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Vocabulario da Lingoa de Iapam com a declaração em
Portugues, feito por alguns Padres, e Irmaõs da Companhia de Iesu (aka
Nippo Jisho) was a Japanese-to-Portuguese
dictionary published in 1603 by the Jesuit Mission Press in Nagasaki. This Press was set up in Japan in 1590
and continued until 1610, when the Mission moved to Macao. Its output during this period was enormous, in the fields
of both language and doctrine. Vocabulario was the first Japanese/European language dictionary ever printed.
For almost two centuries any other Japanese dictionary in the West was a translation of this one. It would be difficult
to exaggerate in one's praises of this magnificent work, compiled and set out in a most modern and scientific way and printed on
Japanese paper made of silk over 401 folio volumes.
With its 150-page supplement (Supplemento deste Vocabulario, published in 1604), the
work contains about 32,798 words, illustrating the meaning of more difficult
terms with numerous examples and quotations. The dictionary also explains technical Buddhist concepts (such as
en, karma) which would have been unfamiliar to contemporary Europeans. The editorship of the dictionary has
been ascribed to no less than three Jesuits all bearing the name of Rodrigues, but it is practically certain that João
Rodrigues (below) had at least some part in its compilation. No small credit is also due to a group of talented Japanese
Jesuits who co-operated with the project. A 1630 translation into Spanish was published in Manila and an 1869
translation was made into French. The original Vocabulario is now an extremely rare work, there being only four
copies: in Oxford, Manila, Paris, and Evora. A photographic facsimile of the Bodleian (Oxford) copy was published in
Tōkyō in 1960. For us, Vocabulario is an extremely valuable reference to actual word usage during
Muromachi Japan. As the dictionary was composed for beginners, it was concerned more with spoken than written
Japanese. Words are classed according to categories, such as Buddhist, Shinto, poetic, literary, vulgar, women's or
children's terms, and a distinction is made between the more elegant speech of the capital city of Kyoto and that of the
southern island of Kyushu including the town of Nagasaki.
João Rodrigues, S.J. (1561-1634) was born in Sernancelhe, Portugal, and when only 15 years of age sailed to Japan, where he entered the Society of Jesus in 1580. Obtaining a great fluency in Japanese (hence often called Rodrigues Tçuzzu, or Rodrigues the Interpreter), he served as interpreter for Hideyoshi and Ieyasu. Following his expulsion from Japan in 1612, he settled in Macao where he eventually died. In addition to his História da Igreja do Japão, he was also author of the grammar Arte da Lingoa de Japam (1604) and its revised edition Arte Breve da Lingoa Iapoa... (1620). In the dictionary, f.25 defines Bonção ( bonsan ) as "a stone or rough piece of wood" which serves as the base of a miniature landscape made with "green mosses, & a tiny tree planted there, &c." or (by another translation) "a Japanese-style arrangement of dwarf trees, stone, and green moss to represent a rock in water." 1 |
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1 Elison, George "The Cross and the Sword: Patterns of Momoyama History" in Elison, George and Bardwell L. Smith (eds.) Warlords, Artists, and Commoners (Honolulu: The University Press of Hawaii, 1981), pp. 74 and 301 note 62 which gives the first definition of "bonsan"; Cooper, Michael, S.J. (ed.) They Came to Japan, An Anthology of European Reports on Japan, 1543-1640 (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press; 1965), pp. 175, 181-182, 411, 424, 427; Cooper, Michael. 2005 (1992). "The First Meeting between Japan and the West." Retrieved from Francis Britto's All About Francis Xavier, http://pweb.sophia.ac.jp/~d-mccoy/xavier/cooper/cooper01.pdf; Watson, Dr. Michael "'Simplified' translations made by the Jesuit Mission to Japan," http://www.asjapan.org/Lectures/2004/Lecture/lecture-2004-06.htm, accessed 05/03/05; Boscaro, Adriana and Franco Gatti and Massimo Raveri Rethinking Japan: Social Sciences, Ideology (Japan Library Ltd; 1990), pg. 142; Howe, Christopher The origins of Japanese trade supremacy: development and technology in Asia from 1540 to the Pacific War (University of Chicago Press; 1996), pg. 16, Footnote 51. "The Humour and Virtues of Muromachi Bonsai," Bonsai Magazine, BCI, May/June 1989 (reprinted from The East, June 1986), pg. 4 contains the second translation of the dictionary's term "bonsan." A copy of the title page can be found as pg. 85 of 140 in the "Download PDF" version (upper right dropdown box with the six-pointed gear icon) of this. |