Of the nine scholars, four dealt with the origin and meaning of words: Ōtsuki Fumihiko, Shinmura Izuru, Kanazawa Shōzaburō, and Orikuchi Shinobu. All four asked, “Where did this word come from?” But the way they checked differs. (Overall timeline)
Four ways of checking
| Scholar | Main work | How they checked | Representative words |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ōtsuki Fumihiko | Genkai (1889–1891) | As a dictionary, explaining by combining pronunciation, part of speech, and definition | The dictionary as a whole |
| Shinmura Izuru | Nihon no kotoba (1940) | Lining up documentary evidence and limiting what is claimed | totemo, right and left, kiseru, baka |
| Kanazawa Shōzaburō | Kokugo no kenkyū (1910) | Comparing with other languages: Korean, Ainu, Ryukyuan dialects, Sanskrit | tachi, kumoru, namida, east-west-south-north |
| Orikuchi Shinobu | “Kokugo to minzokugaku” (1937), “Gokon-ron no danpen” (1931) | Reading words by clues from the life and beliefs of the ancients | itoshi, haikara, sake→saka, kotodama |
The fate of each answer
Lining up the verdict articles shows that the answers’ fates are scattered.
What survived
- Ōtsuki: gojūon order, the combination of pronunciation/part of speech/definition, explaining Japanese in Japanese. The skeleton of the dictionary still lives.
- Shinmura: the conclusion that kiseru comes from the Khmer khsier (pipe) is nearly settled.
- Orikuchi: the change in the meaning of itoshi (from “to dislike”) is an explanation still current.
- Kanazawa: the view that action words are born from names of things is still basic to word formation.
What was rewritten or rejected
- Ōtsuki: individual definitions and etymological explanations were rewritten, reflecting the level of knowledge of Meiji.
- Shinmura: the story of Zhao Gao for baka is regarded as a folk etymology.
What is unsettled
- Shinmura: the etymology of “right and left” — several theories coexist. Shinmura’s reservation was accurate.
- Kanazawa: na = eye stays one theory, not the established view. The shi = wind of east and west is still introduced as a theory since Motoori Norinaga.
- Orikuchi: the theory of ancient word order and conjectures like the etymology of fuyu (winter) can only be read as hypotheses.
What was not proved
- Kanazawa: the correspondences of ear, eye, nose, and mouth with Korean, and the Japanese–Korean kinship theory. No regular sound correspondences were shown, and they did not become established.
What divided the fates?
Reading through the verdict articles, three things seem to have divided the fates. But this is a tendency ToL read from the features’ accounts, not an assertion.
One is the kind of evidence and the range of claim. Shinmura lined up documentary evidence and did not claim what he could not claim. His reservation on “right and left” is regarded, looking back, as accurate.
Two is whether regularity is shown. Kanazawa’s correspondences with Korean lined up similar sounds and showed no regular sound correspondences. This is a point we confirmed repeatedly in the Kanazawa feature.
Three is whether the scholar himself marked the limits of his conjecture. Orikuchi marked the limits of his conjectures, and Kanazawa too said the east-west migration theory was “still incomplete.” Those marked as such are easily read, in later times, as hypotheses as they stand.
What to keep in mind when reading
First, we have not individually checked whether these etymological “answers” are right, in this group of features. The “present treatment” is the generally known summary of each verdict article. How each is treated now in individual papers, we have not checked.
Second, the word thread includes something of a different nature: Ōtsuki’s dictionary. A dictionary is not a book stating etymological theories but a tool describing how words are used. It cannot be measured with the same yardstick as the other three.
Summary
| Point | Detail |
|---|---|
| Four ways of checking | Dictionary (Ōtsuki) / documentary evidence (Shinmura) / comparison with other languages (Kanazawa) / life and belief (Orikuchi) |
| Fates | Survived / rewritten / unsettled / unproved |
| What seems to divide them | Evidence and range of claim; regularity; marking the limits of one’s own conjecture |
| Caution | The correctness of etymologies is not individually checked. A dictionary is of a different nature |
In a nutshell — In the word thread, the same question of “etymology” had four ways of checking — dictionary, documents, comparison, life and belief — and the kind of evidence and the range of claim seem to have divided the fates of the answers.