This is the first detailed descriptive grammar in English (indeed, in any language other than Japanese) dedicated to the Western Old Japanese, which was spoken in the Kansai region of Japan during the seventh and eighth centuries. The grammar is divided into two volumes, with the first volume dealing with sources, script, phonology, lexicon and nominals. The second volume focuses on adjectives, verbs, adverbs, particles and conjunctions. In addition to descriptive data, the grammar also includes comparisons between Western Old Japanese and Eastern Old Japanese and Ryukyuan, together with a...

Sakishima comprises a group of islands situated between Okinawa and Taiwan, forming a culturally important bridge between Japan and Taiwan. Studies of the languages of the Ryukyuan islands are valuable for an accurate understanding of the linguistic history of Japan as a whole.

Together with Part 1 of the same grammar (Sources, Script and Phonology, Lexicon and Nominals), this two-volume set represents the most detailed and exhaustive description ever done of any language, including Japanese of the Old Japanese language of the Yamato region during the Asuka Nara period. It presents hundreds of examples drawn not only from the major Old Japanese texts such as the Man'yoshu, the Senmyo, the Kojiki kayo and the Nihonshoki kayo but also from all minor extant texts such as the Fudoky kayo, the Bussoku seki ka, and others....

“The echo of the stone/ where I carved the [Buddha’s] honorable footprints/ reaches the Heaven, […]”. This book presents the transcription, translation, and analysis of Chinese (753 AD) and Japanese inscriptions (end of the 8th century AD) found on two stones now in the possession of the Yakushiji temple in Nara. All these inscriptions praise the footprints of Buddha, and more exactly their carvings in the stone. The language of the Japanese inscription, which consists of twenty-one poems, reflects the contemporary dialect of Nara. Its writing system shows a quite unique trait,...