This feature began with the overview article and went on to read, in Kanazawa Shōzaburō’s original, tachi, kumoru, namida, the names of the directions, the argument on ear, eye, nose, and mouth, and “Chōsen ni okeru kokugo mondai.” Last, we sort out how each is treated today.
Note that the “present treatment” in this article is a generally known summary of Japanese linguistics; it is not a check of each paper one by one. To avoid overstating, we separate what is fairly firm from what is not.
What survived — from names of things to words for actions
At the root of the etymological arguments in Kokugo no kenkyū was a way of seeing: going back and forth between the name of a thing and the word for its action. The route by which verbs are born from nouns — kumo (cloud) to kumoru (to cloud over), chikara (strength) to chikamu (to strain) — is still treated in present-day Japanese linguistics as one of the basic patterns of how words are made. That way of seeing itself survived.
This does not mean every individual example is right. Etymologies one by one — like the account of tachi from kiri-tatsu — must be examined separately. What survived is the pattern of seeing; many of the individual answers are still open to examination.
Still introduced — the “shi” of east and west
In the chapter on directions, the theory Kanazawa followed — that the shi of higashi and nishi is an old word for wind — goes back to Motoori Norinaga and is still introduced as one etymological theory. Here Kanazawa was not the originator; he presented a predecessor’s theory with added evidence.
On the other hand, the part that explains east and west by the direction of a people’s movement is a conjecture that Kanazawa himself called “incomplete”; it is not a theory with firm evidence. It is worth noting that Kanazawa himself separated the firm parts from the uncertain ones.
What was not proved — ear-eye-nose-mouth and the kinship theory
The suggestion that the na of naku (weep) may be an old word for eye still turns up as one theory when the origins of words are discussed. But it cannot be said to be the established view.
The problem is what follows. Kanazawa lined up Japanese action words and Korean body-part names: iu with ip, kiku with kui, kagu with kho. As we confirmed in the close reading, how sounds correspond regularly is not shown there. To prove a genealogical relation between two languages, showing such regular correspondences is the basic procedure. Today, the general summary is that a Japanese–Korean kinship is not treated as a proven, established view.
Used in the political arena
The kinship theory did not stay a scholarly hypothesis. As we saw in the close reading of “Chōsen ni okeru kokugo mondai”, Kanazawa himself, in the year of annexation, wrote a framework that places Korean as “a dialect of the empire,” tied to the kinship theory. In 1929 too, he published a book titled Nissen dōso-ron (its contents were not checked in this feature).
Researchers of later periods have critically discussed how such kinship and common-ancestry theories were often tied to arguments justifying Japanese rule, under colonial rule. A hypothesis not proved scholarly was used in the political arena as though it were firm. This point, apart from any judgment of Kanazawa as an individual, needs to be confirmed as the later history of the kinship hypothesis.
At the same time, for fairness: in “Chōsen ni okeru kokugo mondai,” Kanazawa opposed a sudden replacement by Japanese alone and treated Korean as something not easily changed. That the argument lay within a framework premised on the kinship theory, and that this cautious attitude existed, are both facts written in the original.
Where this feature stands
What we read in this feature is part of Kokugo no kenkyū (1910). Kanazawa published, in co-translation with Ueda Kazutoshi, Sayce’s Gengogaku (1898), and in 1907 he edited the dictionary Jirin. He was one of those who carried Japanese linguistics in its pioneering period. The aim of this feature was to look — without mixing them — at what remained in scholarship, what did not, and what was used in the political arena.
Summary
| Point | Present treatment (general summary) |
|---|---|
| Name of thing ⇄ action word | Survives as a view of word-making. Individual etymologies examined separately |
| The shi = wind of east/west | Still introduced as a theory going back to Motoori Norinaga |
| People’s-movement theory of east/west | A conjecture Kanazawa himself called “incomplete” |
| Na = eye | One theory. Cannot be called established |
| Ear-eye-nose-mouth vs. Korean | Regular sound correspondences not shown; not proved |
| Japanese–Korean kinship theory | Not a proven, established view. Used politically under colonial rule |
In a nutshell — Kanazawa Shōzaburō’s eye for how words are born survived. But the proof tying Japanese and Korean did not, and that hypothesis was made to carry more weight than it should in the political arena.