ABSTRACT

The constants in any man’s equation are the qualities that he has inherited from the past. What a man does follows from what he is, which in turn is mostly dependent upon what his ancestors have been ; and of all the links in the long chain of mind-evolution, few are more important and more suggestive than language. The language is so thoroughly imbued with the honorific spirit that the exposure of truth in all its naked simplicity is highly improper. In the first place, the Japanese language is pleasingly destitute of personal pronouns. An encouraging estimate of a certain missionary puts the amount of study needed by the Western student for the learning of Japanese as sufficient, if expended nearer home, to equip him with any several modern European languages. It is certainly true that a completely strange vocabulary, an utter inversion of grammar, and an elaborate system of honorifics combine to render its acquisition anything but easy.