LANGUAGE AND PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS
LANGUAGE
HOWEVER numerous may have been the races that contributed originally
to people Japan, the languages now spoken there are two only, Ainu
and Japanese. They are altogether independent tongues. The former
undoubtedly was the language of the Yemishi; the latter, that of the
Yamato. From north to south all sections of the Japanese nation--the
Ainu of course excepted--use practically the same speech. Varieties
of local dialects exist, but they show no traits of survival from
different languages. On the contrary, in few countries of Japan's
magnitude does corresponding uniformity of speech prevail from end to
end of the realm. It cannot reasonably be assumed that, during a
period of some twenty-five centuries and in the face of steady
extermination, the Yemishi preserved their language quite distinct
from that of their conquerors, whereas the various languages spoken
by the other races peopling the island were fused into a whole so
homogeneous as to defy all attempts at differentiation. The more
credible alternative is that from time immemorial the main elements
of the Japanese nation belonged to the same race, and whatever they
received from abroad by way of immigration became completely absorbed
and assimilated in the course of centuries.
No diligent attempt has yet been made to trace the connexion--if any
exist--between the Ainu tongue and the languages of northeastern
Asia, but geology, history, and archaeology suffice to indicate that
the Yemishi reached Japan at the outset from Siberia. The testimony
of these three sources is by no means so explicit in the case of the
Yamato, and we have to consider whether the language itself does not
furnish some better guide. "Excepting the twin sister tongue spoken
in the Ryukyu Islands," writes Professor Chamberlain, "the Japanese
language has no kindred, and its classification under any of the
recognized linguistic families remains doubtful. In structure, though
not to any appreciable extent in vocabulary, it closely resembles
Korean, and both it and Korean may possibly be related to Mongol and
to Manchu, and might therefore lay claim to be included in the
so-called 'Altaic group' In any case, Japanese is what philologists
call an agglutinative tongue; that is to say, it builds up its words
and grammatical forms by means of suffixes loosely soldered to the
root or stem, which is invariable."
This, written in 1905, has been supplemented by the ampler researches
of Professor S. Kanazawa, who adduces such striking evidences of
similarity between the languages of Japan and Korea that one is
almost compelled to admit the original identity of the two. There are
no such affinities between Japanese and Chinese. Japan has borrowed
largely, very largely, from China. It could scarcely have been
otherwise. For whereas the Japanese language in its original form--a
form which differs almost as much from its modern offspring as does
Italian from Latin--has little capacity for expansion, Chinese has
the most potential of all known tongues in that respect. Chinese may
be said to consist of a vast number of monosyllables, each expressed
by a different ideograph, each having a distinct significance, and
each capable of combination and permutation with one or more of the
others, by which combinations and permutations disyllabic and
trisyllabic words are obtained representing every conceivable shade
of meaning.
It is owing to this wonderful elasticity that Japan, when suddenly
confronted by foreign arts and sciences, soon succeeded in building
up for herself a vocabulary containing all the new terms, and
containing them in self-explaining forms. Thus "railway" is expressed
by tetsu-do, which consists of the two monosyllables tetsu (iron) and
do (way); "chemistry" by kagaku, or the learning (gaku) of changes
(ka); "torpedo" by suirai, or water (sui) thunder (rai); and each of
the component monosylables being written with an ideograph which
conveys its own meaning, the student has a term not only appropriate
but also instructive. Hundreds of such words have been manufactured
in Japan during the past half-century to equip men for the study of
Western learning, and the same process, though on a very much smaller
scale, had been going on continuously for many centuries, so that the
Japanese language has come to embody a very large number of Chinese
words, though they are not pronounced as the Chinese pronounce the
corresponding ideographs.
Yet in spite of this intimate relation, re-enforced as it is by a
common script, the two languages remain radically distinct; whereas
between Japanese and Korean the resemblance of structure and
accidence amounts almost to identity. Japanese philologists allege
that no affinity can be traced between their language and the tongues
of the Malay, the South Sea islanders, the natives of America and
Africa, or the Eskimo, whereas they do find that their language bears
a distinct resemblance to Manchu, Persian, and Turkish. Some go so
far as to assert that Latin, Greek, and Sanskrit are nearer to
Japanese than they are to any European language. These questions
await fuller investigation.
PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF RACES
The Japanese are of distinctly small stature. The average height of
the man is 160 centimetres (5 feet 3.5 inches) and that of the woman
147 centimetres (4 feet 10 inches). They are thus smaller than any
European race, the only Occidentals over whom they possess an
advantage in this respect being the inhabitants of two Italian
provinces. [Baelz.] Their neighbours, the Chinese and the Koreans,
are taller, the average height of the northern Chinese being 168
centimetres (5 feet 7 inches), and that of the Koreans 164
centimetres (5 feet 5.5 inches). Nevertheless, Professor Dr. Baelz,
the most eminent authority on this subject, avers that "the three
great nations of eastern Asia are essentially of the same race," and
that observers who consider them to be distinct "have been misled by
external appearances." He adds: "Having made a special study of the
race question in eastern Asia, I can assert that comity of race in
general is clearly proved by the anatomical qualities of the body. In
any case the difference between them is much smaller than that
between the inhabitants of northern and southern Europe."
The marked differences in height, noted above, do not invalidate this
dictum: they show merely that the Asiatic yellow race has several
subdivisions. Among these subdivisions the more important are the
Manchu-Korean type, the Mongol proper, the Malay, and the Ainu. To
the first, namely the Manchu-Korean, which predominates in north
China and in Korea, Baelz assigns the higher classes in Japan; that
is to say, the men regarded as descendants of the Yamato. They have
"slender, elegant and often tall figures, elongated faces with not
very prominent cheek-bones, more or less slanting eyes, aquiline
noses, large upper teeth, receding chins, long slender necks, narrow
chests, long trunks, thin limbs, and often long fingers, while the
hair on the face and body is scarce." Dr. Munro, however, another
eminent authority, holds that, "judging from the Caucasian and often
Semitic physiognomy seen in the aristocratic type of Japanese, the
Yamato were mainly of Caucasic, perhaps Iranian, origin. These were
the warriors, the conquerors of Japan, and afterwards the
aristocracy, modified to some extent by mingling with a Mongoloid
rank and file, and by a considerable addition of Ainu." He remarks
that a white skin was the ideal of the Yamato, as is proved by their
ancient poetry.
As for the Mongol-proper type, which is seen in the lower classes and
even then not very frequently, its representative is squarely built,
and has prominent cheek-bones, oblique eyes, a more or less flat nose
with a large mouth. The Malay type is much commoner. Its
characteristics are small stature, good and sometimes square build, a
face round or angular, prominent cheek-bones, large horizontal eyes,
a weak chin, a short neck, broad well-developed chest, short legs,
and small delicate hands. As for the Ainu type, Dr. Baelz finds it
astonishing that they have left so little trace in the Japanese
nation. "Yet those who have studied the pure Ainu closely will
observe, particularly in the northern provinces, a not insignificant
number of individuals bearing the marks of Ainu blood. The most
important marks are: a short, thickly set body; prominent bones with
bushy hair, round deep-set eyes with long divergent lashes, a
straight nose, and a large quantity of hair on the face and body all
qualities which bring the Ainu much nearer to the European than to
the Japanese proper."
GENERAL PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS
In addition to physical characteristics which indicate distinctions
of race among the inhabitants of Japan, there are peculiarities
common to a majority of the nation at large. One of these is an
abnormally large head. In the typical European the height of the head
is less than one-seventh of the stature and in Englishmen it is often
one-eighth. In the Japanese is it appreciably more than one-seventh.
Something of this may be attributed to smallness of stature, but such
an explanation is only partial.
Shortness of legs in relation to the trunk is another marked feature.
"Long or short legs are mainly racial in origin. Thus, in Europe, the
northern, or Teutonic race--namely Anglo-Saxons, North Germans,
Swedes, and Danes--are tail; long-legged, and small-headed, while the
Alpine, or central European race are short of stature, have short
legs and large heads with short necks, thus resembling the Mongolian
race in general, with which it was probably originally connected."
[Baelz.]
In the Japanese face, too, there are some striking points. The first
is in the osseous cavity of the eyeball and in the skin round the
eye. "The socket of the Japanese eye is comparatively small and
shallow, and the osseous ridges at the brows being little marked, the
eye is less deeply set than in the European. Seen in profile,
forehead and upper lid often form one unbroken line." Then "the shape
of the eye proper, as modelled by the lids, shows a most striking
difference between the European and the Mongolian races; the open eye
being almost invariably horizontal in the former but very often
oblique in the latter on account of the higher level of the outer
corner. But even apart from obliqueness the shape of the corner is
peculiar in the Mongolian eye. The inner corner is partly or entirely
covered by a fold of the upper lid continuing more or less into the
lower lid. This fold, which has been called the Mongolian fold, often
also covers the whole free rim of the upper lid, so that the
insertion of the eyelashes is hidden. When the fold takes an upward
direction towards the outer corner, the latter is a good deal higher
than the inner corner, and the result is the obliqueness mentioned
above. The eyelashes are shorter and sparser than in the European,
and whereas in the European the lashes of the upper and the lower lid
diverge, so that their free ends are farther distant than their
roots, in the Japanese eye they converge, the free ends being nearer
together than the insertions. Then again in the lower class the
cheek-bones are large and prominent, making the face look flat and
broad, while in the higher classes narrow and elongated faces are
quite common. Finally, the Japanese is less hairy than the European,
and the hair of the beard is usually straight." [Baelz.]
VIEWS OF JAPANESE ETHNOLOGISTS
It may well be supposed that the problem of their nation's origin has
occupied much attention among the Japanese, and that their
ethnologists have arrived at more or less definite conclusions. The
outlines of their ideas are that one of the great waves of emigration
which, in a remote age, emerged from the cradle of the human race in
central Asia, made its way eastward with a constantly expanding
front, and, sweeping up the Tarim basin, emerged in the region of the
Yellow River and in Manchuria. These wanderers, being an
agricultural, not a maritime, race, did not contribute much to the
peopling of the oversea islands of Japan. But in a later--or an
earlier--era, another exodus took place from the interior of Asia. It
turned in a southerly direction through India, and coasting along the
southern seaboard, reached the southeastern region of China; whence,
using as stepping-stones the chain of islands that festoon eastern
Asia, it made its way ultimately to Korea and Japan.
Anterior to both of these movements another race, the neolithic
Yemishi of the shell-heaps, had pushed down from the northeastern
regions of Korea or from the Amur valley, and peopled the northern
half of Japan. The Korean peninsula, known in Chinese records as Han,
appears in the form of three kingdoms at the earliest date of its
historical mention: they were Sin-Han and Pyon-Han on the east and
Ma-Han on the West. The northeastern portion, from the present
Won-san to Vladivostok, bore the name of Yoso, which is supposed to
have been the original of Yezo, the Yoso region thus constituting the
cradle of the Yemishi race.
Japanese ethnologists interpret the ancient annals as pointing to
very close intercourse between Japan and Korea in early days,* and
regard this as confirming the theory stated above as to the
provenance of the Yamato race. Connexion with the colonists of
northern China was soon established via Manchuria, and this fact may
account for some of the similarities between the civilization as well
as the legends of the Yamato and those of Europe, since there is
evidence that the Greeks and Romans had some hazy knowledge of China,
and that the Chinese had a similarly vague knowledge of the Roman
Empire,** possibly through commercial relations in the second century
B.C.
*The annals state of Princes Mikeno and Inahi, elder brothers of
Prince Iware (afterwards Jimmu Tenno). that the former "crossed over
to the Eternal Land" (Tokoyo-no-kuni) and the latter went down to the
sea plain, it being his deceased mother's land. Japanese
archaeologists identify "mother's land" as Shiragi in Korea, and
Tokoyo-no-kuni as the western country where the sun sets, namely
China. They further point out that Susanoo with his son, Itakeru,
went to Shiragi and lived at Soshi-mori, for which reason Susanoo's
posthumous title was Gozu Tenno, gozu being the Japanese equivalent
for the Korean soshi-mori (ox head). Susanoo is also quoted as
saying, "there are gold and silver in Koma and it were well that
there should be a floating treasury;"* so he built a vessel of pine
and camphor-wood to export these treasures to Japan. The "Korea" here
spoken of is the present Kimhai in Kyongsan-do. It is further
recorded that Susanoo lived for a time at Kumanari-mine, which is the
present Kongju. Again, a Japanese book, compiled in the tenth century
A.D., enumerates six shrines in the province of Izumo which were
called Kara-kuni Itate Jinja, or shrine of Itakeru of Korea. A much
abler work, Izuma Fudoki, speaks of Cape Kitsuki in Izumo as a place
where cotton-stuffs were imported from Shiragi by Omitsu, son of
Susanoo. There are other evidences to the same effect, and taken in
conjunction with the remarkable similarity of the Korean and Japanese
languages, these facts are held to warrant the conclusion that the
most important element of the Japanese nation came via Korea, its Far
Eastern colony being the ultima thule of its long wanderings from
central Asia.
**See Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Vol. 6, p. 189 b.
The first mention of Japan in Chinese records is contained in a book
called Shan-hai-ching, which states that "the northern and southern
Wo* were subject to the kingdom of Yen." Yen was in the modern
province of Pechili. It existed as an independent kingdom from 1 122
to 265 B.C. That the inhabitants of Japan were at any time subject to
Yen is highly improbable, but that they were tributaries is not
unlikely. In other words, intercourse between Japan and northern
China was established in remote times via the Korean peninsula, and
people from Japan, travelling by this route, carried presents to the
Court of Yen, a procedure which, in Chinese eyes constituted an
acknowledgement of suzerainty. The "northern and southern Wo" were
probably the kingdom of Yamato and that set up in Kyushu by Ninigi, a
supposition which lends approximate confirmation to the date assigned
by Japanese historians for the expedition of Jimmu Tenno. It is also
recorded in the Chronicles of the Eastern Barbarians, a work of the
Han dynasty (A.D. 25-221), that Sin-Han, one of the three Korean
kingdoms, produced iron, and that Wo and Ma-Han, the western of these
Korean kingdoms, traded in it and used it as currency. It is very
possible that this was the iron used for manufacturing the ancient
double-edged swords (tsurugi) and halberds of the Yamato, a
hypothesis strengthened by the fact that the sword of Susanoo was
called Orochi no Kara-suki, Kara being a Japanese name for Korea.
*This word was originally pronounced Wa, and is written with the
ideograph signifying "dwarf." It was applied to the Japanese by
Chinese writers in earliest times, but on what ground such an epithet
was chosen there is no evidence.
ENGRAVING: JAPANESE SADDLE, BRIDLE, AND STIRRUPS