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According to a dictionary, 花つ月 is an alternative name for March, the third month of the year in the traditional Japanese calendar. (I didn't know that.)
So 緋色の花つ月 means March in Crimson or something like that.
10
As others have noted, there are multiple parts to the Man'yōshū.
The commentary, prefaces, and various other bits of text were written in a version of Classical Chinese, known as [漢文]{kanbun}, and either read as-is using the on'yomi values in a style known as [音読]{ondoku} (literally "sound reading", using the sound values borrowed from Chinese), or ...
10
The origins of Buddhist sutra are compilicated, but they are generally based on the transliterated Sanskrit/Pali or their Chinese translations. See Lotus Satra on Wikipedia. Although they might have been more or less "Japanized" in terms of pronunciation, they are basically not Japanese. (Noticed all the characters in the page are read with on-yomi?) I ...
9
「吾{あ}が舞{ま}へば、麗{くは}し女{め}、酔{ゑ}ひにけり」
舞へば: what is this "へ"? an old verb form ? (I guess the "ば" is the same as in modern Japanese, e.g. "踊れば")
The classical verb is 「舞{ま}ふ」 ("to dance"), so it conjugates to 「舞へば」. Those were actually pronounced 「まふ」 and 「まへば」, respectively.
In modern Japanese, as you know because you are ...
6
Etymologically, various usages of れる/られる derived from one base meaning, "without someone's will". In modern Japanese, れる/られる is still sometimes used in this sense (known as 自発 or "spontaneous"). See: Why is the passive form used in this sentence?
故郷が思い出される。 I (spontaneously) remember my hometown. (I didn't intentionally tried to recall that, but it ...
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つ is just an older version of the particle の. Its use here, assuming that you are referring to Tolkien's Middle-earth, is literary and adds an older and more mystical flavor in the same way that using a lot of older words of English origin might.
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有る is for possession; 在る is for existence. Though there can be some overlap. And 或る (even though you didn't ask) is actually an adjective for "a particular/certain", like in ある日に....
So in this case, I'm mostly certain it would be 有る since you "have" homework.
Here are some words that might help remember the difference:
有
所有 → one's possessions; ...
6
Good question. The poster is referring to the reconstructed 8-vowel system for Old Japanese (上代特殊仮名遣) which is inferred from the presence of two ways of transcribing /e/ and two ways of transcribing /o/ with man'yōgana.
According to the Wikipedia article on 上代特殊仮名遣, there was no consistent way of indicating these in kana (naturally, since at the time the ...
5
The distinction goes as far back as we have data. Already in Middle Japanese (MJ, Heian period) the verbs were divided into two classes, one with the stem melody LL…LH-, the other HH…HL-;¹ that is, they had a mostly flat pitch, and flipped the tone at the very last mora.² These two patterns correspond, to a great extent, to classes A and B in modern ...
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Just a little bit of background on this:
As you mentioned, it is generally written as ある these days. In the past, there was a clearer differentiation based on grammatical properties, i.e. that 有る was used in a transitive sense like Xを所有する ('to possess X'), whereas 在る was used in an intransitive sense like Xが存在する ('X exists'). However, that distinction seems ...
5
First, according to Wikipedia, this 宮さん is not Emperor but Prince Arisugawa. The most formal and polite way to address him is 有栖川親王殿下{ありすがわしんのうでんか} ("His Imperial Highness Prince Arisugawa"), or 殿下{でんか} ("His Highness") for short.
The formality of さん and 様 has not changed. Judging from the lyrics, the Prince was marching in some rural area, and the person ...
5
Yes, this is not Japanese at all. It's not even kanbun in the sense of "Chinese text read as if it were stilted Japanese." It is medieval Buddhist Chinese read character-by-character as Chinese but with a strong "Japanese accent."
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The Crimson "month of flowers". Or Crimson March.
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I would say this is a problem of both "the old grammar/words" and "the old orthography". A spelling reform (such as the German orthography reform of 1996) and archaic word usage are two different things, although they are closely related. Technically speaking, you can rewrite today's news articles using the old orthography.
たまふ in 君死にたまふことなかれ is an ...
4
The Question
In an earlier version of your post, you had asked:
I've seen two different English translations and I'm wondering which one is more correct.
Other users commented and linked through to a related question that discusses the translation of the first line. However, that line does not touch at all upon the nue bird, as mentioned in your later ...
3
This explanation is tautological but I just have to say it's because から follows a terminal form, which of the copula is だ while の is a kind of noun, which needs an attributive form to be modified, which of the copula is な.
Their etymology has nothing to do with this issue.
3
牟子(むし) is a conical hat of straw or reeds with a gauze veil hanging from the brim. The veil is the defining feature: in the story the priest says 「女は牟子を垂れて居りましたから、顔はわたしにはわかりません」 "The woman was wearing a hat with a veil, so I don't know what she looked like". Note that instead of the verb かぶる , which you would expect with headgear, he uses たれる , [transitive]...
3
The capitalized Old Japanese (上代日本語) certainly has two vowel-stem types of verbs that yield today's -eru/-iru verbs respectively. However, it's not accurate to say they end in -e/-i because the language in the Old Japanese stage had 8 distinct "vowels", or to recent understanding, more like "rhymes":
a, i1, i2, u, e1, e2, o1, o2
which merged into the ...
3
Yes, we can say it as "のたまって" too.
2
When did we start wanting to put particles on everything ?
In the context of "proper writing" I think the push for precision and predictability is a common feature that many written languages take on as society gets more complex. The less ambiguity in written comminication, the better - even at the expense of utility and aesthetics.
I believe in Japan that ...
2
I'd suggest reading the introduction of Tae Kim' Guide to Japanese.:
http://www.guidetojapanese.org/learn/grammar/introduction
2
I think 古事記 書き下し is the search term you're looking for.
The 古事記 is written in Classical Chinese（漢文）so there wouldn't be any furigana for that.
However, Classical Chinese can be re-written as a 書き下し文 which has kana.
There is an example here:
http://www.linkclub.or.jp/~pip/ututu/kami/furukotobumi/jyo1.html
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People didn't import kanji to assign them to Japanese words but to study Buddhism or to communicate with Chinese diplomats, in short, to read Chinese. It's no wonder that Chinese reading was imported when they needed to read Chinese.
(As for volcano, Mt Aso or Mt Asama are a word that stands for volcano but they are simultaneously a proper noun. As for ...
2
You are encountering here the difference between modern spelling and the spelling used prior to WWII.
まふ is the old spelling for もう
You can find other examples here.
I cannot explain the meaning of the old Japanese. I am unable to decipher its grammar. But in this situation, this is a case of differing orthography from an earlier period.
2
Many Buddhist prayers and chants aren't really understood by most Japanese people (except perhaps monks and scholars). I've attended Buddhist temples and ceremonies in Japan and Taiwan and they use very similiar chants. In Japan, it's basically pseudo-Chinese (which resembles archaic onyomi but it's unclear if it was ever used in Japanese). They make the ...
2
大きな is the 連体形 (attributive form) of an old na-adjective おおきなり, and only the attributive form is used in the present day. 小さな, おかしな are also the same thing. They are analyzed as pre-noun adjectivals.
The attribute form of 多い is 多い, but it alone isn't commonly used such as 多い車. However 多い with a modifier can be used as the attribute form such as 外国人の多い学校. 多く ...
2
As noted in the comments, why would you want to remove punctuation and whitespace? Your use case is not clear to me.
To guess a bit about your use case and reasons:
Case 1: To learn Japanese
If you're trying to learn Japanese, be aware of the important fact that the Kojiki is not (modern) Japanese -- parts of it are in a kind of Classical Chinese, and parts ...
2
Most Chinese and Japanese place names are made of kanji, which is perhaps the most famous sets of logographic characters currently in use. Therefore most Japanese place names can be translated literally, just as Shanghai (上海) translates to "upon-the-sea" (上 = up, 海 = sea). For example, this page has a list of the literal "translations" of the 47 Japanese ...
2
I can't read the Kojiki and don't know much about it, but I found this. It has all the books in a digital format, 上卷, 中卷 and 下卷, and also seems to feature minimal formatting. Looking at the images you provided of the physical book it seems as only the «。» and newlines were added, so removing those should do it.
This does not contain any katakana however ...
2
I am mystified why this wasnot mentioned before, but the first challenge to read the Kojiki in the original is that the original is not any stage of Japanese at all. The book is made in Classical Chinese, albeit in a localized flavour (hentai kanbun). This means that reading the text with knowledge of Old Japanese is, blankly saying, impossible - while ...
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