Alexander Vovin – författare

The Japonic (Japanese and Ryukyuan) portmanteau language family and the Korean language have long been considered isolates on the fringe of northeast Asia. Although in the last fifty years many specialists in Japonic and Korean historical linguistics have voiced their support for a genetic relationship between the two, this concept has not been endorsed by general historical linguists and no significant attempts have been made to advance beyond the status quo. Alexander Vovin, a longtime advocate of the genetic relationship view, engaged in a reanalysis of the known data in the hope of finding evidence in support of this view. In the process of his work, however, he became convinced that the multiple similarities between Japonic and Korean are the result of several centuries of contact and do not descend from a hypothetical common ancestor.In Koreo-Japonica, Vovin carefully reviews recent advances in the reconstruction of both language families. His detailed analysis of most of the morphological and lexical comparisons offered so far shows that whenever the proposed comparisons are not due to pure chance, they can almost always be explained as borrowings from Korean into a central group of Japanese dialects from roughly between the third and eighth centuries A.D. The remaining group of lexical (but not morphological) comparisons that cannot be explained in this way is, he argues, too small to serve as proof of even a distant genetic relationship.In this volume, a leading historical linguist presents a significant challenge to a view widely held by Japonic and Korean historical linguistics on the relationship between the two language families and offers material support for the skepticism long espoused by general historical linguists on the matter. His findings will both challenge and illuminate issues of interest to all linguists working with language contact and typology as well as those concerned with the prehistory and early history of East Asia.

The Tungusic Languages is a survey of Tungusic, a language family which is seriously endangered today, but which at the time of its maximum spread was present all over Northeast Asia.This volume offers a systematic succession of separate chapters on all the individual Tungusic languages, as well as a number of additional chapters containing contextual information on the language family as a whole, its background and current state, as well as its history of research and documentation. Manchu and its mediaeval ancestor Jurchen are important historical literary languages discussed in this volume, while the other Tungusic languages, around a dozen altogether, have always been spoken by small, local, though in some cases territorially widespread, populations engaged in traditional subsistence activities of the Eurasian taiga and steppe zones and the North Pacific coast.All contributors to this volume are well-known specialists on their specific topics, and, importantly, all the authors of the chapters dealing with modern languages have personal experience of linguistic field work among Tungusic speakers.This volume will be informative for scholars and students specialising in the languages and peoples of Northeast Asia, and will also be of interest to those engaged with linguistic typology, cultural anthropology, and ethnic history who wish to obtain information on the Tungusic languages.

The Tungusic Languages is a survey of Tungusic, a language family which is seriously endangered today, but which at the time of its maximum spread was present all over Northeast Asia.This volume offers a systematic succession of separate chapters on all the individual Tungusic languages, as well as a number of additional chapters containing contextual information on the language family as a whole, its background and current state, as well as its history of research and documentation. Manchu and its mediaeval ancestor Jurchen are important historical literary languages discussed in this volume, while the other Tungusic languages, around a dozen altogether, have always been spoken by small, local, though in some cases territorially widespread, populations engaged in traditional subsistence activities of the Eurasian taiga and steppe zones and the North Pacific coast.All contributors to this volume are well-known specialists on their specific topics, and, importantly, all the authors of the chapters dealing with modern languages have personal experience of linguistic field work among Tungusic speakers.This volume will be informative for scholars and students specialising in the languages and peoples of Northeast Asia, and will also be of interest to those engaged with linguistic typology, cultural anthropology, and ethnic history who wish to obtain information on the Tungusic languages.

This new translation, the lifework of the author, is fully academically oriented. Given that it is the largest Japanese poetic anthology and thus the most important compendium of Japanese culture of the Asuka period (AD 592–710) and most of the Nara period (AD 710–784), it is very much more than a work of literature, which has been the single focus of previous translations by Pierson and Suga.Thus, in this translation the author has sought to present the Man’yōshῡ to the reader preserving as far as possible the flavour, sounds and semantics of the original poems. The result is a more literate but true translation. In addition, because the realia of the Man’yōshῡ are mostly alien to both Westerners and modern Japanese, the text contains appropriate commentaries that illuminate the context. Also unique to this new version is the appearance of the original text, kana transliterations, romanization and glossing with morphemic analysis for the benefit of specialists and students of Old Japanese.The entire translation will consist of 20 volumes, paralleling the original twenty books. The first to be published is volume 15 (announced here) one of six books written mostly in phonographic script. The author argues that the importance of book 15 lies in the fact that it contains a large number of Western Old Japanese grammatical forms and constructions that are not attested in any other Western Old Japanese text, but are extremely important in understanding this language, thereby providing a valuable foundation for all the other Man’yōshῡ texts, including those written in semantographic text. The publication sequence and anticipated dates of the remaining volumes will be announced at a future date.

This is the second volume to be published in the 20-volume set. It includes 114 poems (104 tanka, ten choka), traditionally considered to be the zoka genre, although some of them can be classified as benka, since they deal with death and sorrow. It also contains two poems in Chinese.The volume has several long introductions (all written in Chinese) to the poems that follow. All the poems in this volume were composed between AD 724 and 733, which represents a much greater homogeneity in comparison to books one to four. Most of the poems were written by Yamanoue-no Okura (AD660-733), one of the greatest Man’yōshū poets, who was possibly a Korean from Kudara (Paekche), or at least a descendant of Kudara immigrants to Japan.The spelling system in this volume is predominantly phonographic, with only a few exceptions. In addition, the spelling system appears to reflect Early Western Old Japanese, as demonstrated by Bentley (1997, 2002). The same can be said about its overall grammatical features.

Book fourteen of the Man’yōshῡ (‘Anthology of Myriad Leaves’) continues Alexander Vovin’s new English translation of this 20-volume major work which was compiled between c.759 and 782 AD, making it the earliest and largest Japanese poetic anthology in existence and thus the most important compendium of Japanese culture of the Asuka and Nara periods.Book fourteen is the third volume of the Man’yōshῡ to be published to date (following books fifteen (2009) and five (2011)) and contains 230 tanka poems, together with a few significant variants, bringing the total to 249.This volume will be followed by publication of book twenty (2013) (instead of the previously announced book seventeen) on account of the fact that book twenty also contains many poems by Border Guards written in the same Eastern Old Japanese (EOJ) as do many of the Azuma-period poems that are contained in book fourteen.Each volume of this new translation contains the original text, kana transliteration, romanization, glossing and commentary.

Book one of the Man’yōshū (‘Anthology of Myriad Leaves’) continues Alexander Vovin’s new English translation of this 20-volume work originally compiled between c.759 and 785 AD. It is the earliest Japanese poetic anthology in existence and thus the most important compendium of Japanese culture of the Asuka and Nara periods. Book one is the seventh volume of the Man’yōshū to be published to date (following books fifteen (2009), five (2011), fourteen (2012), twenty (2013), seventeen (2016) and eighteen (2016). Each volume of the Vovin translation contains the original text, kana transliteration, romanization, glossing and commentary.

The Studies in Japanese and Korean Historical and Theoretical Linguistics and Beyond presented in honour of Prof. John B. Whitman includes contributions by a range of mid-generation to senior scholars among his closest colleagues and collaborators representing the front line of contemporary research in the areas of historical and theoretical linguistics of Japanese and Korean as well of Chinese, Turkish, and Russian. Particularly, in all these areas it deals with still ongoing debates about the important issues in historical and theoretical linguistics concerning these languages that are reflected in articles often representing opposing points of view. This book can serve as a good introduction to the current state-of-art and the most essential problems in the fields it covers.

“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, being practically monophonic. The book is richly illustrated by photos of the temple and of the inscriptions.