grammatical forms by means of suffixes loosely soldered to the root or stem, which is invariable. Though not originally related to Chinese, Japanese has adopted an enormous number of Chinese words, such words having naturally followed Chinese civilisation into the archipelago. Even at the present day, the Japanese language has recourse to Chinese for terms to indicate all such new things and ideas as "telegram," "bicycle," "photograph," "democracy," "natural selection," "limited liability," etc., etc., much as we ourselves have recourse to Latin and Greek. Hence a curious result:—the Europeanisation of Japanese institutions has made the language far more humbly tributary to China to-day than it ever was while Confucianism reigned supreme in the land.
The fundamental rule of Japanese syntax is that qualifying words precede the word they qualify. Thus the adjective or genitive precedes the noun which it defines, the adverb precedes the verb, and explanatory or dependent clauses precede the principal clause. The object likewise precedes the verb. The predicative verb or adjective of each clause is placed at the end of that clause, the predicative verb or adjective of the main clause rounding off the entire sentence, which is often, even in familiar conversation, extremely long and complicated. The following is an example of Japanese construction:—
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Kono goro ni itarimashite, Bukkyō |
At the present day, |
