Handbook of English-Japanese Eytmology

An excerpt from the Preface: Recent English Grammarians are coming to drop Orthography and Prosody as properly belonging elsewhere, and to treat Grammar as divided into Etymology and Syntax. It is in this sense that the term is employed in the present work : Etymology, the fellow of Syntax ; Grammatical Etymology, not Historical. As at first written, the book consisted entirely of classified sentences, prepared by the writer to serve him in rendering English...
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An excerpt from the Preface:

Recent English Grammarians are coming to drop Orthography and Prosody as properly belonging elsewhere, and to treat Grammar as divided into Etymology and Syntax. It is in this sense that the term is employed in the present work : Etymology, the fellow of Syntax ; Grammatical Etymology, not Historical.

As at first written, the book consisted entirely of classified sentences, prepared by the writer to serve him in rendering English into Japanese, and without a thought of their ever leaving his own table; when, however, it was decided to publish them in the hope that they might prove helpful to others in their earlier studies, it appeared likely that the usefulness of the book would be increased by a change in its form. Accordingly, an outline of Etymology was sketched out, and as many of the sentences as seemed desirable inserted, in illustration of important words ranged under their respective Parts of Speech. This statement will explain the presence of so large a number of examples; it is hoped also that it may afford a sufficient reason for certain blemishes in classification. The work being written from the English side, and with the design of helping the student to render ideas as they lie in an English mind, the author was able to find no title which better expressed his intention and method than the one adopted.

Transliteration is still a vexed question, no one of the systems yet proposed commanding universal acquiescence. Those desiring to consult the literature of the subject are referred to the Introduction to Hepburn's Dictionary, Aston's Grammar of the Written Language, a monograph by Mr. Bramsen, and to papers read before the Asiatic Society of Japan by Messrs. Satow and Dickens. After careful consideration, it was decided to adhere to Hepburn's system, merely changing chiu to chu (the 'u' has a line over the top) for consistency's sake. Not to speak of its intrinsic merits, it is the system of the only Japanese-English Dictionary in the language; it is followed in the transliterated edition of the New Testament just published ; and it has transpired that it would accord with the views of members of the Asiatic Society especially qualified to . pronounce on the subject, if it should be adopted in the Transactions of the Society wherever a phonetic system is employed.