Rudimenta, of Gronden der Nederduitsche Spraake (‘Fundamentals of the Dutch Language’ 1799), Syntaxis of Woordvoeging der Nederduitsche Taal (‘Syntax of the Dutch Language’ 1810) and Grammatica of Nederduitsche Spraakkunst (‘Dutch Grammar’ 1814),3 a series of three textbooks for schools published in the Netherlands by the Maatschappij tot Nut van 't Algemeen.4

When and by whom these works were brought to Japan is not known, but the first Japanese-produced reproduction of the second edition of Grammatica (1822) was made in 18405 by one Kumasaka Takeshi (?-?). Kumasaka was the

son of a sake brewer in Tohoku, in the northern part of Japan, whose interest in medicine brought him to Edo to learn Dutch. In the postscript to his reproduction he describes his struggle to come to grips with Dutch texts. Then:

Around this time, I acquired through purchase a printed book that had been imported. Upon reading it, all the questions than had accumulated over ten years were answered at once.6

 

This was the original Grammatica which Kumasaka used to make his reproduction. It is not known who sold it to him, or what has happened to it since. Of Kumasaka's reproduction only one copy is known to be still in existence.

However, two years later the influential Kyoto physician and scholar of Western studies Mitsukuri Genpo (1799-1863) also published a reproduction of Grammatica. Comparing the two prints, it is obvious that Genpo used at least some of Kumasaka's printing blocks, or else used prints from these to manufacture new blocks.

 

A Japanese translation of Grammatica and Syntaxis was published in five volumes by Kyushu scholar Ōba Sessai (1805-1873) progressively between 1856 and 1857. One reason for the long period of time between Mitsukuri's and Sessai's publications will have been the domination of Confucianist anti-Western elements in the judiciary during the 1840s, forcing many Rangaku scholars underground and bringing the publication of foreign-linked works to a halt.7 However, during the two years or so immediately following the appearance of Sessai's translation a bewildering proliferation of copies, translations, transliterations and interpretations of Grammatica and Syntaxis appeared. No other Dutch grammar book work was copied, translated or excerpted quite to this extent, although by then a considerable number of other works of this nature had also been imported and even copied.8

Possible reasons for this will be discussed below, but it must be remembered that Genpo's reproduction of Grammatica was published in 1842,9 considerably earlier than any of the other reprints and translations. The head start it had may have rendered Grammatica much more accessible than any of the other contenders. Multiple copies can still be found in several collections both in Japan and in Europe, indicating that a considerable number of printings were made. Furthermore, most of the Dutch books that were imported during the first half of the nineteenth century had arrived through official channels as gifts for the Sho-

gun, other government officials or the College of Interpreters. They were not available to the many private scholars and students of Rangaku that were active around the middle of the 19th century, who had to rely on books that were smuggled in, and Japanese-produced (usually handwritten) copies.

Although the Dutch archives provide us with an almost complete list of books that were officially imported into Japan by the Dutch during the period of national seclusion, no mention is made anywhere of Rudimenta, Grammatica or Syntaxis.10 The fact that there appear to be no original Dutch editions of these works in any Japanese collections, whereas copies of Genpo's reproduction (which, as we have seen, was at least partly a re-issue of Kumasaka Takeshi's work) are still relatively abundant suggests that it was Kumasaka's Grammatica that provided the source material for most, if not all, of the subsequent renditions. This seems to be corroborated by the fact that without exception the derived works produced in Japan are all based on the same edition of the original Dutch publication.11 It would therefore appear that a small book sold clandestinely to an unknown private student of Dutch (Kumasaka) provided an important resource for many students of the Dutch language around the middle of the 19th century.

 

A woodblock print reproduction of the 4th edition of the first volume of Rudimenta (1827) appeared in 1856 under the title Shintei Oranda bunpan zenpen (‘A New Dutch Grammar, Volume One’).12 Although the method and style of production closely resembles those of Genpo's work, his name does not appear on this production. Syntaxis was originally published in the Netherlands for students who had already worked their way through Rudimenta, with Grammatica appearing several years later, to complete a set of three. However, the Japanese showed little interest in Rudimenta, preferring instead to use Grammatica and Syntaxis as a pair, with the second chapter of Grammatica being the clear favourite.

 

Various methods and techniques were employed by Japanese authors and translators to represent the contents of Grammatica and Syntaxis. Most of the works carry the term Oranda bunten (‘Dutch Grammar Book’) in the Japanese title. Where the work contains material from both works, Grammatica is usually referred to as Oranda bunten zenpen (‘Dutch Grammar, First Volume’) and Syntaxis as Oranda bunten kōhen (‘Dutch Grammar, Final Volume’), although there are also works which contain a phonetic approximation of the word Grammatica



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Fig. 1. Oranda Bunten Zenpen (Mitsukuri)


or Syntaxis in Chinese characters in their titles. Since these renditions reflect the approaches and levels of aptitude of a number of students of the Dutch language in Japan towards the end of the period of national seclusion, it is worth taking a closer look at a number of them, beginning with Mitsukuri Genpo's reproduction and Ōba Sessai's translation, as these seem to have provided the source material and inspiration for the others.

Mitsukuri Genpo's reproduction: Oranda bunten zenpen (‘Dutch Grammar, First Volume’, 1842)

Although, as mentioned above, Kumasaka Takeshi produced the blocks for the first Japanese reprint of Grammatica, it was the reputation and expertise of Mitsukuri Genpo (1799-1863) that eventually made his own reprint one of the most influential works among students of Dutch in nineteenth century Japan. Genpo was a well-known and influential physician and Rangaku scholar of the later Edo period. He was engaged by the government as an interpreter for international negotiations, and his translation of a Western work on steam engines was used to build Japan's first steamboat.13

His Oranda bunten zenpen (‘Dutch Grammar, Volume One’) is a complete reproduction of the second edition of Grammatica (1822). Traditional Japanese woodblock printing techniques were used. In order to carve the wooden printing blocks, the entire work was copied in cursive writing in fine brush onto translucent paper, which was then glued face down on wooden slabs for carving into printing blocks. Although the original Dutch editions of these works were only small, measuring no more than about 16 × 9 cm, and used a font that was only just over a millimetre in height, it would have been impossible for the copyist to produce a legible script of that size by hand, and the script of the reproduction is about twice as large. As a result the book itself too is almost twice as large as the original, some 26 × 17 cm.

Despite the slow and laborious nature of the process, care was taken to copy everything contained in the original work, even down to the foreword by the secretary of the Maatschappij tot Nut van 't Algemeen, although its contents were irrelevant to Japanese students of Dutch. A faithful facsimile of the secretary's signature as it appeared underneath his foreword was also included, which resulted in the secretary, Hendrik Ravekes, often being mistakenly cited in subsequent Japanese editions of Grammatica as the author of the work.14

There is a manuscript in the Precious Books Collection of the Waseda University Library called Hendoriku Ranbun (‘Hendrik's Dutch Grammar’), while another handwritten part-copy in the same collection proclaims itself to be the Nederduitsche Spraakkunst Mendr Rareket.15

 

A woodblock print reproduction of the 1810 edition of Syntaxis was produced by Genpo in 1848, and published under the title Oranda bunten kōhen seikuron (‘Dutch Grammar, Final Volume; About Dutch Phrases’), and his Grammatica reproduction was reprinted in 1857.

Ōba Sessai's translation: Yaku Oranda bunten (‘Dutch Grammar in Translation’, 1855)

Ōba Sessai (1805-1873) was born in Kyushu in southern Japan, and as a youth studied under Philipp Franz von Siebold during the latter's stay in Nagasaki in the 1820s. Later, after a period of Dutch language study in Osaka, he returned to his birthplace, and in 1851 was involved in the establishment of a school for Dutch studies there. In 1862 he produced a Japanese translation of the work Volks-Natuurkunde (‘Popular Physics’, 1811, 1831) by Dutch physicist Johannes Buys (1764-1835), under the title Minkan kakuchi mondō (‘Questions and Answers Regarding Popular Natural Science’).16

Ōba Sessai published his translations of Grammatica and Syntaxis progressively in five volumes during the years 1856 and 1857. Volumes one and two, both of which were published in 1856, contain an introduction by Sessai, followed by translations of Hendrik Ravekes' foreword and chapters one and two of Grammatica. The two volumes are designated as ‘upper’ and ‘middle’ respectively, which indicates that a third (‘lower’ or ‘final’) volume containing a translation of the third and final chapter of Grammatica was planned. However, Sessai proceeded in the following year to publish a complete translation of Syntaxis in three volumes, suggesting that he may have thought that a translation of the third chapter of Grammatica, which deals with the rules of Dutch spelling, was not as high a priority.

 

The Grammatica translation is preceded by a lengthy introduction from the hand of Ōba Sessai himself. He extols the virtues of global thinking and innovation, and criticizes superstitious beliefs and prejudice:



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Fig. 2. Yaku Oranda Bunten (Ōba Sessai)


Countries such as Holland and France are of course remote Western countries. However, since these are also people of this earth, they are bound to have a certain amount of wisdom. If we have wisdom, we can surely discern truth. If we can discern truth, we can surely learn about the laws of nature. If we acquire a better understanding the laws of nature, we will as a consequence become equal to the foreigners.

 

Sessai then goes on to build a careful argument which rationalises the study of foreign languages in a way which conforms to the expectations of political correctness that prevailed at the time. A study of Western linguistic principles, he argues, will give the Japanese a deeper understanding of the ‘natural laws of grammar’. He adds an element of nationalist sentiment by declaring his belief in the superiority of Japanese texts, but then goes on to encourage scholars to investigate the thought and technology of other countries and cultures, because, he concludes, the strength that will be gained through the acquisition of new knowledge will ‘keep the barbarians at bay’.17 These comments reflect the mixture of enthusiasm for things Western on the one hand and national pride on the other that prevailed in Japan around the middle of the nineteenth century. He addresses the issue of non-Dutch speaking foreigners arriving in Japan in evergrowing numbers as follows:

Although this work is a Dutch textbook for schools, which concerns itself with the grammar rules of that country's language only, these teachings apply equally to the languages of all countries.

 

Sessai then moves on to the more immediate practicalities of the work he has just produced, and here we find the purpose he had in mind with his translations:

The mere attentive reading and thoroughly understanding of this translation followed by a reading of the original is not sufficient for the understanding of other Dutch books. The beginning student should first read through this translation, followed by the reading of the original, and then compare the two works, or alternatively first study the original thoroughly, then gain understanding through comparison with this translation.

 

Clearly, the translated work was to be used in conjunction with the Dutch original, in order to offer the student a two-fold opportunity to learn Dutch: in the

first place by comparison of a Dutch book with its Japanese translation, and secondly from the material offered by the book itself.

Finally, before moving on to more detailed remarks about the methods of presentation of his translation, he devotes a few words to the nature of the various volumes:

The first and third volumes of Zenpen will not be very useful without [the student practising] composition of Western sentences and conversation with Western people. Most necessary for the study of Western books are the middle volume of Zenpen and [all of] Kōhen.

 

The words ‘first and third volumes of Zenpen’ refer, of course, to his translations of the first and third chapters of Grammatica, the latter of which, as stated above, was never published. It is clear that Sessai felt these two chapters, which deal with the alphabet and rules of spelling respectively, were more suited to the beginning student of Dutch, while advanced students of the Dutch written word should concentrate their efforts on the second chapter of Grammatica and all of Syntaxis. This is in all likelihood the reason for his skipping chapter three of Grammatica and moving directly on to the production of a translation of Syntaxis.

Of course, the task of rendering a Dutch schoolbook on Dutch grammar intelligible to Japanese readers is not merely a matter of straightforward translation, and Sessai employed a number of devices to assist the student. Explanatory notes and Japanese translations of Dutch model words and phrases are inserted between brackets throughout the text. Furthermore, above each individual Dutch model word its Japanese equivalent is placed.

Although Sessai has avoided the use of katakana phonetic renditions of Dutch words, the ten parts of speech are presented in this form in the explanatory notes (but not in Roman letters), possibly because there was little consistency in the use of Japanese grammatical terminology at the time, and many students would have been more familiar with the Dutch terms in this form. He also presents Japanese translations of the nomenclature, but takes care to point out that these are translations of the Dutch terminology only. He uses a different set of terms for the same elements in the Japanese language. Nevertheless, some of the literal translations of the Dutch terminology have since become the accepted terminology in Japanese grammar. For example, Japanese nouns are indicated as jitsuji (lit.: ‘substance words’), but the Dutch term for noun (‘zelf-

standig naamwoord’) is translated as dokuritsu meishi, a combination of the characters for ‘independent’ (zelfstandig in Dutch), ‘name’ and ‘word’. The second element of this expression, meishi, is the word for noun in the Japanese language today.

 

In his introduction to Grammatica Sessai introduces ten different diacritics which each represent a part of Dutch speech. These marks are placed alongside every Dutch word in the Grammatica translation, but no longer appear in Syntaxis. Sessai explains in the introduction of his Syntaxis translation:

Since this volume has instruction regarding the meaning and structure [of sentences] as its main objective, there is no need for the application of these marks.

 

Instead, in Syntaxis a single diacritic is introduced, which links the elements of the verb phrase when they are located in separate positions in a sentence. It is clear that the student, having advanced to this stage, was expected to be able to identify the parts of Dutch speech independently, but would probably still need a little help in locating the various elements of the predicate.

Without doubt Sessai would have had access to one of the Dutch-Japanese dictionaries and word lists which had been produced in the first half of the 19th century. Even so, his translation, although its language and nomenclature are said to be somewhat archaic,18 represents a considerable achievement. It is well organized and virtually without errors, and is proof of the high level of skill in the Dutch written word that had been reached by some Japanese scholars in the fifty years since Shizuki's pioneering work. That not all students of Dutch reached these same high levels of skill can be seen by some of the other works based on Grammatica which appeared soon after.

More reproductions

In addition to the two works described above, at least another fifteen works based on Grammatica or Syntaxis were published soon after the appearance of Sessai's work, while some translations of Grammatica in manuscript have also survived. Although some manuscripts do not carry a date, those that are dated, as well as the printed works, were all produced between the years 1856 and

1858, several years after the Japanese had officially ended their policy of national seclusion.

 

There are two separate woodblock publications of Grammatica in which the original text appears in cursive script, much as it does in Genpo's reproductions. However, in these two works, Japanese translations have been inserted between or written above sections of the text. Sōyaku Garamachika (‘Grammatica with translations inserted’), the author of which is given as Ohara Kyōnosuke, appeared in 1857. It covers the second chapter of Grammatica (1814). The second work, entitled Kunten Oranda bunten (‘Dutch Grammar with Instructional Marks’) is also dated 1857, and at first glance has a very similar appearance. Here too, the Dutch text has been rewritten in cursive script, although it only represents the text of §25 to §68 of the original Dutch work. However, in this work the Japanese equivalents of words and phrases are written above, rather than inserted between the Dutch text, and the (anonymous) author has also added tiny numbers beneath the text, indicating the order the words would assume in translation. This allows even a beginning student to produce a good Japanese translation of the Dutch text, in a kind of ‘translate by numbers’ exercise.

The main text is preceded by a brief introduction, which explains the way the book is to be used. To begin with, the students are instructed to learn the pronunciation of the articles in their four cases. Next, the reflexive pronouns die, welke and dat (which have literal translations written above them, and appropriate context-based renditions below) are to be learned. Only then should a translation be attempted. The introduction then goes on to explain the meaning of the several markings appearing throughout the text, which indicate how many times certain words should be read or recited aloud and so on. This is followed by two quick-reference pages showing the fifty katakana signs with their equivalents in Roman letters, and the letters of the alphabet in three styles, with katakana renditions written alongside.

Thus, this carefully designed work is much more than a mere partreproduction of Grammatica. It addresses reading and speaking as well as translation skills, using a text which deals with the fundamentals of Dutch grammar into the bargain. It is unfortunate that no author is mentioned. The title page merely informs us that the work belongs to a ‘General Collection’, which has led to speculation that it may be the product of a regional official institution rather than a private scholar or academy.19



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Fig. 3. Sōyaku Garamachika (Ohara)




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Fig. 4. Kunten Oranda Bunten (Anon.)


The Phonetic Renditions of Grammatica

Over the years of the Edo period many Japanese students of Western learning showed a distinct reluctance to tackle the problem of the Roman alphabet. One important reason for this was that the nature of the letters in the Roman alphabet is quite different to the signs in the Japanese hiragana and katakana syllabaries, most of which each represent a consonant-vowel combination. Dividing these syllables up into their constituent vowel and consonant was a practice which was foreign to the Japanese, and understandably constituted one of the greatest hurdles in the study of the Dutch language.

The works in our next group of Grammatica-based publications are expressions of this reluctance. These works all provide the Dutch text of Grammatica phonetically represented in katakana with Japanese translations inserted. Katakana can give no more than a distant indication of the true pronunciation of Dutch; furthermore, the translated fragments are provided with few indicators relating to their syntactical function. The result therefore, despite the enormous amount of painstaking work that the preparation and printing of such a work must have required, can only be termed a confusing mess.

Nevertheless, at least three different woodblock publications of this nature still survive in various collections today. They are Garamachika kun 'yaku (‘A Japanese Translation of Dutch Grammar’) by Ogawa Gen'an (1856), Oranda bunten yakugosen (‘A Translation of Dutch Grammar’) by Enda Shōan (1856) and Oranda bunten dokuhō (‘Dutch Grammar - A Reader’) by Takeuchi Munekata (n.d.). These works were probably used for reading aloud and memorizing, a practice based on an existing technique called sodoku, in which the student recites and memorizes a text without necessarily understanding its meaning. Using this method on katakana approximations of Dutch texts would have served little purpose except perhaps to give the student an illusion of achievement and progress.

 

All three works contain only chapter 2 of Grammatica or part thereof, and all are dated 1856. Two of them, Oranda bunten yakugosen and Oranda bunten dokuhō, found their way into the collection of Leiden University and Hoffmann, though suitably scathing in his evaluation of these works, actually manages to find a positive aspect:



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Fig. 5. Garamachika Kun 'yaku (Ogawa)




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Fig. 6. Oranda Bunten Yakugosen (Enda)




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Fig. 7. Oranda Bunten Dokuhō (Takeuchi)


(...) it appears that the translator Tōda Sjōan [sic] has understood the peculiarities of the Dutch text well. Therefore his translation deserves to be recommended as a useful object of study to [Dutch] students of the Japanese language.20

 

Although each of the three works claims to have a different (unknown) author, the similarities in style, translation and grammatical terminology between them are too close to be called coincidence.

Two anonymous manuscripts in this format are also known to be in existence. Both cover all of Grammatica's second chapter, and both show remarkable similarities to the three printed versions. There are, however, some differences worth noting. The first few pages of the manuscript Oranda bunten zenkōhen chokuyaku (‘A Direct Translation Of Both Volumes of Dutch Grammar’) look almost identical to the published works. However, the writer gradually modifies his approach. As the work progresses, fewer and fewer Dutch words are represented, until by §72 no more Dutch words appear, and the work has become a translation only. There is a second volume, which consists of a translation of Syntaxis.

The translation in this manuscript is literal to the point of being childlike. Many of the commonly occurring problems stem from over-translation. That is to say, whereas Dutch grammar rules (and those of other European languages) require a certain minimum number of elements to be present in any sentence (such as a subject and a predicate), in Japanese the inclusion of some elements can result in unintended stress being placed on them. For example, the existential Er zijn ... (‘There are ...’), which is properly implied in Japanese by the topic marker ga, is translated word for word here, giving the impression that a specific location (‘there’) is indicated. The personal pronoun wij (‘we’), which occurs often in Grammatica in a rhetorical sense (as in: ‘The number of letters we need for the writing of true Dutch words is twenty-three’) is translated time and again as wareware, which gives it an exclusive nuance not intended by the original author. Another regularly occurring mis-translation stems from an inability to discern the indefinite article from the numeral ‘one’ in Dutch. Both are normally written as een, the only difference being the pronunciation. In most cases the indefinite article is translated here as hitotsu no, meaning ‘one (only)’. The manuscript is corrected (though not very competently) in places in vermilion ink, and has the appearance of the exercise book of a student, rather than a draft for a textbook.

On the other hand, the second manuscript, titled Garamachika wage (‘A Translation of Grammatica’ n.d.), is carefully drafted and obviously translated by someone who had a good grasp of the Dutch language. It was probably prepared as a text book for study and, judging by the fact that its first fifteen pages or so are well-thumbed, has obviously been used as such for at least a little while. It bears the name of an unknown private academy called Shunsuidō.

Condensed versions and helpers

In addition to reproductions, translations and phonetic renditions, Grammatica also provided material for a number of other publications, some of which were adaptations or condensed versions of the original work, while others were intended to be used in conjunction with Grammatica itself.

 

A rather remarkable Grammatica-inspired work in the first category is Oranda bunten benmō (‘Grammatica Simplified’), dated 1857. This ingenious little volume, by one Kōsho Sanjin, looks at first glance like a small book of no more than 16 × 9 cm, but on closer inspection reveals itself to be a long strip of paper of some 4 meters in length, folded in zig-zag fashion into a convenient fold-out booklet. Along its length are printed the essentials of Dutch grammar distilled from the second chapter of Grammatica, in the form of tables, lists and brief notes. For example, some six pages on the gender of nouns have been condensed into the following:

Gender of nouns.
masculine: ending in aar, er, ier, dom, em, sem, lm, rm.
feminine: ending in in, es, ster, schap, heid, ij, ing, nis, te, t.
neuter: ending in sel, te, schap, dom.

 

While this is by no means a complete representation of the information contained in the original six pages of text, it is an accurate rendition of the essentials, and certainly more suitable for quick reference than the complete version.

The author has displayed the ten parts of speech in a series of diagrams, in which their various manifestations are connected by lines. The diagram for nouns looks as follows:



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Naive perhaps, but this diagram would nevertheless have provided the Japanese student of Dutch who was struggling with the verbosity of Grammatica with a welcome overview of its essence. The terminology in the diagrams is provided both in katakana Dutch and in Japanese. Dutch model words and phrases, on the other hand, are presented in Roman letters only. The significance of this is that it implies that this author too (as did Ōba Sessai) obviously expected the beginning student to be familiar with the terminology of Dutch word categories even before mastery of the Roman alphabet had been achieved.

We do not know any details about the author of this work, other than his name. The fact that an unknown could have produced a work such as this, not only showing a thorough understanding of the material presented in Grammatica, but also proving himself capable of producing an efficient summary, shows that even in non-official circles there were those whose level of Dutch language skills was quite high.

 

In the second category, that of reference works to be used in conjunction with Grammatica, we find a work called Oranda bunten jirui (‘Word Categories in Dutch Grammar’). This little work consists of two volumes, each listing a different author. Volume one, compiled by one Iizumi Shijō, is dated 1856. It is a list of some five thousand Dutch words in alphabetical order, with Japanese translations, gender and word category added. Volume two, compiled by one Takahashi Shigetake and published two years later, is in the same format, and contains a list of almost three thousand words in alphabetical order. These two volumes were designed to be used as reference works by those who were attempting their own translation of Grammatica, which appears to have been a popular exercise for students of Dutch around the middle of the 19th century. That numerous enthusiasts worked on their own translation of Grammatica is borne out by the fact that a number of these manuscripts can still be found in various collections. These works are often characterised by their untidy script, bad translation and careless errors. Nevertheless, they all show signs of wear and tear through repeated use, indicating that even works of dubious quality were sought after as texts for Dutch language study.

The typeset reproductions

Western movable type printing methods were not entirely unknown in Japan, and had been used in southern Japan as a result of Portuguese influence from 1590, mainly for the production of Christian works. However, following the closing of Japan to the outside world in the middle of the 17th century, the method was abandoned in favour of single sheet woodblock techniques.21 Between the years 1796-1799 thirty copies were produced of a Dutch-Japanese dictionary based on Francois Halma's Dutch-French dictionary Nederduitsch en Fransch Woordenboek (1717), under the title Haruma wage (‘A Translation of Halma’) or Edo Haruma. Though the Japanese entries (some 60,000!) were all

written in by hand, the Dutch words were printed in movable type letters carved from wood.

Some time during the 1840 a printing press was requested by some Japanese interpreters, in order to better respond to the ever-increasing demand for Dutch books. Records disagree on the exact dates, but it seems that, although a set of printing letters arrived from Holland relatively promptly, the press itself, an English-made Stanhope Invenit, did not arrive until seven years later.22 Initially it was operated by the office of the governor of Nagasaki, and in 1856 the first work rolled off the presses, so to speak. It was a reproduction of the 1846 edition of Syntaxis. Although we find no mention in the work of its true origin, its irregular type and the kind of paper leave no doubt that this is not a Dutch production. No fewer than 528 copies were produced, of which one was donated to the governmental Astronomical Bureau in Edo, and the rest sold. Next, it was Weiland's turn. 530 copies of the 1846 edition of his grammar textbook Nederduitsche Spraakkunst (1805) were reproduced on heavy paper in the same year. This time the printers acknowledged their part in this production at the bottom of the title page:

Nagedrukt te Nagazaki in het 3de jaar van Ansei (1856).

 

However, whereas Syntaxis had been relatively free of errors, it appears that less care was taken with Weiland: a long list of errata at the back of the work informs the reader where all the l's are misrepresented as r's and vice versa.

In the following year production followed of a manual on infantry exercises and manoeuvres, and Van der Pyl's English instruction book Gemeenzame Leerwijs, voor degenen, die de Engelsche Taal beginnen te leeren (1854).23 That appears to be the end of the printing enterprise at the governor's office. The equipment was moved to the interpreters' offices just outside the main gate into Dejima. Here, Johannes Buys' Volks-Natuurkunde (1811, 1831) and Weiland's dictionary Kunstwoordenboek (1848) were printed in 1858, followed by a rerun of Weiland's Nederduitsche Spraakkunst in 1859. The installation of new printing equipment on Dejima itself put an end to the reproduction of Dutch works in Nagasaki; the ‘Nederlandsche Drukkerij’ as the printery on Dejima was called, produced only official and academic works written by the Dutch who were stationed in Japan.24 Grammatica was never reproduced in typeset form in Japan, an indication that its popularity was based mainly among the legions of private enthusiasts.

Conclusion

We can only speculate as to the reasons for the sudden appearance of so many Grammatica-based works in the years 1856-1858. The arrival of Perry and his warships in 1853 had an electrifying effect on the Japanese nation, and gave rise to a general sense of urgency over the need for Western knowledge. Although the end of the policies of national seclusion in 1854 meant that the days of the unique position of the Dutch language in Japan were numbered, change did not come overnight. The private academies, no doubt encouraged by a surge in student numbers, continued to teach Dutch for several years, and even the official school for Western studies in Edo, the Bansho shirabesho (‘Office for the Inspection of Foreign Books’), did not introduce English into its curriculum until 1860.25

This leaves us with the question of why Grammatica was clearly preferred by so many over other Dutch grammar books which had also been imported and even copied, both by woodblock reproduction and in relatively large numbers by movable type printing. The answer may be summed up by the following quote from Fukuzawa Yukichi (1835-1901), who studied Dutch at a prominent language school in Osaka for two years, and who was later to become one of the main architects of the education system in the new Japan:

(...) whenever a word was not to be found in Doeff,26 we turned to Weiland; but as the text was entirely in Dutch, it was beyond the reach of a beginner.27

 

As we have seen, Grammatica became available to a larger audience with the publication of Mitsukuri Genpo's reproduction in 1842. Clearly, however, it too would have been ‘beyond the reach of a beginner’ until the appearance of Ōba Sessai's translation in 1855. This, in conjunction with the sudden exponential growth in demand for information concerning the West, would account for the timing of the appearance of Grammatica's many reproductions, adaptations and interpretations in Japan.

 

By the middle of the 1860s the study of Dutch had been all but phased out as a result of the evergrowing demand for English, French and German language skills. Grammatica's brief period of glory can therefore be seen as a kind of ‘last stand’ of Dutch language studies in Japan. Although the discovery that Dutch was not a major language in the Western world would have come as a

disappointment to many who had studied so hard to come to grips with the ‘barbarians' tongue’, without a doubt the insights they had acquired through the study of Dutch grammatical principles made their ventures into the other European languages easier. More than any other text, Grammatica contributed to the popular spread of Western grammatical knowledge in Japan as it stood on the brink of a new era after more than two hundred years of virtual isolation from the outside world.

Bibliography

Asakura Haruhiko and Ishiyama Hiroshi 1954
‘On the earlier Dutch book collection in the Bansho Shirabesho (= Institute for the Study of European Languages, 1852-55)’. In: Journal of the Ueno Library Vol. 1, No. 1. Tokyo.
Blussé, L., Remmelink, W., Smits, I. (ed.) 2000
Bridging The Divide. Leiden: Hotei Publishing.
Boxer, C.R. 1950
Jan Compagnie in Japan. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff.
Chibbett, D. 1977
The History of Japanese Printing and Book Illustration. Tokyo: Kodansha International Ltd.
De Groot, H.W.K. 1998
Approaches to the Study of Dutch in Eighteenth Century Japan: Shizuki Tadao and Others. Unpubl. Masters thesis. Christchurch: University of Canterbury.
Dore, R.P. 1965
Education in Tokugawa Japan. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Enda Chomei Shōan 1856
Oranda bunten yakugosen (‘A Translation of Dutch Grammar’). Edo: Izumiya.
Hoffmann, J.J. 1882
‘Verzameling van Japansche Boekwerken door Mr. Donker Curtius op zijn reis naar Yedo in 1858 voor 't Rijk ingekocht, beschreven door wijlen Dr. Hoffmann’ (‘The Collection of Japanese Works Purchased by Mr. Donker Curtius During his Journey to Yedo, Described by the late Dr. Hoffmann’). In: Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde van Nederlandsch Indië, 4th series, vol. 6, 1-120.
Kerlen, H. 1996
Catalogue of Pre-Meiji Japanese Books and Maps in Public Collections in the Netherlands. Amsterdam: J.C. Gieben.
Kida Jun'ichirō 1994
Nihongo daihakubutsukan; Akuma no moji to tatakatta hitobito (‘The Great Museum of the Japanese Language: The Struggle with the Devil's Letters’), Tokyo: Jasuto Shisutemu.
Kiyooka Eiichi (transl.) 1966
The Autobiography of Fukuzawa Yukichi. New York: Columbia University Press.
Kodansha Encyclopedia of Japan. Tokyo: Kodansha Ltd. 1983.
Kōka Jūnirō 1936
Nagasaki yōgakushi (‘A History of Western Studies in Nagasaki’). Nagasaki Gakkai.
Kōsho Sanjin 1857
Oranda bunten benmō (‘Grammatica Simplified’). No publisher.
MacLean, J. 1974
‘The Introduction of Books and Scientific Instruments into Japan, 1712-1854.’ In: Japanese Studies in the History of Science, Vol 13: 9-68.
Mitsukuri Genpo (ed.) 1842
Oranda bunten zenpen (‘Dutch Grammar, First Volume’), Edo: Suwaraya Ihachi.
Noordegraaf, J. 1975
‘De “Maatschappij” en haar grammatici’ (‘The Maatschappij and its Grammarians’). In: De Nieuwe Taalgids Vol. 68. Groningen: H.D. Tjeenk Willink: 212-124.
Noordegraaf, J. 1985
Norm, geest en geschiedenis; Nederlandse taalkunde in de negentiende eeuw (‘Norm, Spirit and History: Dutch Linguistics in the Nineteenth Century’). Dordrecht: Foris Publications.
Numata Jirō, Ishiyama, H., Umetani, N., Ōmori, M., Katagiri, K., Sakai, S., Yabe, I. (eds.) 1984
Yōgakushi jiten (‘Dictionary of the History of Western Learning’). Tokyo: Yushodo Press Ltd.
Ōba Sessai (transl.) 1855-7
Yaku Oranda bunten (‘Dutch Grammar in Translation’), Edo: Suwaraya.
Ogawa Gen'an 1856
Garamachika kun 'yaku (‘A Japanese Translation of Dutch Grammar’). No publisher.
Ohara Kyōnosuke 1857
Sōyaku Garamachika (‘Grammatica with translations inserted’). Edo: Okadaya.
Ōtsuki Gentō (n.d.)
Nederduitsche Spraakkunst Mendr Rareket (‘Dutch Grammar Mendr Rareket’). Manuscript, Waseda University Library.
Saitō, S. 1985
Nihon ni okeru Orandago kenkyū no rekishi (‘A History of Dutch language Studies in Japan’), Tokyo: Daigaku shorin, 1985.
Siegenbeek, M. 1810
Syntaxis of woordvoeging der Nederduitsche taal. Leiden etc.
Siegenbeek, M. 1814
Grammatica of Nederduitsche Spraakkunst. Leiden etc.
Siegenbeek, M. 1846
Syntaxis of woordvoeging der Nederduitsche taal. Leiden etc. (repr. Nagasaki 1856).
Sugimoto Tsutomu 1977
Rangogaku no seiritsu to sono tenkai (‘Dutch Linguistics, Its Formation, Growth And Development’), Vol. II. Tokyo: Waseda Daigaku Shuppanbu.
Takeuchi Munekata 1856
Oranda bunten dokuhō (‘Dutch Grammar - A Reader’). Edo: Izumiya.
Van der Pyl, R. 1822
Gemeenzame Leerwijs, voor degenen, die de Engelsche Taal beginnen te leeren. Dordrecht: Blussé en Van Braam (Repr. Nagasaki 1857).
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Nederduitsche Spraakkunst. Dordrecht: Blussé en Van Braam (repr. Nagasaki 1859).
Yanagishita Motoyoshi and Kaneko Tadanori (ed.) 1856
Shintei Oranda bunpan zenpen (‘A New Dutch Grammar, Volume One’). Edo: Izumiya.

Anonymous works:

Garamachika wage (‘A Translation of Grammatica’). Manuscript, Seikado Collection, Tokyo (n.d.).
Kunten Oranda bunten (‘Dutch Grammar with Instructional Marks’). No publisher 1857. Oranda bunten zenkōhen chokuyaku (‘A Direct Translation of Dutch Grammar, First and Second Volumes’). Manuscript, Waseda University Library, Tokyo (n.d.).

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