JAPANESE PHILOLOGY

Students should be able to read and to translate short excerpts from Japanese classical productions.

Students should get familiar with the grammar and many other structures of the ancient language: the classical spelling, verbs and adjectives, inflecting suffixes.

Students should be able to cope with medium lenght and longer excerpts from Japanese classical productions.

This course constitutes an introduction to the study of Japanese classical language, from the ancient spelling to verbs, adjectives and inflecting suffixes. It provides also the presentation of literary works from the medieval and early modern era, and students are required to get familiar with their structures by analyzing and translating them.

If time allows, the course will provide a brief introduction to the very basic structures of Japanese kanbun.

Akira Komai, Thomas Rohlich, An Introduction to Classical Japanese.