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Etymology of the Japanese word fude.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 December 2009
Extract
In the last fifteen hundred years the Japanese have borrowed thousands of Chinese words and idioms, which have eventually brought the Japanese language into a state of utter confusion. Such borrowing, it would seem, had its beginning some centuries before its remarkable development in the fifth century A.D., which may be called the period of demarcation dividing the Chinese loan-words into two classes, the early loans and the later, each having certain phonetic characteristics.
The early loan-words, which, unlike the vast majority of their later confreres, seem to have been thoroughly naturalized already in the seventh century A.D., attracted the attention of the English sinologist, E. H. Parker, in the 'eighties, but the investigation has since then been discarded almost entirely because of the insufficiency of knowledge possessed of the ancient phonetic values of the Chinese characters.
However, thanks to the untiring labour of Karlgren, Maspero, Simon, and other sinologists, we are now in a more favourable position for an inquiry into the early relationship between the two languages, and the problem has since been taken up afresh by Karlgren himself, who, in his most interesting little book Philology and Ancient China, suggests twenty-two Japanese words as probable early loans from Chinese.1 Of these I need only quote a few that have direct bearing upon the present subject.
- Type
- Papers Contributed
- Information
- Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies , Volume 6 , Issue 1 , February 1930 , pp. 45 - 53
- Copyright
- Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies 1930
References
page 45 note 1 Karlgren, B., Philology and Ancient China, Instituttet for sammonlignende kulturforskning, Oslo, 1926, pp. 119–39.Google Scholar
page 46 note 1 The same argument applies to Karlgren's etymology of the Japanese word natsu “ summer ”, which he believes to be a Chinese loan: Ancient Chinese ńźiāt < ńiat 
“ hot ”. But before arriving at a decision we must take into consideration the Common Turkish yay, Osmanli yaz, Chuvash śu, Yakut sai, Mongol (Buriat) nažir “ summer ” and Korean nyöfïm “ summer, crop ”. If these terms are truly cognate with the Japanese natsu, the latter is in all probability nearest .to their common parent.
page 46 note 2 Yoshitake, S., The History of the Japanese Particle “ I ”, BSOS., vol. 5, pt. 4, pp. 889–95.Google Scholar
page 47 note 1 Yoshitake, op. cit., p. 889.
page 47 note 2 The Wamyōshō, a Japanese lexicon of the tenth century A.D., gives: 
(yone) “ rice ”; 
(yonakura) “ a rice-granary ”.
page 47 note 3 Matsumoto, N., Le Japanais et les Langues Austroasiatiques: Étude de vocabulaire comparé, Paris, 1928, pp. 59–60.Google Scholar
page 47 note 4 Matsumoto, op. cit., p. 61.
page 47 note 5 Yoshitake, op. cit., p. 889. The word take “ bamboo ” is considered by Kanazawa (The Common Origin of the Japanese and Korean Languages, Tōkyō, 1910, English text, p. 17Google Scholar) as composed of *ta-, a cognate of Korean tai “ bamboo ”, plus ke, a variant of Japanese ki “ tree ”. It is true that the form ke is found in the word matsn-no-ke “ pine-tree ” in one of the Sakimori poems (Man-yō-shū, xx), but since the word take goes back to *taka, it remains to be proved that the word ki “ tree ” was also pronounced ka.
page 47 note 6 Yoshitake, op. cit., p. 889.
page 48 note 1 That the original form of ta “ paddy-field ” is *tana can easily be seen from the compound tana-tsu-mono (paddy field-of-thing) “ rice ”, which the Japanese philologists have unsuccessfully sought to analyze, without realizing that the -na- in tana- was originally as much a part of the word as the ta (Matsuoka, S. cf., Nihon Kogo Daijiten: Goshihen, Tōky”, 1929, p. 805Google Scholar).
page 48 note 2 Compare Goldi gang, Negidal gan, Oroche ga “ steel”. The Japanese word kane ( <*kana) was apparently borrowed in the sense “iron”. When later it became a generic term for metal, the ancestors of the Japanese prefixed ma- and ara-, both meaning “ pure, genuine ”, for distinction; thus magane, aragane “ iron ”. The term kurogane “ iron ” is a formation of still later date. It may be mentioned in passing that the professional name mara “ smith ”, which is represented by Ama-tsil-mara in the Kojiki, is considered by Torii, the renowned anthropologist, as related to Mongol tem00FC;r “ iron ” (Torii, R., Jinruigaku-jō yori mitaru Waga Jōdai no Bunka, 1, Tōky”, 1928, pp. 325–9Google Scholar). That, however, is altogether impossible, for the first syllable in the Mongol temür, Orkhon tämir, etc., cannot disappear so easily as Torii imagines. If one wishes to seek cognates of the Japanese mara in the Altaic languages, attention should be directed to the Mongol bolot (Classical), bolol, bolat (Buriat), Tungus bolot “ steel ”. These words are usually considered as derived from the New Persian pūlād “ steel ” (Schrader, O., Sprachverglekhung und Urgeschichte: Linguistisch-historische Beiträge zur Erforschung des indogermanischen Altertums Jena, 1907, 3, p. 78;Google ScholarLaufer, B., Iranian Elements in Mongol, Sino-Iranica, Chicago, 1919, p. 575Google Scholar).
page 48 note 3 Andō, M. Cf., Kodai Kokugo no Kenkyū, Tōkyō, 1924, p. 31.Google Scholar
page 48 note 4 Motoori Norinaga Zenshū, Tōkyō, 1926–1927, vol. 9, p. 364.Google Scholar
page 49 note 1 The date of borrowing of the word fude, if this is a Chinese loan, cannot have been very far removed from the fifth century A.D., which marks the dawn of literarv culture among the Japanese.
page 49 note 2 Andō, M. Cf., Nihon Bunkashi: Kodai, Tōkyō, 1925, pp. 310–11;Google ScholarNachod, O., Geschichte von Japan, Leipzig, 1906, Band 1, p. 74.Google Scholar
page 50 note 1 Andō, , Nihon Bunkashi, op. cit., pp. 311–14.Google Scholar
page 50 note 2 Andō, , Nihon Bunlcashi, op. cit., pp. 314–17.Google Scholar
page 50 note 3 Maema, K., Keirin Sniji Baigen Kō: The Sung scholar Sun Mu's Chi lin lei shin, Korean-Chinese glossary, deciphered and annotated: With index of words. The Tōyō Bunko Publications, Series A, 3, Tōkyō, 1925, p. 108.Google Scholar
page 50 note 4 This was later handed down to the Luchuans, who now pronounce it pudi or fudi.
page 51 note 1 Donner, Kai, Zu den ältesten Berührungen zwischen Samojeden und Türken, JSFOu. 40. Helsingfors, 1924, p. 7.Google Scholar
page 51 note 2 Gombocz, Z., Die bulgarisch-türkischen Lehnwōrter in der ungarisch Spenrache, MSFOu. 30, Helsingfors, 1912, pp. 44–5;Google ScholarGombocz, Z. és Melich, J., Magyar etymologiai szótár. Budapest, 1914-, pp. 386–7.Google Scholar
page 51 note 3 Ramstedt, G. J. Cf., Das Schriftmongolische und die Urgamundart, JSFOn. 11, 2. Helsingfors, 1902, p. 12.Google Scholar
page 51 note 4 Gabelentz, Georg von der, Die Sprachwissenschaft, ihre Aufgaben, Methoden vnd bitiherigen Mrgebnisss. Leipzig, 1901, p. 264.Google Scholar
page 51 note 5 Donner, op cit., p. 7.
page 51 note 6 Donner, op. cit., p. 7 et seq.
page 52 note 1 Schmidt, P., Etymologische Beilräge, JSFOu. 42, Helsingfors, 1928, p. 3.Google Scholar
page 52 note 2 In his recent article “ Explanation of the Mongol words in the Ko-li-shih, annals of the Kao-li Dynasty ” (The Tōyō Gakuhō, vol. 13, No. 2, Tōkyō, 12. 1929, p. 173,Google Scholar) Shiratori appears to consider the Japanese word fude as directly related to Turkish biti-, etc. That, however, is inconceivable, because a semasiological change from “ a writing ” or “ to write ” to “ a writing brush ” is almost impossible, and therefore, if we are to follow Shiratori's view, we must assume that the meaning “ a writing, brush ”is the older signification of the Altaic terms under consideration, which, as far as we can trace, are of verbal origin.
page 52 note 3 Gombocz, , MSFOu. 30, op. cit., pp. 87–8.Google Scholar