Thanks for the suggestions/corrections. I still haven't decided exactly what to do on the 新字体 vs. 旧字体 situation, which is what resulted in the confusion. I used the 旧字体 for 兒 because that's how it appeared in the original text, but of course 譽 was not actually used there, so I didn't think to change that. I will have to think some more about how I should approach this. On the one hand, 旧字体 is good for maintaining originality, but when most users will be typing in 新字体 with their IMEs, it might be better to stick to that for SEO purposes.

As for the romaji situation, I'm not really sure what to do. I don't really want to randomly insert Japanese words into the main body of the posts (since this is supposed to be a translation blog), but I get what you're saying about it being difficult to understand. I started adding the Japanese versions of words in parentheses in later posts, but things haven't been entirely settled stylistically (for the posts).

Last edited by srunni (2012 October 05, 1:50 am)

I'm not all that well versed in late-Edo stuff so I've never heard of this novel.

One of the reasons I chose this novel instead of something more popular, like Genji or Makura no Soshi or Kokinshuu was because it's not that popular, so it would hopefully be more useful to people like you who have experience with premodern Japanese, but focus on more mainstream areas.

If you come across any mistakes in my posts, please post any suggestions/corrections in the comments of the blog! I could use help from people like you.

Sounds interesting; I've bookmarked it for later.

Are you saying that this is a woodblock print? I wonder how they do that because it looks like a manuscript.

"But people often say "it's just scribbles" even when they can read regular Japanese, but don't forget that people who don't know Japanese often say printed texts are just scribbles."

Yeah, it was used a form of writing at some point. So it has to be humanly possible to read it. I'm sure that as you get used to it, the scribbles start to make sense.

Last edited by Eikyu (2012 October 05, 3:57 pm)

Eikyu wrote:

Are you saying that this is a woodblock print? I wonder how they do that because it looks like a manuscript.

It's definitely a woodblock print; you can see it in the faded area where it didn't get fully pressed down (and just the style of the writing).  Woodblocks were first written by someone and then carved out so they look handwritten.

I haven't encountered many examples of authors picking their own kanji for things; there are some old and obsolete usages.

It might have seemed easier to do the woodblock because they still didn't have a standard set of kana, and so all the hentai-gana plus the kanji, furigana, and other special symbols may have made movable type rather difficult.

But it is kind of amazing when you think of these works like the Kogetsusho or Bakin's novels that were thousands of pages long.  I can't imagine how long it must have taken to carve all those woodblocks (since they carve out the areas that aren't the symbols) and to store all the woodblocks for future printings.

Last edited by yudantaiteki (2012 October 05, 7:41 pm)

Eikyu wrote:

I'm always amazed at how people can read this stuff. Did you take classes, or are you self-trained?

I took 2 semesters of classical Japanese in college. At first, we only read texts typewritten in modern fonts using historical kana orthography. In the second semester, I started reading Kanbun and kuzushiji. In fact, Kanbun was probably my favorite topic, but it's more complicated than this and I don't have access to any handwritten documents, so I thought it'd be a poor place to start.

As I live in America, I'm stuck with whatever is available on the internet (I'm sure there are plenty of kanbun scans online - I've run across a few myself - but I haven't had the chance to research them and find an interesting one to work on). If I were living in Tokyo, I'd get a nice scanner and just buy the books myself from Jinbocho. I had a chance to visit there when I was studying abroad in Tokyo, but I unfortunately didn't have any space to bring back books (and I didn't know I would be so interested in this at the time). That's what my classical Japanese professor said she did every time she visits Japan.

Ever since then, I've been doing it on my own (though hopefully some of you guys can give me tips!).

Hashiriya wrote:

I'm reading short stories from Rashoumon in class right now and I can't wait until we are finally finished with it.

Haha, I had to read/translate the original story from Konjaku Monogatarishuu that Rashomon is based on for my first semester final exam. We only read a part of it, so I'll have to go back and read the rest.

yudantaiteki wrote:

It's definitely a woodblock print; you can see it in the faded area where it didn't get fully pressed down (and just the style of the writing).  Woodblocks were first written by someone and then carved out so they look handwritten.

Right, this is woodblock printing that imitates handwriting from that period. This practice continued well into the Meiji period, although typesetting started to gain popularity as well. It wasn't fully standardized until after WW2 though, of course.

Last edited by srunni (2012 October 06, 10:39 am)

I'm on vacation and don't have my dictionaries, so these are tentative guesses.  The くん might be 呉, and the second kanji of かみさん looks like 君 to me.  That's the best I can do.

yudantaiteki wrote:

I'm on vacation and don't have my dictionaries, so these are tentative guesses.  The くん might be 呉, and the second kanji of かみさん looks like 君 to me.  That's the best I can do.

Sounds good to me. My favorite くずし字 dictionary, which was hosted at http://r-jiten.nabunken.go.jp/ previously but was taken offline, is now back, at http://clioz39.hi.u-tokyo.ac.jp/ships/ZClient/W34/. 呉 made sense immediately, and I was able to confirm 君 using the くずし字 DB.

Out of curiosity, which dictionaries do you use for くずし字?

Kyoshi88 wrote:

The Konjaku Monogatarishū is a ton of fun to read, I recommend it.

I managed to find scans of it online, so I'll probably go with Konjaku.

Last edited by srunni (2012 October 15, 6:18 pm)

I think those are the books that my 古文／漢文 professor had, and they were definitely handy. I'll have to see if I can get a copy of them, perhaps through Kinokuniya New York.

In any case, my next post is up. I'm still considering whether to go with Konjaku Monogatarishu or something else for my Heian era translation, but either way I'll probably start on one in the next week or two. Kanbun might be a little too difficult to explain.

Last edited by srunni (2012 October 17, 5:44 pm)

Thank you for such lovely posts! I am a subscriber now, through google reader.
I just started learning Early Modern Japanese and Japanese interpretation of Chinese classics, haven't tried to decipher cursive forms yet but this will be quite useful in the future.

Kyoshi88 wrote:

You can access the 原文 via Kyoto university: http://edb.kulib.kyoto-u.ac.jp/exhibit/ … j_top.html

For example: http://edb.kulib.kyoto-u.ac.jp/exhibit/ … 7ft01.html (mouse-over to see 活字)

Right, that's one of the advantages of going with Konjaku ― I can try to read it myself, but if I get stuck, I have the option of seeing the printed version. I guess I'll start with it next week.

Last edited by srunni (2012 October 19, 12:15 am)