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Status of the reading of Sino-Japanese words in the late 1930s

  • The Japanese Language Association of Korea
  • Abbr : JLAK
  • 2018, (55), pp.109-126
  • DOI : 10.14817/jlak.2018.55.109
  • Publisher : The Japanese Language Association Of Korea
  • Research Area : Humanities > Japanese Language and Literature
  • Received : December 30, 2017
  • Accepted : February 23, 2018
  • Published : March 20, 2018

Shioda Takehiro 1

1NHK Broadcasting Culture Research Institute

Accredited

ABSTRACT

In modern Sino-Japanese words, we can see some examples which are read as two or more patterns, not unified (i.e. “Reading fluctuation of words”). In the past, the Sino-Japanese words which indicates this kind of fluctuation existed more than today. At the Japanese broadcasting station in the latter half of the 1930s, in order to make this fluctuation as small as possible, the person in charge advanced the making of provisions on the use of broadcasting words. In this paper, the author examined the items listed in the document "Authorized Vocabulary Record of Broadcasting Words Investigation Committee (1)" compiled by the Japan Broadcasting Corporation, and explored the part of organizing of “Reading fluctuation" which was conducted by the broadcasting company. Specifically, the author tried to contrast with the described contents of the Japanese dictionary 'Jien', which is considered to be one of the important references in making the provision of broadcasting words. Through the analysis of data, as one of the directivity of "Authorized Vocabulary Record of Broadcasting Words Investigation Committee (1)", with respect to various "Reading fluctuation" that existed at the time, the author pointed out the attitude of unifying the readings, rather than admitting the both readings equally ("unified orientation" rather than "distributed orientation"). Also, despite the fact that there were many Sino-Japanese words that were read as Wu-Pronunciation in everyday life at that time, there were some words that were displayed as Han-Pronunciation in some Japanese dictionary, that caused the divergence from the reality. The author also pointed out the tendency of stopping the increasing of “Han-Pronunciation” which is too much, and prioritizing the Wu-Pronunciation which is based on the real language.

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