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Daily Archives: 17 August 2014

by Joel | 17 August 2014 · 9:56 am

Doshisha University’s Debt to Hakodate

From Hokkaido, A History of Ethnic Transition and Development on Japan’s Northern Island, by Ann B. Irish (McFarland, 2009), pp. 93-94:

Hakodate played a small part in the life and adventures of Niijima Jo (westerners have anglicized his name in several ways and have referred to him as Joseph Hardy Neesima). He became a prominent Christian in nineteenth century Japan and is honored today as the founder of a distinguished private university in Kyoto, Doshisha. Niijima grew up in Edo. When he was a youth, a friend who knew of his interest in boats and seamanship told him of a vessel soon to sail to Hakodate. Niijima, who had a secret desire to visit a foreign land, thought he might be able to do so form Hakodate. He knew an influential man who obtained permission for the young man to take a trip north. After arrival in Hakodate in 1864, Niijima’s goal was to meet foreigners who could help him travel abroad. He soon met Father Nikolai, who engaged him as a Japanese language tutor. Meanwhile, an English trader agreed to teach the young Japanese man English.

Niijima desperately wanted to travel outside Japan, despite the government prohibition of this. After several months in Hakodate, his dream took shape. He made arrangements to slip out of the city and secretly board an American ship. Arriving in the United States via China, he studied for some ten years and adopted Christianity. After being baptized, he chose his western name to honor Alpheus Hardy, owner of the ship that had taken him to America. Niijima graduated from Amherst College, the first Japanese student ever to obtain a college degree in the United States. Returning to Japan, he founded the school in 1875 which grew into Doshisha University.

As Niijima’s story shows, because foreigners from several important nations lived in Hakodate, Japanese found the city a good place to study foreign languages and foreign ways, and a number of men who later served as interpreters learned languages there.

Ainu Placenames and Counting System

From Hokkaido, A History of Ethnic Transition and Development on Japan’s Northern Island, by Ann B. Irish (McFarland, 2009), pp. 35-36:

Many, many Hokkaido cities and towns, and even some on Honshu, have names derived from Ainu. “Sapporo” comes from an ancient Ainu name for the river there, either from sat poro pet, which would mean “big dry river” or sari poro pet, a reedy area by the river. The name of Wakkanai evolved from the Ainu term “yam wakkanay,” meaning cold water river.” Some people have thought that even Mt. Fuji’s name comes from an Ainu word, fuchi, the Ainu fire goddess, but linguists today generally dismiss this idea.

Shiraoi, a town on the coast between Muroran and Tomakomai, has long included a sizable Ainu community and now features an Ainu village for tourists. In Ainu, the town’s name may have meant “place with many horseflies.” John Batchelor wrote that it meant “the place where the tide comes out (over the land),” signifying high tides. When place names like this have been adapted into Japanese, they have been given written characters that fit their pronunciation. Shira [白] can mean “white” in Japanese and oi [老い] can mean “old age.” The two characters with these meanings and pronunciations are written today to indicate the town name “Shiraoi.” Near Shiraoi is the hot springs resort city of Noboribetsu. Nobori means “to ascend” or “to climb” in Japanese, and betsu is “special” or “different.” The Ainu name, pronounced in a somewhat similar way, meant merely “turbid river.” In this case, both Ainu and Japanese names are appropriate, for there are mountains in this town located along a river. Betsu, by the way, appears in many Hokkaido place names to represent the Ainu word pet, which means “river.”

The Ainu counting system differs from the Japanese, the number twenty playing a prominent role. The numbers one to five have their own names, as does ten. Six through nine are expressed as ten minus a number and the teens are expressed by numbers added to ten. Larger numbers are expressed as multiples of twenty, subtracting any amounts needed.

Here are some examples of numbers from The Language, Mythology, and Geographical Nomenclature of Japan Viewed in the Light of Aino Studies, by Basil Hall Chamberlain and John Batchelor (Imperial University of Japan, 1887):

p. 9: wan ’10’, shine-pe-wan ‘1 from 10 = 9’, tu-pe-wan ‘2 from 10 = 8’

p. 93: hot ne ’20’, tu hot ne ‘2 score = 40’,
shine ikashima hot ne ‘1 excess score = 21’
shine ikashima, wan e, tu hot ne ‘1 excess, 10 away, 2 score = 31’
tu-pe-san ikashima, wan e, ine hot ne ‘(2 from 10 =) 8 excess, 10 away, 4 score = 78’
tu-pe-san ikashima, ine hot ne ‘(2 from 10 =) 8 excess, 4 score = 88’
ashikne hot ne ‘5 score = 100’
wan e, tu-pe-san hot ne ’10 away, (2 from 10 =) 8 score = 150′