Japanese Onomatopes and the Origin of Language

要旨

THIS paper was suggested by the following passage in Dr. Tylor's " Primitive Culture""The time has Dow come for a substantial basis to be laid for Generative Philology.A classified collection of words wvith any strong claim to be self-expressive should be brought together out of the thousand or so of recognised languages and dialects of the world.In such a Dictionary of Sound-words, half the cases cited might very likely be worthless, but it would show on a large scale what particular sounds have manifested their fitness to convey particular ideas by having been repeatedly chosen among different races to convey them." CHAPTER I.Phonetic System of Japanese.The phonetic system of the Japanese language is by no means well adapted for onomatopceia.The older langLuage adheres strictly to the rule that every syllable must consist of a vowel or of a consonant followed by a vowel, as E-no-shi-ma, thus excluding all final consonants, all double consonants, and all combinations of consonants.Onomatopoetic effects such as we have in scrunch, shock, slap, clap, snap, &c., were therefore impossible.The sounds p, x, ng, th, and I are wanting in the older Japanese, and there are only five vowel sounds, viz., a, e, i, o, and u.' Certain combinations of consonants and vowels are avoided.F is only found before 1U, and h before the other vowels.For si a Japanese says shi; for ti, chi; for di or zi, ji; for tu, tsu; and for du, dzu.Tsu6 and dzu are merely the Japanese way of saying tu and du, and the combination of consonants is therefore miore apparent than real.The phonetic resources of the modern language are somewhat more extensive.It admits of double, but not of combined consonants, and it has one final consonant, viz., n.The letter p has also been revived (the prehistoric language probably had it), partly in imitation of the Chinese, and partly because it was This content downloaded from 185.2.32.

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