TheArte da Lingoa de Iapam (lit. 'Art of the Tongue of Japan';Japanese:日本大文典,romanized: Nihon Daibunten) is an early 17th-centuryJapanese grammar written inPortuguese. It was compiled byJoão Rodrigues, aPortugueseJesuit missionary. It is the oldest fully extant Japanese grammar and is a valuable reference for thelate middle period of the Japanese language.[1]
Christian missionary work in Japan began in the 1540s, necessitating the learning of its language. Missionaries createddictionaries and grammars. Early grammars seem to have been written in the 1580s, but are no longer extant.[1]
João Rodrigues arrived in Japan as a teenager and became so fluent that he was mostly known to locals as "the Translator" (Tsūji); he served as the translator of visiting Jesuit overseers, as well as for thekampakuToyotomi Hideyoshi and theshōgunTokugawa Ieyasu. HisArte da Lingoa de Iapam is the oldest extant complete Japanese grammar. Rodrigues published it in three volumes atNagasaki over the five years between 1604 and 1608. In addition to vocabulary and grammar, it includes details on the country'sdynasties,currency,measures, and other commercial information.[2] There are only two known copies: one at theBodleian Library at theUniversity of Oxford and the other in theCrawford family collection.[1][3] There is also a manuscript by Leon Pagès.
Following aviolent suppression of marauding Japanese sailors inMacao in 1608 andcourt intrigues the next year, however, Tokugawa resolved to replace Portuguese traders withred seal ships,the Dutch, andthe Spanish in early 1610. After asuccessful assault on a Portuguese ship then inNagasaki Bay, he permitted most of the missionaries to remain but replaced Rodrigues with theEnglishmanWilliam Adams.[2]
Rodrigues then joined theChina missions, where he published a terser revised grammar calledThe Short Art of the Japanese Language (Portuguese:Arte Breue da Lingoa Iapoa;Japanese:日本小文典,Nihon Shōbunten) atMacao in 1620.[2][1] It reformulates the treatment of grammar in the earlier "Great Art" (Arte Grande), establishing clear and concise rules regarding the principal features of the Japanese language.[2]
The grammar is three volumes in length.
TheGreat Art was translated into Japanese by Tadao Doi (土井忠生) in 1955.[2]
TheShort Art was translated intoFrench by M.C. Landresse asElements of Japanese Grammar (Elémens de la Grammaire Japonaise) in 1825, with a supplement added the next year.[2]
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