Paper short abstract:

Studies on the history of Japanese dialects have not been deepened. This paper examines manuscripts written in Cyrillic script reflecting the Kagoshima dialect in the 18th century, and identifies features of the manuscripts through an analysis of the passive affix.

Paper long abstract:

The term "History of Japanese language" often refers to the linguistic history of Japanese political and cultural centers because there are very few documents written in dialects. Therefore, the history of many dialects is not well understood. However, each dialect has its own history, and it is possible to trace its history from the few manuscripts written by chance in some regions.

We introduce Russian manuscripts written in a Japanese dialect that comprise bilingual Russian and Japanese material made by Gonza, a Japanese who drifted ashore in Russia in the first half of the 18th century. Since he was from Kagoshima, an area at the southern tip of mainland Japan, he translated his Japanese into Russian based on the Kagoshima dialect, not Central Japanese. Since this material is transcribed into Cyrillic, the pronunciation of the dialect at that time can be identified and the meanings of words and sentences can be clarified from the corresponding Russian translation. In this paper, I would like to show the characteristics and usefulness of the manuscripts, especially through the analysis of the passive affixes, and points to be noted regarding the Cyrillic transcription.

In these manuscripts, the passive affix appears as follows:

(1) passive affix

Russian：называюся（This word stands for called.）

Kagoshima dialect：иваюръ（iw-ajur）【Russian manuscript orbis pictus chapter 103】

On the other hand, in the modern Kagoshima dialect, -(r)aur is the passive suffix; -(r)ajur is not. Also, the passive affix -(r)arur in modern dialects is not used, but -(r)ar, which has a similar form, is used. And -(r)ar is said to express an honorific sense in the Russian manuscripts. In other words, there is a gap between the 18th century forms and the modern dialect, as shown in (2).

(2) 　18th century Modern Kagoshima dialect

passive：-(r)ajur -(r)arur

honorific：-(r)ar -jar

In this paper, we discuss the factors underlying the discrepancies between the materials in the Russian manuscripts and the modern dialects based on the characteristics of the materials. In addition, we would like to examine the voice system in the dialect at that time.