Minae Mizumura - The Fall of Language in the Age of English

Yamaguchi Nakami. Nihongo no rekishi . Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 2006.

Page numbers refer to the print edition but are hyperlinked to the appropriate location in the e-book.

Aasen, Ivar, 39

Abe Clan, The ( Abe ichizoku ; Mori Ōgai), 105

Abe Kōbō, 68

Académie française, 49

Aete Eigo kōyōgo ron (In spite of all, make English an official language; Funabashi Yōichi), 196

Afghanistan, 118

Africa, 118, 178

Agency for Cultural Affairs, 191

Agnon, Shmuel Yosef, 70

Agura nabe (Sitting around the beefpot; Kanagaki Robun), 148

Akutagawa Prize, 156

Akutagawa Ryūnosuke, 48, 136, 154, 156

Alembert, Jean Le Rond d’, 49

Alexandria, library in, 161

Amazon.com, 162

American Civil War, 119, 121

Anatomische Tabellen (Anatomical tables; Johan Adam Kulmus), 111

Anderson, Benedict, 4, 74–83, 88, 90, 105, 117, 158

A nous la liberté (film; 1931), 51

Aquinas, Thomas, 87

Arabic language and script, 38, 60, 82, 87, 106, 179, 200

Arishima Takeo, 105

Aristotle, 101, 167

Asahi Shimbun (newspaper) 6, 146, 183

Austen, Jane, 104, 148

Autobiography of Yukichi Fukuzawa, The (Fukuzawa Yukichi), 117, 119–21, 126–32

Bacon, Francis, 139

Bakunin, Mikhail, 95

“Ball, The” (Butōkai; Akutagawa Ryūnosuke), 48

Balzac, Honoré de, 104

Baudelaire, Charles, 51

Beauvoir, Simone de, 52

Beckett, Samuel, 81

Behn, Aphra, 140

Belinski, Vissarion, 94

Bengali language and literature, 70, 172, 177

Benjamin, Walter, 95

Berlin Wall, 183, 190

Bible, 106, 158, 167. See also sacred languages and texts

bilingualism: and English, 60–61, 164–65, 167–68; idea of, 73; in Ireland, 81; and Japanese, 64–65, 106, 110, 114, 121–22, 136–39, 154–55, 195–99; and Latin, 75, 82, 85, 116; and national and universal languages, 86–88, 90–92, 116, 175–76, 178; and origin of written language, 84–86

Boccaccio, Giovanni, 90

Boethius, Anicius Manlius Severinus, 91

Bokmål (Norwegian book language), 39

Book of Tea, The (Okakura Tenshin), 144

Botchan (Natsume Sōseki), 105

British colonialism, 49–51, 59–60; in Africa, 36, 43–44, 178; in Asia, 41, 118–19, 122, 177, 198; in Ireland, 81; in Middle East, 38

Brontë, Charlotte, 104

Brontë, Emily, 2, 104

Brothers Karamazov, The (Fyodor Dostoevsky), 104

Buddhism, 81, 85, 106, 167. See also sacred languages and texts

Burnett, Frances Hodgson, 47–48

Cambodia, 178

canonical texts: and Japanese literature, 137, 143–44, 147, 167–72, 179–82, 199; sacred texts as, 85–86; and truths, 100–101; and universal language, 95–97

Canterbury Tales, The (Geoffrey Chaucer), 116

Carnegie Mellon University, 162

Carnet de bal, Un (film; 1937), 51

Cato the Elder, 85

Certain Woman, A ( Aru onna ; Arishima Takeo), 105

Cervantes, Miguel de, 116

Chaucer, Geoffrey, 90, 116

Chekhov, Anton, 94

Chikamatsu Monzaemon, 111

“Child’s Play” (Takekurabe; Higuchi Ichiyō), 105

Chinese imperial examination system, 112–15

Chinese language and literature: as external language, 106, 114, 124; and Japanese literature, 149–50; and national literature, 179; as sacred language, 82, 167; in Singapore, 198; and universal language, 40–41, 60, 105–12, 164, 169; written language, 106–7, 124–25, 185, 187–88, 193–94, 201

Chinese sphere of influence (Sinosphere), 105–16, 121, 124, 134, 167, 193

Christianity, 81, 85, 87, 97, 111–12, 120, 127, 144. See also sacred languages and texts

Christie, Agatha, 50

Cicero, 85

Clarissa (Samuel Richardson), 148

Collected Short Stories (Heinrich von Kleist), 148

colonialism: and China, 118–19; Dutch, 59–60, 127; and English language, 43–44, 172; French, 53, 59–60, 178; and Japan, 4, 52, 118–22, 134–35, 184–87, 189–90, 201; and national language, 176–78; Spanish, 59, 177–78; United States, 4, 52, 119, 121–22, 137, 184–86; and Western utopianism, 189–90. See also British colonialism

Commentary on the Gospel of St. Mark (Ernst Faber), 112

Communist Party, 183–84. See also Japan: leftist intellectuals in

computers, 165, 188, 194, 200. See also Internet

Confucianism, 81–82, 85, 110–11, 113, 120, 126–27. See also sacred languages and texts

consumer society, 90, 157–60, 172, 197

Copernicus, Nicolaus, 87

Crimean War, 119

cultural goods, 157–60, 174

Cultural Revolution (China), 189

Cyrillic alphabet, 37

Daibosatsu tōge (Bodhisattva pass; Nakazato Kaizan), 154

Dangerous Liaisons, The (Pierre Choderlos de Laclos), 148

Danish language, 39, 93, 95

Dante Alighieri, 90, 116

David Copperfield (Charles Dickens), 104

“Decolonising the Mind” (Ngũgĩ Wa Thiong’o), 178

“Defense and Illustration of the French Language, The” (Joachim du Bellay), 91

Defoe, Daniel, 99, 136

de Man, Paul, 2

Derrida, Jacques, 189

Descartes, René, 91

Devanagari alphabet, 200

De Vulgari Eloquentia (On eloquence in the vernacular; Dante Alighieri), 90

Dickens, Charles, 104, 182

Diderot, Denis, 49

Divine Comedy (Dante Alighieri), 90, 116

dōjin-shi (magazines for the like-minded), 156

Don Quixote (Miguel de Cervantes), 116

Dostoevsky, Fyodor, 94, 104

du Bellay, Joachim, 91

Dutch colonialism and language, 50, 59–60, 127–31, 176

Dutch East India Company, 59–60, 127

Edo period and government, 50, 55, 105, 110, 116–17, 127, 152

“Education in Japan” (Mori Arinori), 123

education system of Japan: and American Occupation after World War II, 184–85; and English language, 191; and Japanese language and literature, 124–25, 180–82, 184–88, 198–200; and Meiji Restoration, 111, 135, 180–81; and national language ideology, 136; reform proposals for, 5–6, 198–203; and universities, 134, 137–47, 166–67, 169

Egyptian hieroglyphs, 124. See also written language

Elements of International Law (Henry Wheaton), 125

Eliot, George (Mary Ann Evans), 104

elitism and egalitarianism, 5–6, 183–84, 197–99

Encouragement of Learning, An ( Gakumon no susume ; Fukuzawa Yukichi), 117

England. See British colonialism

Engle, Paul, 22

English language: and colonialism, 43–44, 121–22, 172; dominance of, vii, 50, 52, 55, 64, 93, 96–97, 164–67, 196–98; and Japan, 123, 132–33, 169–72, 191, 195–98; origin of, 41; and other languages and literatures, 60–61, 160, 167–68, 202–3; as universal language, 2–5, 40–44, 78–83, 160, 202

English literature, 68, 91, 143–44

Enlightenment, 92–97

Erasmus, Desiderius, 87

Esperanto (language), 194

Essays (Francis Bacon), 139

Ethiopia, 118

Eurocentrism, 56, 97, 137

Europe and European languages, 58, 80, 87, 92, 95–96, 135–37, 168. See also specific languages and countries

existentialism, 52

external language, 72, 83; and accumulation of general knowledge, 86, 97; Chinese as, 106, 114, 124; English as, 164, 167, 169; Latin as, 75; sacred languages as, 81; and written language, 84. See also universal language

Faber, Ernst, 112

Fear and Trembling ( Frygt og Bæven ; Søren Kierkegaard), 95