Akari Fujimoto

Associate Professor, Faculty of Letters, Kyoto Prefectural University *Profile is at the time of the award.

2021Inamori Research GrantsBiology & Life sciences

Research topics
A study of the use situation of the vocabulary in the first Japanese dictionary "Iroha-jiruisho" during the cloister government period
Keyword
Summary
I am researching Japanese dictionaries compiled in Japan in the late Heian period. The kanji words are arranged in iroha order according to their onyomi (Chinese reading) or kunyomi (Japanese reading), and are said to have been used for "writing Chinese and Japanese sentences in kanji". However, there are some words that are considered to have had little demand as a written language (scribal demand) at that time. In this project, we will focus on words from Chinese sources in particular, and try to determine the degree of scribal demand for each word in terms of misspellings and the number of examples, in order to shed some light on the nature of the written language world in the Middle Ages.

Comment

It is said that research in this field is a lot of work and not much benefit, but I feel an inexpressible joy when I unexpectedly discover connections with other people and other fields in the process of pursuing what I find interesting. I will do my best to let people studying in various fields know that there is such research in the world.

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Biology & Life sciences