The two-group sorting of man’yōgana we saw in the plain-language article — how was it actually found? Reading Hashimoto Shinkichi’s lecture record Kodai Kokugo no On’in ni Tsuite (1942), we learn that it was not the flash of a single genius, but a discovery passed, little by little, between three people.
As the cover’s “as told by Hashimoto Shinkichi” indicates, the book is the record of a lecture, and its style is the polite desu/masu register. It speaks to an audience more than it addresses specialists, laying out the path of the discovery step by step.
The first person — Motoori Norinaga’s observation
Hashimoto starts with the observation of the Edo-period scholar of native learning Motoori Norinaga (1730–1801). Reading the Kojiki, Norinaga had noticed that for certain words there are fixed rules in how kana are used. Hashimoto explains it like this.
子の「こ」には「古」を當てる、女の「め」には「賣」を當てる
(For the “ko” of “ko” (child), the character 古 is used; for the “me” of “me” (woman), the character 賣 is used.)
The “ko” of “ko” (child) is written with the character 古, and the “me” of “me” (woman) with the character 賣. Norinaga had found such rules about how characters are assigned to special words in the Kojiki. But this was an observation limited to particular words.
The second person — Ishizuka Tatsumaro’s unexpected finding
One of Norinaga’s disciples was a scholar from Tōtōmi Province named Ishizuka Tatsumaro. Hashimoto says that Tatsumaro widened Norinaga’s observation from particular words to the books of the time as a whole.
龍麿は「古事記」のみならず廣く其の當時の典籍に就いて行つた結果として、實に意外なことが見付かつたのであります。
(Tatsumaro looked not only at the Kojiki but widely across the books of the time, and as a result he found something truly unexpected.)
Tatsumaro gathered his results in a book called Kanazukai Okuyamaji. According to Hashimoto, the book survived only in manuscript copies and was not much in circulation. It was then published in the Nihon Koten Zenshū in the 4th year of Shōwa (1929) — and Hashimoto says its base text was a copy he himself had made. Hashimoto was also the man who, with his own hands, copied out a manuscript an Edo scholar had left behind, and brought it into the world.
The third stage — Hashimoto’s own systematizing, and surprise
Hashimoto went back over what Tatsumaro had found — the “unexpected” — and checked it across man’yōgana as a whole. Hashimoto puts the core of it this way.
同じ「こ」の假名であると思つてゐた多くの萬葉假名が、斯ういふ風に二つに分れて居るといふことは、實に思ひがけないことであります。
(That the many man’yōgana that had been thought to be the same “ko” kana are divided in two like this is truly unexpected.)
Hashimoto’s surprise at the discovery comes straight through in this sentence. Several man’yōgana are read “ko.” They all stand for the same “ko,” so surely any would do — that was the assumption. Yet on investigation, they turned out to fall cleanly into two groups.
The evidence of “never mixing”
Are the two groups really divided strictly? Hashimoto says this.
同じ類に屬する萬葉假名はどれも同樣に用ゐられるが、違つた種類に屬するものは決して同じには用ゐられないのであります。
(Man’yōgana belonging to the same group are used in just the same way, but those belonging to different kinds are never used in the same way.)
This is the most important point of the discovery. Kana within a group can be swapped for one another, but kana from different groups can never be swapped. If this were just an individual scribe’s habit or whim, kana from the two groups should mix every now and then. They don’t. This thoroughness is the evidence that behind the two groups lies a definite distinction.
The interpretation: “the sounds were different”
So what is that distinction? Near the end of the lecture, Hashimoto states his interpretation.
實際は、古代に互に違つた二つの音があつた。
(In reality, in ancient times there were two sounds that differed from each other.)
That the man’yōgana sorting reflects not a writing habit but a difference in pronunciation is Hashimoto’s interpretation. To our later ears they sound like the same “ki,” but to the ancients they were heard as two different sounds.
He doesn’t pin down what the sounds were
On the actual nature of those two sounds, however, Hashimoto takes a careful stance. In the same lecture he lists the several views that have been put forward about what the sounds actually were, says he is researching it too, and says he can’t yet state anything conclusive. Instead, Hashimoto takes the position that it is important first to study under what circumstances those sounds appear. In fact, in the latter part of the lecture, Hashimoto sorts out which group of kana is used for each type of verb conjugation (the difference between the continuative forms of kaku and oku that we saw in the plain-language article is one example).
This is the distinctive feature of Hashimoto’s method. Rather than guessing the sound’s identity first, he first sorts out, thoroughly, a checkable fact — the sorting of characters. The debate over what the sounds were was piled up afterward on top of that groundwork.
Summary
| Point | Detail |
|---|---|
| Order of the discovery | Norinaga notices a rule for particular words → Tatsumaro widens it to the books of the time and gathers it in Kanazukai Okuyamaji → Hashimoto checks it across the whole and systematizes it |
| Hashimoto’s contribution | Copied Tatsumaro’s manuscript himself and brought it out; showed that across man’yōgana as a whole, the two groups never mix |
| The force of the evidence | The thorough sorting: “same-group kana are used alike, different-group kana are never used the same way” |
| Interpretation and caution | Reads it as “in ancient times there were two mutually different sounds,” but doesn’t pin down what those sounds actually were |
In a nutshell — Hashimoto Shinkichi thoroughly re-checked observations inherited from Norinaga and Tatsumaro. And the fact that so surprised him — “truly unexpected” (實に思ひがけない) — he first fixed firmly as a fact about how characters were sorted, before pinning down what the sounds were.