Shinmura Izuru (1876–1967) is known as the editor of the dictionary Kōjien. But Kōjien is a living, repeatedly revised book, and its contents can’t be read here. What this feature reads is something else: Shinmura’s own writing — examples of research, in essay form, that chased the history of individual words while laying out the evidence.
Shinmura as a linguist
As a professor at Kyoto Imperial University, Shinmura was one of the people who established linguistics in Japan. A record survives of his lecture, in Japanese, in 1901, on Otto Jespersen’s Progress in Language, which we saw in the Otto Jespersen feature (Iesuperusen-shi Gengo Shinpo-ron). He was also among the first to introduce the latest debates of European linguistics to Japan.
At the same time, Shinmura never lost his fascination with the history of individual words in Japanese. Nihon no Kotoba (1940), which we read here, is the book where that interest shows most freely.
What this feature reads
The center of this feature is the history of four words.
- Totemo — today we say “totemo omoshiroi” (“very interesting”), but it once combined only with negation. (Plain-language explainer 1, Close reading 1)
- Right and left (migi and hidari) — where did these words come from? (Plain-language explainer 2)
- Kiseru — a loanword, but from which country? Here Shinmura withdraws his own first guess. (Plain-language explainer 3)
- Baka — Shinmura checks a famous folk etymology, piece by piece. (Close reading 2)
Finally, we sum up honestly how Shinmura’s theories stand in present-day etymological research, in the verdict article.
A caveat up front
Etymology is more easily rewritten by later research than other fields. This feature does not present Shinmura’s theories as simply “the correct answer.” Its main aim is to read what evidence he gathered, how far he was willing to commit, and where he held back. How each theory is treated today, we sort out honestly in the verdict article.
Summary
| Point | Detail |
|---|---|
| Who | Shinmura Izuru (1876–1967, professor at Kyoto Imperial University, linguist) |
| Primary source | Nihon no Kotoba (1940) (freely viewable at the National Diet Library) |
| Words read | totemo, right and left, kiseru, baka |
| What to watch | How evidence is gathered, how far claims go, how a theory is withdrawn |
In a nutshell — Shinmura Izuru chased the history of a word by documentary evidence, wrote “I don’t know” where he didn’t, and corrected himself plainly when he saw he was wrong.
