Kagakushū
The Kagakushū (下学集, "Collection of Low/Mundane Studies"), alternatively read as Gegakushū, was a 1444
The Kagakushū's
The Kagakushū was one of the first Japanese dictionaries designed for common people rather than intelligentsia. In the lexicographical evolution of Japanese dictionaries, Nakao explains how
[R]eference books took a significant further step towards Japanese, and the dictionaries, which had been almost exclusively employed by scholars, priests, literati, and the learned minority of the country, consequently reached a wider audience and began to be used as practical guides to reading and writing. Moreover, the developing technology of printing enabled the literate public to obtain handy and practical dictionaries quite cheaply. Kagakushu (1444), produced in two volumes and edited by a monk in Kyoto, was a sort of Japanese language dictionary with encyclopedic information. It served as a textbook on Chinese characters and was reissued many times, each time with further additions.[3]
This anonymous Japanese dictionary, in two
Heading | Rōmaji
|
Kanji | Subject |
---|---|---|---|
1 | Tenchi | 天地 | nature |
2 | Jisetsu | 時節 | seasons |
3 | Jingi | 神祇 | Shintō deities |
4 | Jinrin | 人倫 | human relations |
5 | Kan'i | 官位 | offices and ranks |
6 | Jinmei | 人名 | names of people |
7 | Kaoku | 家屋 | buildings |
8 | Kikei | 気形 | creatures |
9 | Shitai | 支体 | anatomy |
10 | Taigei | 態芸 | art and form |
11 | Kenpu | 絹布 | cloth |
12 | Inshoku | 飲食 | foods and drinks |
13 | Kizai | 器材 | utensils |
14 | Sōmoku | 草木 | plants |
15 | Saishiki | 彩色 | colors |
16 | Sūryō | 数量 | weights and measures |
17 | Genji | 言辞 | miscellaneous words |
18 | Jōji | 畳字 | synonym compounds |
Compared with the semantic categorizations in earlier Japanese dictionaries such as the Wamyō Ruijushō or Iroha Jiruishō, these simplified 18 in the Kagakushū are easier to understand.
Many Kagakushū editions have an appendix entitled Tenkaku-shōji (点画小異字 "characters differing only by one stroke") that lists pairs like ya 冶 "smelt; cast" and chi 治 "govern; regulate".
The origins of the Kagakushū, like the Setsuyōshū, are associated with an early type of Japanese textbook used in Buddhist Terakoya private schools, the ōraimono (往来物, "correspondences; model letter book; copybook"). According to Don Bailey:
The Kagakushū, although only sparsely annotated, was in fact intended to serve as a small encyclopedia and textbook as well as a dictionary; the compiler, apparently realizing that many of the ōrai then in use were too detailed, cumbersome, and tome-like, condensed and abstracted from these texts in order to produce a reference tool containing minimally essential information and Chinese characters. That he succeeded is attested by the fact that over thirty copies of the Kagakushū have survived from the Muromachi period alone.[5]
References
- ^ "Lun Yu – The Analects of Confucius translated by Legge and Lau (to English), and Couvreur (to French)". Chinese Classics & Translations. XIV.35. Archived from the original on 27 September 2007. Retrieved 6 May 2021.
- ^ Kamei, Takashi (1944). Kagakushū: Gennabon. Tōkyō: Iwanami Shoten. p. 137.
- . p. 37.
- ISBN 4-273-02890-5p. 51.
- JSTOR 2383355. p. 37.
External links
- 下学集, first page of Kagakushū, Tsukuba University
- 下学集の複写, Kagakushū entry for 楝 Chinaberry, Tomitaro Makino
- Manuscript scans at Waseda University Library: 1669, [1]