日本語の混合的特徴 : オーストロネシア祖語から古代日本語へ音法則と意味変化

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  • Japanese as a mixed language : sound law and semantic change from Proto Austronesian to Ancient Japanese
  • ニホンゴ ノ コンゴウテキ トクチョウ : オーストロネシア ソゴ カラ コダイ ニホンゴ エ オト ホウソク ト イミ ヘンカ

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日本語は，北方のツングース諸語および南方のオーストロネシア語族の両文法要素を継承する混合言語である。日本語の系統もこの視点から見直そうとする動きがすでに始まっている。これまでに発表したいくつかの拙稿では日本語におけるオーストロネシア系語源の結論部分だけを述べたものが多かったが，本稿では音法則を中心とした記述に重点を置き，意味変化についても民俗知識に基づいた説明を行った。引用語例は筆者がすでに述べたものも含まれるが，多くは本稿で初めて提示するものである。他者によって言及されている語源説についてはその妥当性を検討した。また，論述の過程において，日本語音韻史でこれまで隔靴掻痒の感が否めなかったハ行・ワ行歴史的仮名遣いの表記上の問題点を摘出した。

That Japanese was formed through a mixture of Tungusic and Austronesianhas gradually become clear. While it is said to be difficult to locate Japanesein a particular language family, this may be primarily because of thegreat length of time over which present-day Japanese was formed. Progresshas been hampered by insistence on the “purity” of the language. ModernJapanese was in fact formed through a mixing of languages.After Austronesian first moved from Taiwan into the northern Philippinesaround B.C. 2500, including the Malayo-Polynesian subfamily, a branch ofthis group left for the Ryukyu-Japanese Archipelago and first settled in WestJapan in the late Jomon period. As people spread northeastward, rice mighthave carried with them, as evidenced by the early presence of rice cultivationin the southern Taiwan and the northern Philippines around B.C. 2000.Several Austronesian rice-related terms are retained in Japanese while involvingsemantic changes; for example, Proto Malayo-Polynesian (PMP) *bǝRas‘husked rice’ became Ancient Japanese (AJ) *fiya-i (Old Japanese (OJ) hiyë‘Japanese millet’), PMP *pajay ‘rice plant’ to AJ *fasai (OJ hasë/wasë ‘earlyripeningrice plant’), and so on.In this paper I focused my concern to show about a hundred cognatewords based on regular sound correspondences between Proto Austronesian(PAN) or PMP and AJ, earlier Japanese before the Nara period (A.D. 710-784), and also to explain semantic changes brought about in AJ from theviewpoint of ethnology. In the case of sound changes from PAN to AJ, themost remarkable is the confusion of phonetically similar phonemes : the distinctionbetween *f /ɸ (the present ha column in kana) and *w (the presentwa column), inherited from PAN *p/*b and *w respectively, is suspected ofhaving become disordered mainly in the intervocalic position of AJ and thatthis confusion carried over into the OJ Man’yo-gana writing system (Japanesesyllabaries originated from Chinese characters) used since much earlier in theNara period. Some words written with the ha column were rewritten with thewa colomn, and vice versa sporadically, to which I pointed out the historicallylogical etyma tracing back to Austronesian. Another case is the merger of etymologicallydifferent phonemes; PAN *R and Proto Tungusic *d seem to havechanced to become one phoneme y in AJ. As characteristics of sound changePAN word-final consonants tend to be dropped in AJ, allowing stems to endwith an open syllable. This trend, i.e. apocope, appears as a common phenomenonin Malagasy and Oceanic languages (particularly Polynesian languages),which are found on the geographical rim of the Austronesian distribution.And as a noticeable sound change from PAN the distinction between voicedand voiceless consonants is being lost, and in most languages of Oceania aswell as in AJ, this tendency is argued to exist on reliable linguistic evidence.It would not be surprising even if a similar drift has emerged in Austronesian,which extended to Japan’s northernmost tip. The reason why the phonologicalvoiced and voiceless distinction revived at the latest before the Nara period isinexplicable without taking into consideration on language contact and bilingualmixtures brought about in the process of forming the Japanese languageafter the late Jomon period. I wonder how conservative thought attached tolanguage monogenesis interprets this extraordinary innovation.The pitch accent of Japanese is an important element when consideringthe origins of the Japanese language. In Austronesian languages roots arebasically multisyllabic. I divide AJ vocabularies etymologically originating inPAN/PMP into three groups : group 1 appears to inherit the penultimate syllableof PAN, group 2 the final, and group 3 reflects the whole form. It is interestingthat Poi Tsaan (Huihui-hua), a Malayo-Polynesian Chamic languageof Hainan Island of China, has phonetically changed to resemble a tonal languageretaining in principle the final syllable of PAN (or Proto Cham). Thisfact gives a crucial insight into the occurrence of an accent after the loss ofPAN/PMP syllables in AJ.In a comparative list I classify Austronesian-derived Japanese vocabulariesinto several categories such as rice-related terms, wind and directionnames, and basic color terms.

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