The was a popular

Muromachi period The is a division of Japanese history running from approximately 1336 to 1573. The period marks the governance of the Muromachi or Ashikaga shogunate (''Muromachi bakufu'' or ''Ashikaga bakufu''), which was officially established in 1338 by t ...

Japanese dictionary

collated Collation is the assembly of written information into a standard order. Many systems of collation are based on numerical order or alphabetical order, or extensions and combinations thereof. Collation is a fundamental element of most office filin ...

in ''

iroha The is a Japanese poem. Originally the poem was attributed to the founder of the Shingon Esoteric sect of Buddhism in Japan, Kūkai, but more modern research has found the date of composition to be later in the Heian period (794–1179). The f ...

'' order and subdivided into semantic categories. The title word ''setsuyō'' means "reduce usage; economize" and alludes to the ''

Lunyu The ''Analects'' (; ; Old Chinese: '' ŋ(r)aʔ''; meaning "Selected Sayings"), also known as the ''Analects of Confucius'', the ''Sayings of Confucius'', or the ''Lun Yu'', is an ancient Chinese book composed of a large collection of sayings a ...

'' (compare the ''

Kagakushū The , alternatively read as ''Gegakushū'', was a 1444 Japanese dictionary of Chinese characters arranged into semantic headings. The title alludes to Confucius' self-description in the ''Lunyu'': 下学而上達 "My studies lie low, and my pe ...

''). "Confucius said: 'If you would govern a state of a thousand chariots (a small-to-middle-size state), you must pay strict attention to business, be true to your word, be economical in expenditure and love the people'." The origins of the ''Setsuyōshū'' are unclear. The oldest extant edition is dated 1496 CE, and the text was probably compiled shortly before the

Bunmei was a after '' Ōnin'' and before ''Chōkyō''. This period spanned from April 1469 through July 1487.Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005). "''Bunmei''" i ''Japan encyclopedia'', p. 89 n.b., Louis-Frédéric is pseudonym of Louis-Frédéric Nussba ...

era (1469–1487 CE). Despite much speculation about the dictionary's anonymous author, Bailey concludes "a nameless fifteenth-century Zen priest is the likeliest candidate". Unlike many early

Japanese dictionaries have a history that began over 1300 years ago when Japanese Buddhist priests, who wanted to understand Chinese sutras, adapted Chinese character dictionaries. Present-day Japanese lexicographers are exploring computerized editing and electronic ...

Chinese characters Chinese characters () are logograms developed for the writing of Chinese. In addition, they have been adapted to write other East Asian languages, and remain a key component of the Japanese writing system where they are known as ''kanji' ...

that were intended for literati, the ''Setsuyōshū'' was a true Japanese language dictionary and entered vocabulary current in Muromachi times. Each main entry gives the word in ''

kanji are the logographic Chinese characters taken from the Chinese family of scripts, Chinese script and used in the writing of Japanese language, Japanese. They were made a major part of the Japanese writing system during the time of Old Japanese ...

'' (Chinese characters), notes Japanese pronunciation in ''

katakana is a Japanese syllabary, one component of the Japanese writing system along with hiragana, kanji and in some cases the Latin script (known as rōmaji). The word ''katakana'' means "fragmentary kana", as the katakana characters are derived fr ...

'' on the right, and occasionally adds etymologies and comments on the bottom. There are numerous ''Setsuyōshū'' editions (over 180 from the

Edo period The or is the period between 1603 and 1867 in the history of Japan, when Japan was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and the country's 300 regional '' daimyo''. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengoku period, the Edo period was characteriz ...

) and many vary in content and format. Most versions collate words according to their first syllable under 43–47 ''iroha'' divisions (''bu'' 部) with 9–16 semantic subdivisions (''mon'' 門), which usually begin with "Heaven and Earth" (''Tenchi'' 天地) and end with "Unclassified words" (''Genji'' 言辞). This arrangement combines both ''

Iroha Jiruishō The is a 12th-century Japanese dictionary of ''Kanji'' ("Chinese characters"). It was the first Heian Period dictionary to collate characters by pronunciation (in the ''iroha'' order) rather than by logographic radical (like the '' Tenrei Bansh� ...

'' phonetic ordering and ''

'' semantic classifications. The Japanese linguist

Hashimoto Shinkichi was a Japanese linguist, born in Tsuruga, Fukui Prefecture, Japan. Biography Hashimoto is especially noted for the discovery of Jōdai Tokushu Kanazukai, which makes it clear that Old Japanese made more syllabic distinctions than later period ...

analyzed differences among early ''Setsuyōshū'' editions and found three categories, distinguished by the first word beginning with ''i''- appearing under the first '"Heaven and Earth" heading. The dictionaries' initial word is either ''Ise'' (伊勢 "old name for

Mie Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located in the Kansai region of Honshu. Mie Prefecture has a population of 1,781,948 () and has a geographic area of . Mie Prefecture is bordered by Gifu Prefecture to the north, Shiga Prefecture and Kyoto Prefecture to ...

"), ''Indo'' (印度 "India"), or ''inui'' (乾 "northwest"). "''Ise'' editions" have few appendices, put place names near the beginning of subject headings, and are probably the oldest

redaction Redaction is a form of editing in which multiple sources of texts are combined and altered slightly to make a single document. Often this is a method of collecting a series of writings on a similar theme and creating a definitive and coherent wo ...

. "''Indo'' editions" have many appendices, including place names, and clearly have been supplemented from the 1444 CE ''Kagakushū''. "''Inui'' editions" are usually printed with

movable type Movable type (US English; moveable type in British English) is the system and technology of printing and typography that uses movable components to reproduce the elements of a document (usually individual alphanumeric characters or punctuatio ...

, have more entries and corrections, and are the newest version. ''Setsuyōshū'' has a parallel with ''

Webster's ''Webster's Dictionary'' is any of the English language dictionaries edited in the early 19th century by American lexicographer Noah Webster (1758–1843), as well as numerous related or unrelated dictionaries that have adopted the Webster's n ...

'' informally meaning "English language dictionary". Nakao notes this dictionary "remained popular for so long that the name ''Setsuyoshu'' was used as a generic term for Japanese dictionaries (with the entries arranged in the order of ''iroha'')".

References

External links

饅頭屋本節用集
5 Muromachi editions of ''Setsuyōshū'', Tsukuba University Library

4 Muromachi editions of ''Setsuyōshū'', Gifu University Library

rare edition ''Setsuyōshū'', Kyoto University Library {{DEFAULTSORT:Setsuyoshu Japanese dictionaries Late Middle Japanese texts Muromachi-period works

References

Further reading

External links