Old Japanese
Old Japanese is the earliest attested stage of the Japanese language, documented primarily in texts from the 8th century CE during Japan's Nara period (710–794 CE). It represents the variety spoken in central Japan at the time and serves as the direct precursor to Middle Japanese and subsequent historical stages of the language. The surviving corpus of Old Japanese is limited but significant, consisting mainly of prose chronicles, official edicts, and especially poetry. Key texts include the Kojiki (712 CE), a compilation of mythological narratives and songs; the Nihon Shoki (720 CE), an official history blending annals and poetry; and the Man'yōshū (compiled around 759 CE), the oldest and largest anthology of Japanese poetry containing over 4,500 poems. These works were recorded using man'yōgana, an early phonetic script that repurposed Chinese characters (kanji) to represent Japanese syllables based on sound rather than meaning, marking the first systematic adaptation of writing to the Japanese language.[1] Linguistically, Old Japanese exhibits several features distinct from Modern Japanese, reflecting its position as an early Japonic language. Its phonology included an eight-vowel system—comprising primary vowels a, i, u, o and secondary vowels iy, wo, ye, ey—without phonemic length distinctions, along with a consonant inventory featuring initial p (distinct from later h or ɸ) and prenasalized stops like mb and nd.[2] Syllables were open (V or CV), with no closed syllables, and words were predominantly polysyllabic, often 2–4 syllables long, favoring compound and deverbal structures. Grammatically, it was agglutinative with subject–object–verb word order, extensive pro-drop, and a complex verbal system divided into multiple conjugation classes (e.g., quadrigrade, upper monograde) using root and inflected forms, supplemented by auxiliaries for tense and aspect; nominals employed case particles, while adjectives and verbs inflected for predication.[3] These characteristics highlight Old Japanese's role in illuminating the evolution of the Japonic language family, including links to Proto-Japonic and Ryukyuan languages.Sources and Historical Context
Primary Texts and Inscriptions
The Man'yōshū, the oldest extant anthology of Japanese poetry, was compiled around 759 CE during the Nara period and contains 4,685 waka poems spanning the 7th and 8th centuries.[4] This collection, attributed to editors including Ōtomo no Yakamochi, preserves a wide range of Old Japanese poetic forms and dialects, offering critical evidence for the language's phonological distinctions, such as the eight-vowel system, and grammatical structures like verb conjugations. Its poems, drawn from courtly, provincial, and folk traditions, exemplify the linguistic diversity of early Japan, with contributions from emperors, nobles, and commoners.[5] In addition to poetry, Old Japanese prose is attested in ritual texts and official documents. The Norito, Shinto liturgical prayers recorded in the Engishiki (927 CE), represent archaic prose forms from the Nara period or earlier, providing insights into nominal and verbal morphology. Imperial edicts known as senmyō, preserved in the Shoku Nihongi (797 CE), offer further examples of administrative language in man'yōgana.[6] The Kojiki, completed in 712 CE under imperial commission, is Japan's earliest surviving written chronicle, blending mythological narratives, genealogies, and historical accounts with embedded songs and poems.[7] Similarly, the Nihon Shoki, finalized in 720 CE, serves as an official history in a more Sinicized style, incorporating prose explanations of myths alongside verse, and both texts employ man'yōgana—Chinese characters used phonetically—to transcribe Japanese speech, marking the initial adaptation of writing for native language expression.[8] These works not only document imperial origins but also capture early syntactic patterns and lexical items unique to Old Japanese.[5] Archaeological inscriptions provide even earlier glimpses into pre-Old Japanese writing. The Inariyama sword, discovered in a Saitama Prefecture kofun and dated to 471 CE, features a 115-character man'yōgana inscription detailing a swordsmith's lineage, service to a king (likely Emperor Yūryaku), and clan affiliations, offering the oldest known phonetic rendering of Japanese names and titles.[9] Its decipherment in 1978 revealed connections to Wu (Chinese) influences and early honorifics, illuminating proto-historic linguistic practices.[5] Likewise, the silver-inlaid iron sword from the Eta Funayama tumulus in Kumamoto Prefecture, dated to the late 5th or early 6th century, bears an inscription with personal names, ranks, and a reference to a "great king," contributing evidence of regional vocabulary and the spread of writing among elites.[10] These texts and artifacts document the shift from oral traditions to written records in Japan, as oral myths and songs were codified using borrowed scripts, preserving archaic vocabulary such as pina ("goods" or "offerings") in the Kojiki and woka ("young noble") in the Man'yōshū, terms that reflect pre-Nara lexical layers no longer productive in later Japanese. This transition, influenced by Chinese script adoption, enabled the documentation of indigenous lore while highlighting dialectal variations across the archipelago.[11]Dating and Chronology
Old Japanese is conventionally dated to the Nara period, spanning approximately 712 to 794 CE, beginning with the compilation of the Kojiki in 712 CE and concluding with the relocation of the capital to Heian-kyō at the end of the 8th century.[12] This timeframe captures the earliest substantial written records of the Japanese language, reflecting a standardized form used in official and literary contexts under centralized imperial authority.[6] Some scholars extend the upper boundary into the early Heian period, up to around 900 CE, to include transitional texts that exhibit lingering Old Japanese features before the emergence of Early Middle Japanese. The transition from Pre-Old Japanese—also termed Proto-Japanese or the unattested predecessor stage, roughly covering the 3rd to 7th centuries CE—to Old Japanese was facilitated by the widespread adoption of writing, initially through Chinese characters (kanji) adapted for phonetic transcription via man'yōgana.[13] This shift enabled the preservation of spoken forms, alongside phonological evolutions such as vowel mergers that distinguish Old Japanese from its precursor.[6] Pre-Old Japanese is reconstructed through comparative linguistics, drawing on Old Japanese texts and Ryukyuan languages to infer earlier structures unattested in writing.[13] Scholarly periodization of Old Japanese remains debated, with Alexander Vovin emphasizing a narrower 8th-century scope centered on Western dialect materials from the Nara era, excluding earlier fragmentary inscriptions as Pre-Old.[14] In contrast, broader classifications by John R. Bentley and Bjarke Frellesvig incorporate 7th-century epigraphic evidence, such as those on stone monuments, as integral to Old Japanese due to their linguistic continuity with 8th-century prose.[6] These chronological boundaries are shaped by historical factors, including the Yamato court's political consolidation in the late 7th century and the 6th-century introduction of Buddhism, which spurred literacy and the adaptation of Chinese script for native composition.[15]Writing System
Scripts and Orthography
Old Japanese texts were primarily written using man'yōgana, an early script that repurposed Chinese characters (kanji) to represent phonetic values of Japanese syllables rather than their semantic meanings. This system emerged in the 5th to 7th centuries following the introduction of Chinese writing to Japan, likely via the Korean peninsula, and was extensively employed to transcribe native Japanese in literary and official documents. For instance, the character 之 was commonly used to denote the syllable si, while 知 represented ti, allowing writers to approximate Japanese phonology through characters selected for their approximate Sino-Japanese pronunciations.[16][17] The orthography evolved from initial borrowings of Chinese logographs for semantic content—often in translations of Buddhist sutras and administrative records—to a more phonetic approach, particularly in vernacular poetry. In the anthology Man'yōshū (compiled ca. 759 CE), poetry sections employed full phonetic transcription with man'yōgana to capture rhythmic and prosodic elements of Old Japanese, whereas prose portions mixed phonetic syllables with logographic usages for nouns and verbs, reflecting a hybrid style known as senmyō-gaki. This distinction facilitated the expression of native syntax and morphology that diverged from Chinese structures. Buddhist texts, introduced from the 6th century, and court documents like edicts (senmyō) played a key role in standardizing character selection and orthographic conventions, promoting consistency in phonetic rendering across genres. The Kaifūsō anthology (751 CE), the earliest collection of poetry in classical Chinese by Japanese authors, further contributed by demonstrating refined kanji usage that influenced subsequent phonetic adaptations in native works.[16][18] Despite these advancements, the man'yōgana system had significant limitations that affected readability and linguistic reconstruction. There was no standardized punctuation, leading to run-on texts without clear sentence boundaries, and writers often chose from multiple characters for the same syllable—for example, over 20 variants for ka in the Man'yōshū—based on regional, stylistic, or availability factors. This variability introduced ambiguities, as the same character could represent different sounds depending on context (ongana for Sino-Japanese readings versus kungana for native readings), complicating efforts to precisely reconstruct Old Japanese phonology from surviving manuscripts.[18][19]Syllabic Structure and Transcription Conventions
Transcription of Old Japanese employs adapted romanization systems to represent its archaic phonology. The Hepburn system, which prioritizes approximation to English phonetics, is commonly adapted for historical texts, rendering syllables like pi and pu directly while marking distinctions such as kō-rui and otsu-rui with subscripts (e.g., pi₁, pi₂). In contrast, Nihon-shiki romanization offers a more strictly phonemic approach, systematically mapping syllables without English bias, though it is less prevalent in Old Japanese studies due to the need for phonetic reconstructions. For archaic sounds like the initial p (evident in syllables such as pa), both systems typically transcribe it as p, reflecting its reconstruction as /p/ or bilabial fricative /ɸ/, distinct from later /h/.[20][21] Scholarly analyses favor the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) for precise phonetic transcription, capturing nuances like allophonic variation (e.g., [p ~ ɸ] for initial p) and diphthongal interpretations of rui distinctions (e.g., /pwi/ for pi₂). Man'yōgana characters, phonetic usages of Chinese graphs, provide key evidence for syllable correspondences, with specific graphs assigned to syllables based on their readings in texts like the Man'yōshū. The following table illustrates select correspondences:| Syllable (Romanization) | IPA Approximation | Example Man'yōgana | Meaning/Example Context |
|---|---|---|---|
| pa | /pa/ or /ɸa/ | 波 | 'leaf' (e.g., in compounds) |
| i | /i/ | 伊 | 'to say' (verbal root) |
| pi₁ | /pi/ | 比 | Upper-rui variant |
| pi₂ | /pwi/ | 皮 | Lower-rui variant |
| bi₁ | /bi/ | 鼻 | Upper-rui variant |
Phonology
Consonant Inventory
The consonant inventory of Old Japanese (OJ) comprised approximately 14 phonemes, including stops, fricatives, nasals, a liquid, and approximants, which formed the onsets of its predominantly CV syllable structure.[20] These phonemes were articulated across bilabial, alveolar, palatal, velar, and labiovelar places, with voiceless obstruents (/p, t, k, s/) contrasting with their voiced counterparts (/b, d, g, z/), though the voiced series (mediae) were typically prenasalized ([ᵐb, ⁿd, ᵑɡ, ⁿz]) and did not occur word-initially. The liquid /r/ and approximants /w/ and /y/ completed the set, with /w/ restricted to labialized contexts and /y/ palatalizing preceding consonants.[20] The exact realization of /p/ is debated; it is reconstructed as a bilabial stop , possibly with fricative allophone [ɸ] in free variation or medially. This system reflects a relatively simple obstruent series compared to many contemporary languages, but with positional allophony providing phonetic variety.| Phoneme | Place/Manner | Key Realizations and Examples |
|---|---|---|
| /p/ | Bilabial stop | generally, possible [ɸ] medially (e.g., pana 'nose/flower' [pana]; medially [paɸa] in compounds like sakurabana). The exact realization is debated, with some evidence for fricative variants. |
| /t/ | Alveolar stop | generally, [ts] before /i/ (e.g., ti 'blood' as [tsi]; tuti 'earth' as [tsutsɨ]).[20] |
| /k/ | Velar stop | consistently (e.g., kake 'to hang' or 'to paint'). |
| /s/ | Alveolar fricative | generally, [ɕ] before /i/ (e.g., si 'city' as [ɕi]).[20] |
| /b, d, g, z/ | Voiced obstruents (mediae) | Prenasalized medially, from voicing processes (e.g., /b/ in compounds; see rendaku below). Absent word-initially. |
| /m/ | Bilabial nasal | (e.g., pana 'flower'). |
| /n/ | Alveolar nasal | , assimilating positionally (e.g., kane 'metal').[20] |
| /r/ | Alveolar liquid | [ɾ] or tap, medial only (e.g., piru 'to leak').[20] |
| /w/ | Labiovelar approximant | before back vowels, lost before /i, e/ in later stages (e.g., wo 'tail'). |
| /y/ | Palatal approximant | , palatalizing precedents (e.g., pye 'side').[19] |
Vowel System
The Old Japanese vowel system is reconstructed as an eight-vowel inventory comprising primary vowels /a, i, u, o/ and secondary vowels /iy, wo, ye, ey/, without phonemic length distinctions.[22] This system reflects a stage where secondary vowels had developed from earlier diphthongal or fused sequences in Proto-Japonic, resulting in a more complex vocalic structure than the five-vowel system of later Japanese stages.[23] The secondary vowels are distinct syllables, often written with special orthography in early texts. Among these, the secondary vowels /iy, ye, ey, wo/ arose from pre-Old Japanese fusions, such as *u i > /iy/ and *o y > /oy/ (though /oy/ merged early), and contributed to the richness of the system's contrasts in prosodic environments. Evidence for their distinct status comes from the poetic orthography and syllable distinctions in the Man'yōshū, where rhyme-like patterns in verse groupings and kana usage (jōdai tokushu kanazukai) separate them from primary vowels, indicating they were perceived as unique vocalic units.[22] Examples include /siyo/ 'salt' (si-yo) and /pye/ 'edge' with /ye/. Allophonic variations included the raising of /u/ to [ɯ], a close central unrounded vowel, particularly in proximity to velar consonants, reflecting early articulatory adjustments that foreshadowed later systemic shifts.[23] Following the Old Japanese period, several mergers occurred, notably distinctions between primary and secondary vowels simplifying into a single Middle Japanese /e/ and /o/, which aligned it more closely with the modern five-vowel paradigm.[22]Prosody and Accent
Old Japanese prosody was characterized by a pitch-accent system, where lexical items were distinguished primarily through sequences of high (H) and low (L) tones assigned to moras. In the Nara period (710–794 CE), this system operated on a bimoraic basis for many words, with accent typically realized as a contour involving an initial high pitch followed by a fall to low, though unaccented words exhibited a flat low pitch throughout. For instance, the word for "flower" was reconstructed as /pána/ with an H-L pattern, contrasting with other forms in some contexts, while "cherry tree" appeared as /sákura/ with an L-H-L contour.[24] Evidence for these tonal contours derives from later Heian-period texts like the Ruijū myōgishō (1081), which used Chinese-derived tone marks to indicate pitch classes, and from preserved performances of kagura chants, sacred Shinto songs that maintained archaic prosodic features from the Nara era. These sources reveal common patterns such as HL for accented monosyllabic or bimoraic roots, where the high tone marked the accented mora and subsequent moras fell to low, influencing poetic rhythm in works like the Man'yōshū. Kagura-uta, in particular, demonstrate sustained high pitches on accented elements, preserving distinctions lost in spoken vernaculars.[25][26] Reconstructions of the system distinguish between heiban (flat) patterns, where words lacked an internal pitch drop and remained low or uniformly high with particles, and odaka (high-head) types, featuring an early high pitch that dropped sharply after the first or second mora. Scholars employ diacritics such as acute accents (e.g., áma for high on the first mora) to denote these high tones in transcriptions, drawing from dialectal comparisons like the conservative Kyoto variety.[24] By the Heian period (794–1185 CE), the pitch-accent system underwent simplification, with mergers of accent classes (e.g., initial low tones becoming optional in unaccented words) and leftward shifts in pitch falls, leading to the binary system of modern Tokyo Japanese where only the location of the single pitch drop (or its absence in heiban) remains contrastive. This evolution reduced the four-way Nara distinctions to two primary patterns, as evidenced by progressive changes in textual notations and dialectal retentions.[26][25]Phonotactics and Morphophonemic Processes
Old Japanese phonotactics were highly restrictive, permitting only open syllables of the form CV (consonant-vowel) or V (vowel-initial), with a total inventory of approximately 88 distinct syllables. This structure prohibited consonant clusters within syllables, though prenasalized stops such as /mp/, /nt/, and /ŋk/ appeared in some eastern dialects to accommodate regional variations. Word-final consonants were absent in the core Western Old Japanese (WOJ) dialect, ensuring all words terminated in vowels, while the moraic nasal /n/ emerged as a limited coda in certain eastern forms like those from Kazusa or Mutsu. Loanwords from Chinese occasionally introduced marginal clusters like /kw/ or /gw/, but these were adapted to fit the prevailing CV template through vowel insertion or simplification.[27] Morphophonemic processes in Old Japanese primarily involved alternations triggered by morphological concatenation, such as in compounds and verb inflections, to maintain phonotactic regularity. Vowel contraction and monophthongization resolved hiatus (adjacent vowels) at morpheme boundaries; for instance, in noun compounds marked by the genitive particle nö, forms like yama nö upë (mountain GEN bay) contracted to yamanupë. Vowel epenthesis, often of /a/, occurred in verb derivations to prevent illicit consonant sequences, as seen in consonant-base verbs where a suffix like the transitive -As- attached to a stem ending in /k/, yielding kak-As- > kakas- (to write-TRANS > to make write). These processes ensured adherence to the CV structure while reflecting underlying morphological relations.[27][28] Haplology, the deletion of redundant syllables in adjacent similar sequences, applied sporadically in reduplication and suffixation, particularly to avoid repetition in morphological contexts. An example appears in certain verb forms or compounds where identical vowel-initial syllables merged, such as potential reduplicated tara-tara (stepping sound) simplifying to taratara by eliding one instance of the repeated element. This process was less systematic than in later stages but contributed to concise forms in poetic and prosaic texts.[29] From Pre-Old Japanese (Proto-Japonic), a key sound change was the lenition of initial *p to a voiceless bilabial fricative /ɸ/, as evidenced in cognates like Proto-Japonic *pana (flower/nose) > Old Japanese /pana/ with possible [ɸ]. Initial /h-/ (derived from earlier stops) occasionally dropped in verb stems under morphological conditioning, such as in certain intransitive derivations. Rendaku, the voicing of initial voiceless obstruents in non-initial compound elements, was productive in Old Japanese, applying to about 75% of eligible noun-noun compounds; for example, *pa (leaf) + pîrö (boat) > paNpîrö, where /p/ voices to /b/ following prenasalization. In verb conjugations, similar alternations occurred, as in the intransitive suffix -ar-, where kuda-ar- (to descend-INTR) surfaced as kudar-, with vowel adjustment to /a/ for phonotactic harmony.[30][27]Grammar
Nominals and Determiners
In Old Japanese, nominals consist of bare roots without inherent inflection for gender, number, or definiteness, relying instead on postposed case particles to indicate grammatical relations. The primary case particles include ga for nominative or genitive functions, no for genitive possession, ni for dative or locative roles, and wo for accusative marking on direct objects. The topic marker wa (from earlier pa) highlights elements for pragmatic focus, often attaching to nominals to establish discourse prominence. These particles attach directly to the nominal stem, as in pito-ga ("person-NOM") or yama-no ("mountain-GEN"), enabling flexible syntactic roles without morphological changes to the root itself.[31] Personal pronouns in Old Japanese are limited and often honorific or context-dependent, with first-person forms like wa or ware denoting "I" in humble or neutral contexts, second-person na, and third-person si or ono for "he/she/it." These pronouns inflect minimally and frequently combine with case particles, such as wa-ga ("I-NOM"), reflecting their nominal status. The deictic system employs a proximal-distal distinction: ko- for "this" (near speaker), so- for "that" (near addressee), and a- or ano- for "that" (remote from both), as in ko-no ("this-GEN") or sono pito ("that person"). Interrogative pronouns like ta ("who") and i ("what") follow similar patterns, integrating into nominal phrases via particles. Unlike later stages, Old Japanese pronouns avoid extensive suppletion and draw from demonstrative bases for spatial reference.[12] Numerals in Old Japanese distinguish native Yamato forms from early Sino-Japanese borrowings, with the former predominant in everyday and poetic usage. Native numerals include puta (two), mi (three), yo(tu) (four), itu (five), m(u)tu (six), ya(tu) (eight), and koko(no) (nine), positioned prenominally as in mi pito ("three people"). Sino-Japanese terms, influenced by Chinese contact in the 8th century, appear in formal or Buddhist texts, such as si (four, from Chinese sì) and ha(ti) (eight, from bā), gradually supplementing natives for higher counts. Compounds form additively, like to wo mi ("ten and three," for thirteen), without dedicated multipliers until later periods.[12] Determiners and classifiers in Old Japanese are rudimentary compared to later varieties, functioning to specify quantity or shape in numeral-noun constructions. Basic classifiers include -tə (or -ta) for long, thin objects like trees or roads, as in itu tə ("five-CL"), and -ko for round or small items, prefixed to numerals before the noun: mi ko tama ("three-CL jewels"). These elements, often derived from nominal roots, aid in categorization without obligatory use in all counts, reflecting an emerging system influenced by areal linguistics. Phonological adaptations, such as rendaku voicing in compounds, occasionally affect classifier integration but are governed by broader phonotactic rules.[32]Verbs and Inflection
Old Japanese verbs inflect according to one of four primary conjugation classes, distinguished by their stem structures and the patterns through which they form various grammatical categories such as tense, mood, and linkage to other elements. The quadrigrade class (yodan), the most productive and numerous, features stems ending in a consonant and inflects across four vocalic grades (a, i, u, u), as seen in the verb kak- "to hang," which undergoes morphophonemic alternations in its derived stems (e.g., kaka-, kaki-, kaku-).[33] The upper bigrade class (kami nidan) includes verbs with stems behaving in an -i row and -u row pattern, exemplified by ner- "to sleep" (irrealis/conjunctive: neri; realis/attributive: neru), where the stem shows limited alternation.[34] In contrast, the lower bigrade class (shimo nidan) uses stems in the -e row shifting to -u, as in mi- "to see," which conjugates as irrealis/conjunctive mi, realis/attributive miru. Irregular verbs, such as sər- "to be" (sa-hen or suru class) and tari- "to pass" (a periphrastic form derived from an existential verb), deviate from these patterns, often blending elements from multiple classes or employing unique suppletive forms. Additional irregular classes include ka-hen (kur- "to come") and na-hen (ner- in some analyses).[33][34] The core inflected forms of Old Japanese verbs include finite, conjunctive, and attributive categories, each serving distinct syntactic roles. Finite forms encompass the irrealis (kake for quadrigrade, expressing potential or hypothetical actions) and realis (kaku, indicating completed or factual events), with the realis often carrying evidential overtones of direct observation.[33] The conjunctive form (kake), used for linking verbs in compound constructions or before auxiliaries, facilitates aspectual or modal extensions and is identical to the irrealis in some classes.[34] Attributive forms (kakeru), used for nominal modification, typically add -ru to the stem for quadrigrade verbs, allowing verbs to attribute qualities to nouns in relative clauses. These forms exhibit class-specific variations; for instance, bigrade verbs like mi- use miru for both realis and attributive.[33] Copulas in Old Japanese, functioning as inflected verbs to link subjects with predicates, include the adnominal naru (attributive, for modification) and realis nari (finite/conclusive, for assertions), both derived from an existential base with evidential nuances implying reported or inferred states rather than direct experience.[34] For example, samurayau naru attributes "warrior-like" qualities, while samurayau nari asserts a factual or evidential equivalence. These copulas conjugate irregularly, aligning loosely with the ra-hen class, and often appear in explanatory contexts in texts like the Man'yōshū.[33] Verbal auxiliaries extend the semantic range of main verbs by adding aspectual, valency, or modal layers, attaching to the conjunctive form. The perfective auxiliary tari, conveying completion or result states, follows the conjunctive as in mi-tari "having seen," indicating an action's prior attainment with ongoing relevance.[35] Causative ki, which increases valency by introducing a causer, yields forms like mi-ki "to cause to see," though it triggers stem alternations in quadrigrade verbs due to phonological constraints.[34] These auxiliaries, themselves inflecting as lower bigrade or irregular verbs, enable complex periphrastic constructions essential for nuanced expression in Old Japanese prose and poetry, often interacting with focus phenomena like kakari musubi.[33]| Conjugation Class | Example Stem | Irrealis/Conjunctive | Realis | Attributive |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Quadrigrade | kak- (hang) | kake | kaku | kakeru |
| Upper Bigrade | ner- (sleep) | neri | neru | neru |
| Lower Bigrade | mi- (see) | mi | miru | miru |
| Irregular (Sa-hen) | sər- (be) | se | suru | suru |