Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Foreword
- Introduction
- List of Figures and Plates
- Preface to ‘All Ambition Spent’
- Chapter 1 The Japanese View
- Chapter 2 Student Interpreter in Tokyo, 1903–1905
- Chapter 3 Tokyo in 1904 and 1905
- Chapter 4 Assistant at Yokohama, 1905–1908
- Chapter 5 Stray Notes on Language
- Chapter 6 Assistant in Corea, 1908–1910
- Chapter 7 Corea in 1909 and 1910
- Chapter 8 Vice-Consul at Yokohama, 1911–1913
- Chapter 9 Vice-Consul at Osaka, 1913–1919
- Chapter 10 Consul at Nagasaki, 1920–1925
- Chapter 11 Consul at Dairen, 1925–1927
- Chapter 12 Consul-General at Seoul, 1928–1931
- Chapter 13 Consul-General at Osaka, 1931–1937
- Chapter 14 Consul-General at Mukden, 1938–1939
- Chapter 15 Consul-General at Tientsin, 1939–1941
- Chapter 16 Anglo-Japanese Relations
- Index
Chapter 5 - Stray Notes on Language
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 30 April 2022
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Foreword
- Introduction
- List of Figures and Plates
- Preface to ‘All Ambition Spent’
- Chapter 1 The Japanese View
- Chapter 2 Student Interpreter in Tokyo, 1903–1905
- Chapter 3 Tokyo in 1904 and 1905
- Chapter 4 Assistant at Yokohama, 1905–1908
- Chapter 5 Stray Notes on Language
- Chapter 6 Assistant in Corea, 1908–1910
- Chapter 7 Corea in 1909 and 1910
- Chapter 8 Vice-Consul at Yokohama, 1911–1913
- Chapter 9 Vice-Consul at Osaka, 1913–1919
- Chapter 10 Consul at Nagasaki, 1920–1925
- Chapter 11 Consul at Dairen, 1925–1927
- Chapter 12 Consul-General at Seoul, 1928–1931
- Chapter 13 Consul-General at Osaka, 1931–1937
- Chapter 14 Consul-General at Mukden, 1938–1939
- Chapter 15 Consul-General at Tientsin, 1939–1941
- Chapter 16 Anglo-Japanese Relations
- Index
Summary
Yokohama Dialect
WITH RARE EXCEPTIONS the foreigners at the ports never learn Japanese. On the whole they are probably wise. It is not a language that can be picked up easily and a smattering would be worse than useless in their business. As a result, their transactions are conducted through the medium of a banto or head Japanese.
Servants and tradespeople soon acquire sufficient English to meet their needs. In earlier days when foreigners were new to the country, it was evidently necessary to learn a little every-day Japanese and a curious local dialect grew up, a few words from which still persisted when I first went to Yokohama. My servants used to call Sunday Dontag and Saturday Handon (Han means ‘half’ so that Handon meant half dontag). A walk or an outing was marumaru (literally ‘round-round’) and food was tabero (literally ‘will eat’), a foreign dog a Kameeru (‘come here’) and so on.
In course of time the foreigner picked up an odd word here and there such as ic (no), yoroshii (good), warni (bad), kakai (dear), yasni (cheap), atarashii (new), furni (old), kaimono (purchases), so des’ka (is that so?), kirei (clean, beautiful), takusan (plenty), arimasu (is), arimasenu (is not), which the ladies, in particular, used with telling effect. By extending the meaning of these words a little they were able to carry on animated conversations with their servants and shop-keepers, who made it their business to learn foreign- Japanese. I used to have a copy of a delightful book of colloquial Japanese written by the entirely apocryphal Bishop of Honmoku but I have unfortunately lost it and I doubt if there are any copies now left in existence. Conversations in it ran something like this:
Amah: Okusan Kirei (you do look smart, madam)
Mistress: Ic, furni (don't be silly, amah, it's a fearfully old dress: I am almost ashamed to go out in it.)
Amah: Okusan, marumaru? (is madam going out for an outing?)
Mistress: Ic, kaimono (no I have some shopping to do.)
Amah: Yoroshii (well, please look after yourself.)
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- Consul in Japan, 1903-1941Oswald White's Memoir 'All Ambition Spent', pp. 41 - 49Publisher: Amsterdam University PressPrint publication year: 2017