rial to the throne, in which it was argued that the fiefs of the daimios ought not to be looked on as private property. Other clans supported the memorial. The imperial court, after consulting the general opinion, abolished the titles of court and territorial noble (kuge and daimio), and replaced them by that of "noble families" (kuazoku). In the summer of 1871 the entire power of the empire was centred directly in Tokio (Yedo), which had received its new name in 1868. All public property throughout the empire came into possession of the imperial government, and the former daimios were given the alternative of travelling abroad or living in Tokio, one tenth of their former revenue being allowed them for support. In December, 1871, an embassy consisting of the ambassador and junior prime minister Iwakura, and the vice ambassador Kido, three ministers of the cabinet, and inferior officers and secretaries, numbering 49 persons in all, sailed from Yokohama to visit all the nations having treaties with Japan. They spent seven months in the United States, and about a year in Europe, reaching Japan on their return, by way of Suez, Sept. 13, 1873.—The principal writers on Japan are: Kämpfer, "History of Japan" (2 vols. fol., London, 1727); Golovnin, "Memoirs of Captivity in Japan," translated from the Russian (2d ed., 3 vols. 8vo, London, 1824); Meylan, Japan voorgesteld in schetsen (Amsterdam, 1830); Doeff, Herinnerungen uit Japan (Haarlem, 1833); Titsingh, Annales des empereurs de Japon (Paris, 1834); Siebold, Nippon (20 vols., Leyden, 1832–'57); Mrs. Busk, "Manners and Customs of the Japanese," compiled and translated from Siebold and other Dutch authorities (London, 1841); Charles Macfarlane, "Japan" (London, 1852); Richard Hildreth, "Japan as It Was and Is" (Boston, 1855); Francis L. Hawks, "Narrative of the Japan Expedition" (3 vols. 4to, Washington, 1856); Laurence Oliphant, "Narrative of Lord Elgin's Mission to China and Japan" (2 vols., London, 1859); Capt. Sherard Osborne, "A Cruise in Japanese Waters" (Edinburgh, 1859), and "Japanese Fragments" (London, 1861); Robert Fortune, "Visits to Japan and China" (London, 1863); Sir Rutherford Alcock, "The Capital of the Tycoon" (2 vols., London, 1863); Walter Dickson, "Japan, a Sketch of the History, Government, and Officers of the Empire" (Edinburgh, 1869); A. Berg, Die preussische Expedition nach Ost-Asien (4 vols., Berlin, 1854–'73, the first two volumes being devoted to Japan); Léon Pagès, Histoire de la religion chrétienne au Japon (2 vols., Paris, 1869); Aimé Humbert, Le Japon illustré (2 vols., Paris, 1870; English translation, London, 1873); Charles Lanman, "The Japanese in America" (New York, 1872); Bayard Taylor, "Japan," &c., compiled from Humbert, Alcock, and others (New York, 1872); Das alte und das neue Japan, by Steyer and Wagner, brought down to the present time by Ed. Hintze (Leipsic, 1873); A. Mori, "Education in Japan" (New York, 1873); Mossman, "New Japan" (London, 1873); Adams, "History of Japan" (London, 1874 et seq.).
JAPAN, Language and Literature of. The Japanese language belongs to the polysyllabic branch of the Mongolian division. In a narrower sense, it has neither common descent with nor family relationship to the Chinese, and it is entirely different in its grammatical structure. Like other languages, it has undergone important changes, as may be seen upon comparison of the language as now spoken with that in the ancient books, which is only intelligible to those who make these books a special study. The native language is the same whether written or spoken, though the colloquial differs in several respects from the best literary style; the latter is more concise, and still retains some of the archaic forms of the verb and auxiliary words. The common colloquial abounds in interjectional and onomatopoetic words and particles, uses a more simple inflection of the verb, and makes a greater use of honorific and polite terms. The dialectical variations in different parts of the country consist mainly in the different pronunciation of some of the syllables, and in the use of provincialisms. The dialects of some of the more remote regions, as Satsuma, are not easily understood by the people of Tokio (Yedo); but these differences are not greater than are common in all the languages of Europe, and are by no means so great as in China.—The Japanese vocabulary has been greatly enlarged and enriched by the introduction of Chinese words, all taken from the Chinese written language, and not from the colloquial, which has never been spoken in Japan except by a few interpreters at Nagasaki. So extensively have these words been introduced, that for almost every native word the Japanese have an equivalent Chinese word. But in common usage the names of things, family relationships, and the words which express the wants, feelings, and concerns of every-day life, are for the most part native words; while the technical, philosophical, and scientific terms are Chinese. The Chinese words abound most in the higher class of literary composition, in letters, governmental documents, and philosophical works, as well as in the conversation of the higher and educated classes; while native words are more current in the literature intended for the common people, by whom, and especially by the women, the native tongue is spoken in its greatest purity. The grammatical structure of the language has not been affected by the introduction of Chinese words. The latter retain their integrity, undergoing no change or inflection of any kind, but are woven into a sentence by means of native words, or auxiliary words and particles, which indicate the cases of the nouns, form of the adjective, and moods and tenses of the verb. The Japanese have endeavored to preserve the Chinese sounds of the characters; but, as in transliterating these sounds they of necessity used their own syllables, the pronun-
