Classical Japanese


The classical Japanese language, also called "old writing", is the literary form of the Japanese language that was the standard until the early Shōwa period. It is based on Early Middle Japanese, the language as spoken during the Heian period, but exhibits some later influences. Its use started to decline during the late Meiji period when novelists started writing their works in the spoken form. Eventually, the spoken style came into widespread use, including in major newspapers, but many official documents were still written in the old style. After the end of World War II, most documents switched to the spoken style, although the classical style continues to be used in traditional genres, such as haiku and waka. Old laws are also left in the classical style unless fully revised.

Orthography

Classical Japanese is written in an orthography that differs from modern Japanese in two major ways. These are the usage of old character forms and historical kana usage.

Old character forms ( ''Kyūjitai'')

Old character forms are the forms of Chinese characters used in Japan before the post-World War II spelling reforms there. The modern, simplified characters are called new character forms.
A few examples follow, with the old characters on the left and the new characters on the right :
In cases like that of the first two, the entire original character has essentially been replaced by a new one, independent of the original's etymology. This type, however, is relatively rare. Another approach is to essentially replace the character with a piece of it, sometimes slightly altered, as in the third and fourth characters. Finally, probably the most common type of simplification is to change one component of the character to reduce the number of strokes and/or make it easier to write, a strategy exemplified by the fifth and sixth examples. Note that, as in the case of the sixth character, the simplification may be very subtle.
In general, old character forms are identical to their traditional Chinese counterparts, but there are some exceptions. For the seventh example character, the traditional and simplified Japanese versions coexisted as different forms of the same traditional character in China, while in Japan, what is now the new character form was at that time considered a variant and rarely used. And in a few cases, like that of the eighth character, the old character form has always been considered a rare variant in China.

Historical kana usage ( ''Rekishi-teki kana-zukai'')

is the system of kana writing used in Japan before the post-war reforms. More specifically, it is the version of kana orthography standardized in the Meiji Period. It is, broadly speaking, based on the pronunciation of Japanese in the Heian Period, the time-frame in which Early Middle Japanese was spoken. There are several differences between historical kana usage — which is also referred to as "old kana usage" — and the modern kana orthography, called "modern kana usage" or "new kana usage". Some of these differences apply primarily to Sino-Japanese readings of Chinese characters, while others apply primarily to native Japanese words, and still others apply equally to both groups of words.
Broadly speaking, the differences are:

H-Row ( ''Ha-gyō'') rule

Some examples follow :
There are some exceptions to this sound change, although they are rare. They include , , , and . Sometimes, as in the case of the first two exceptions, the sound change form exists, usually with a slightly different meaning or is used in different contexts. In other cases, as is true of the second two exceptions, the unchanged form is the only one that exists. In addition to these exceptions, some dialects may preserve these sounds as they were at any stage of the language.

W-row ( ''Wa-gyō'') rule

Some examples:
Native Japanese words
Sino-Japanese words
There are no known exceptions in standard Japanese, and no dialects preserve the distinction between and, and, and/or and, but some of the Ryukyuan languages do.

D-row ( ''Da-gyō'') rule

Some examples:
Native words
Sino-Japanese words
Loanwords
There are no known exceptions in standard Japanese pronunciation, although there are many dialects that preserve the distinction between historical and in speech, usually by using and for historical and and for historical . In writing, the distinction is preserved in single morphemes in cases where a sequence or was historically produced by rendaku, or in compounds where a phonemic or has been voiced to or . This usage is a holdover from this rule.

Y-row ( ''Ya-gyō'') rule

In modern Japanese, the small kana,, and are used to indicate palatalized consonants when following an I-column kana of the K-, G-, N-, B-, P-, M-, or R-rows. For example:
When a small Y-row kana follows an I-column kana of the S-, Z-, T-, D-, or H-rows, the preceding consonant is changed:
These three kana cannot follow A-row or W-row kana in this way.
In historical kana, all of these examples are written with large kana,, and . So the previous examples would be written:
This is the only historical kana rule that does not reflect a historical pronunciation. It is also one of only two rules that create ambiguity for the reader. For instance, the aforementioned word is not differentiated in historical kana from the word when written in historical kana: both are written .

Geminate ( ''Sokuon'') rule

The other use of small kana in modern Japanese is in the geminate consonant mark,, which is a small version of . In native Japanese words, this symbol can be used before kana of the K-, S-, T-, and P-rows. For example,
Voiced geminates are generally prohibited by Japanese phonological rules, but they occur in a few loanwords. For example:
Kana of the N- and M-rows can also be geminate, but they are preceded by to indicate gemination instead.
Gemination can occur in Japanese for a variety of reasons. In native words, it occurs either when a historical long vowel elides, as in the aforementioned , or randomly, as in the aforementioned . These examples of the geminate consonant marker, along with those found in loanwords, are written with large in historical kana. Therefore,
In these cases, the historical usage is not reflecting any historical pronunciation. However, in Sino-Japanese words, geminate consonants are produced by different, more regular processes, and the historical usage for these words reflects historical pronunciations.
The most common way for geminates to be produced in Sino-Japanese words is by the elision of a vowel from the kana,,, or . For example:
In historical kana, where the geminate mark is used in the first, second, and fourth examples, a full-sized version of the original kana is used. However, in the third example, is used, even though an has been elided. The reason for this is that in Early Middle Japanese, when these sounds were borrowed from Middle Chinese, the Japanese language acquired a final in the Sino-Japanese morphemes that currently end in or . Later on, these acquired two forms, one with and one with . So the semantic difference between Sino-Japanese syllables ending in or is almost always trivial, and the historical pronunciation was identical, so they were not distinguished in writing. Therefore, the previous examples would be written:
Occasionally, gemination may also result from a loss of a vowel after . These cases are complicated by the H-row rule, and perhaps because of that, are also written with in historical kana. For example,
is written
in historical kana.
While this usage does reflect a historical pronunciation, it, like the Y-row rule, produces ambiguity. Furthermore, since these vowels are elided in some compounds but not others, this usage obscures the difference in a way that is essentially impossible to predict.
While there are a few other processes that can cause geminates in Sino-Japanese words, they all apply to N- and M-row kana, and are not written differently in historical and modern kana.

Labialized consonant ( ''Gōyōon'') rule

Starting in Early Middle Japanese, as more and more Chinese characters were borrowed into Japanese, the language acquired consonants fronted with glides. Those fronted with the palatal glide are described in the Y-row rule, but Early Middle Japanese also introduced consonants fronted with labial glides. These were far more limited in range than their palatal counterparts, however, affecting only the K- and G- rows. instead of,, and for the vowels of onset, like the palatal glides, the vowels of onset for the labial glides were,, and, and used the kana,, and . Finally, while the palatal glides are written with an I-column kana, the labial glides are written with a U-column kana. However, when historical kana was standardized in the Meiji Period, only the syllables with historical were indicated. Nevertheless, some classical texts may indicate the other differences, and some resources will refer to them, so it is useful to be familiar with them. This rule applies exclusively to Sino-Japanese words. Some examples:
and
, , , and
Labialized consonants sometimes occur in modern loanwords, and they are generally dealt with in one of two ways. Firstly, the labialized consonant may be changed from a sequence to a sequence, both in writing and in speech. For example,
In other cases, they may be indicated with a U-column kana followed by a small A-row kana, indicating a labialized consonant. For example,
However, in these cases, an alternative version with large A-row kana generally exists, indicating a monophthong pronunciation, and many speakers use the monophthong pronunciation regardless of how it is written.
There are no known exceptions to this rule, but some dialects preserve the distinction.

Long vowel ( ''Chōon'') rule

Palatalized long vowel ( ''Kaiyōchōon'') rule

Classical auxiliary verb (''mu'') rule

Modern Japanese has the moraic nasal , which can represent a variety of sounds depending on what sounds come before and after it. Syllable final nasals are believed by many scholars to have existed in Proto-Japonic, but all agree that they were lost by the time of Old Japanese. They first re-appeared in Early Middle Japanese, with the introduction of Middle Chinese loanwords ending in -n and -m. Therefore, the majority of occurrences of in modern Japanese occur in Sino-Japanese vocabulary. Originally, syllabic n and m were phonemically and phonologically distinct, although the distinction was never written down, and was lost by Early Modern Japanese. For example,
However, some native Japanese words also have . This happens exceedingly rarely, and usually results from sound elision. An exhaustive list of every example out of all regular-use characters with the syllabic nasal in their native Japanese readings numbers only 13 characters giving rise to 14 readings. They are
From the elision of a vowel following /m/ or /n/
From the elision of a full mora
  • , from ; note also the sound change from to
  • , from ; note that these are the classical versions of the modern verbs and , respectively
  • , from
  • , from
  • , from ; note also the sequential voicing of to, and that these are the classical forms of the adjectives and
From the preservation of an Old Japanese pre-nasalized consonant in a modern Japanese word
  • , from
  • , from
From abbreviation of another pronunciation on this list
From multiple processes
From some semantic process
  • , from by analogy with Sino-Japanese
Of course, there are also some words with this sound that either lack Chinese characters or were coined in the modern or Early Modern Japanese eras, when had been fully incorporated into the language. For example,
Regardless of how it came to be, the Japanese orthography lacked the character or any equivalent. Therefore, until the spelling reforms of 1900, was generally used to represent the syllabic nasal. Sometimes, this convention may be preserved by modern writers, but standard historical kana distinguishes from .
There is one exception. In classical Japanese, there is an auxiliary verb which indicated the volitional. It, too, underwent vowel elision, and came to be pronounced as and then. However, the conventions of standard historical kana call for this auxiliary verb to be written with even though they are pronounced as .
Since is non-existent in modern Japanese, there are no dialects that preserve the distinction expressed in this rule. However, some may preserve the distinction between final and.

Miscellaneous

Two other significant differences involve the way that kana are used in general, rather than which kana are used. The first is that Chinese characters in classical texts are often fully marked with ruby text, especially in old laws and other very important documents. Ruby text is still widely used in modern Japanese, but only for characters with non-standard or ambiguous pronunciations, or sometimes in materials designed for children or foreigners. The second difference is that, especially in legal documents, Katakana were often used in the way that Hiragana are used in modern Japanese, to write out adjective and verb inflections, suffixes, and particles, and for the aforementioned ruby text.
Finally, kana iteration marks were far more common in classical Japanese, and sometimes used in ways that are considered completely obsolete in modern Japanese.
For an example of a major document written in the classical style, see as an example :s:ja:大日本帝國憲法|the original text of the 1890 Meiji Constitution, which is written in classical Japanese using historical kana, old character forms, kana iteration marks, and Katakana in place of Hiragana.

Grammar

Verbs ( ''Dōshi'')

Conjugation table

Classical Japanese has the following verb classes and stem forms:
Table notes
The placement of the "-" indicates where the stem of the vowel is. In other words, for a consonant-stem verb, the final vowel is not considered part of the verb's root, so it is separated. However, for vowel-stem verbs, the final vowel is considered part of the stem, except in the forms beginning in , because these reflect an ancient contraction of the final vowel of the verb with that ending. The K- and S-irregular classes are also special in this regard, because they are believed to be derived from vowel-stem verbs originally, but were subject to ancient contractions that caused them to lose their final vowel in all forms, and so their final vowels are no longer considered part of their roots, even though they are considered vowel-stem verbs.
The at the end of the imperative forms of upper and lower monograde and bigrade verbs and of K- and S-irregular verbs is optional in classical Japanese, although exceedingly common.

Verb class distribution

While the many conjugation classes may seem overwhelming, most of them contain few verbs. The quadrigrade and lower bigrade classes are the primary, containing about 75% and 20% of the verbs in the language, respectively. The upper bigrade class is small, but sizable enough to make an exhaustive list difficult. The other 6 classes all together contain between 22 and 28 verbs, depending on whether basic compound verbs are included or not. An exhaustive list of these follows, which verbs in the conclusive form, as is the most-common standard. Chinese character pronunciations are indicated by hiragana in parentheses following the given character. The first spelling listed for a given verb is the most common, and those that follow are alternative spellings. Some of these spellings are generally used for slightly different connotations of the same verb, while others are simple alternatives. In later reference, only the first spelling will be used, and the transcription will be based on the historical spelling. A blank cell in one of the "modern" columns indicates that the modern spelling and/or transcription is the same as the pre-World War II version.
Table notes
Note that these translations are glosses, and may not reflect certain nuances or rare alternative meanings.
In addition, the translations are for the classical meaning of the verb, which may differ from the modern meaning of the verb if it has survived into modern Japanese either slightly, or significantly. Some may have the same meaning, but a different pronunciation. Also, even for those verbs which have survived with the same meaning and form, many are archaic and rarely used in modern Japanese. On the other hand, some have kept the same meaning, form, and prominence into the modern language.
has three pronunciation variants, each of which can use either Chinese character: , , and .
Finally, the "modern" transcriptions are purely orthographic. For example, the modern version conclusive form of the classical verb is , but the modern form is given in the table as , which is the way that a modern Japanese writer would write the classical Japanese word, rather than the way they would write the modern Japanese word.

Adjectives ( ''Keiyōshi'')

Classical Japanese has the following classes of adjectives and stem forms:
Conjugation type
Basic conjugations
Compound conjugations
Basic conjugations
Compound conjugations
Table notes
Some of these forms are very rare and used sparingly. In particular, the / are used almost exclusively in an ancient construction called which uses the irrealis form to form nouns from verbs and adjectives; e.g., → + → . The construction / appears to be an irrealis form / + particle , but is actually / + particle with a sequential voicing sound change from to .
The compound forms are derived from continuitive form / + → / , which then became / by regular sound change rules from Old Japanese. The forms then follow the R-irregular conjugation type like , but lack the conclusive form.
Similarly, the basic conjugations have no imperative form. When it is used, therefore, the / forms are used. It is however, relatively rare, even in classical Japanese.

Adjectival verbs ( ''Keiyō dōshi'')

There are the following classes for adjectival verbs:
Header text
/
/
Table notes
Adjectival verbs are essentially nouns combined with a copula, either or . Which copula is used is specific to the adjectival verb in question.
The copulas are derived from directional particles + and + , respectively, yielding and , respectively, which then lead to and , respectively, by regular sound change rules. They therefore follow the R-irregular conjugation like .
As with adjectives, the imperative form is rare, but is used.

Miscellaneous

し
はになし