上田万年と国字改良 --ローマ字導入と漢語の排除という問題--

Abstract

本稿は, 日清戦争後に提言された上田万年の「新国字論」の内実を解明し, 国字改良という問題に着目しつつ, 上田が目指した「国語」像を解明しようというものである. 上田にとって国字改良とは漢字を廃止し, ローマ字を導入することを意味するものであったが, これは上田が意図した, 話す通りに書く「国語」を確立するために必要であった. そのために上田は漢語の排除を試みて, 和語とそのまま取り入れられた外来語からなる「国語」を作ろうとした. しかし, 当時一般的に用いられていた漢字仮名交り文の影響力が強かったために, 漢語を全て排除する上田の計画は実現に至らなかった. すなわちこの計画の難渋は, 漢字と仮名の組み合わせからなる文章が, 長い年月を経て定着した日本の遺産であることを示唆しているといえる.

This paper examines the content of "New Script Theory", suggested by Ueda Kazutoshi after the Sino-Japanese War, focusing on the problem of Script Reform and describing the image of Japanese Language ("Kokugo") that Ueda wanted to establish. The aim of "New Script Theory", suggested by Ueda, was to eliminate Sino-Japanese Vocabulary (as the elimination of Chinese Characters was necessary in order to establish Romanization of Japanese). The "Kokugo", that Ueda wanted to establish, was supposed to consist of only native Japanese words and borrowed words from Western languages in their original writing. But it was impossible to eliminate all of the Sino-Japanese Vocabulary, because of the strong influence of texts, written in mixed characters of Kanji and Kana ("Kanjikanamajiribun"). Such texts required the use of Sino-Japanese Vocabulary and were widely spread in that period. Therefore, the overall difficulty for Ueda's plan to be introduced was that Japanese style of writing texts, by mixing Kanji and Kana, has been fixed for many years and represented a heritage of Japan.