User:M51a/sandbox

My aim is to shed some light on the fabulous work of the late Shichiro Murayama who investigated the origins of the prototype-Japanese language, or Old Japanese. His reports on archaeology findings I find particularly riveting, since these artifacts are not purely literary, but rather old relics of a time long ago.

Skeletal Structure for Biography

Basic Factual Information:

• Lifespan; Birthplace
• Family information
• Cirriculum Vitae

Major Contributions to Japanese Etymology

• On Japanese Language Origin(s):
• By deciphering Genghis Khan epigraphs and Khitan scripts
• Phonology: Old Japanese and Malayo-Polynesian Languages

--> Used knowledge of Hideyo Arisaka's Vowel Association Law as well as the observed vowel harmony in Altai as a means to begin investigating proto-Japanese lineage.

--> Studied the oldest text document from the Korean peninsula, known as 三国史記 which is an Ateji (phonetic rendering with Chinese Han Characters) for Samguk Sagi, meaning The History of the Three Kingdoms. From these sagas, Murayama was able to extract knowledge about the then language, Goguryeo, which he showed to have a remarkably high rate of similar words with Japanese.

The section from this work exemplifies other eminent linguists who specialized on this subject, which could provide decent hyperlinks to further information, providing the reader with multiple vantage points, supporting some, refuting others: _SEE Suggested Further Readings. On page 418, he mentions a book he co-authored with Obayashi Taryo (1973), where he lays out his argumentation for Japanese as a "mixed language". On page 420-424, he lists some cross-linguistic argumentation from a phonological standpoint. On page 424, he cites the work of Otto Dempwolff for his development of Malayo-Polynesian phonemic notation (*t')

• Discussing Archaeological Findings (Tumulus/Kofun) and Old Japanese

This is a fascinating article that includes an X-ray photograph of an old, old sword found in a tumulus that has phonographic inscriptions of Chinese Hanzi (pp.408-09; Hand-copy on 411)! From page 417 on, other archaeological findings of similar ilk are cited (such as an epigraph on a tombstone in Chinese). Page 420-421 goes over examples of the earliest discovered written records of Japanese with a line-by-line parsing and extensive notes on the translation.

Other Contributing Linguistists

Arisaka, Hideyo; Obayashi, Taro; Otto Dempwolff; Miler, Roy Andrew;

Suggested Further Readings

(J. Rahder, An Etymological Dictionary of Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Ainu (Rahder 1956-61) ; Ozawa Shigeo 1968 (lexical comparisons between Japanese and Mongol); R. A. Miller, Japanese and the Other Altaic Languages (1971); Matsumoto Nobuhiro (1928); N. A Syromjatnikov (1972))

References

Ideally with a reference for each fact stated. In the current wikipedia page, there are only two references for a few dozen of factual information.

Publications

Shichirō, Murayama, and Roy Andrew Miller. “The Inariyama Tumulus Sword Inscription.” Journal of Japanese Studies, vol. 5, no. 2, 1979, pp. 405–438., www.jstor.org/stable/132104.

Shichirō, Murayama. “The Malayo-Polynesian Component in the Japanese Language.” Journal of Japanese Studies, vol. 2, no. 2, 1976, pp. 413–436., www.jstor.org/stable/132060.

村山七郎. 漂流民の言語 : ロシアへの漂流民の方言学的貢献. Tōkyō: Yoshikawa Kōbunkan, 1965. Print.

Murayama, ShichiroHyōryumin no gengo : roshia e no hyōryūmin no hōgengakuteki kōken

Tōkyō: Yoshikawa Kōbunkan, 1965. Print.

村山七郎. 日本語の比較研究. Dai 1-han. Tōkyō: ichi Shobō, 1995. Print.

Murayama, Shichiro. Nihongo no Hihakukenkyū. Dai 1-han. Tōkyō: ichi Shobō, 1995. Print.

Miller, Roy Andrew, Murayama Shichiro, and Obayashi Taryo. "The Origins of Japanese." Monumenta Nipponica 29.1 (1974): 93. Print.

Miyake M.H. "Philological Evidence for *e and *o in Pre-Old Japanese." Diachronica 20.1 (2003): 83-137. Web.

My Five Linguists of Interest:

• Motoori Norinaga - An Edo Period Japanese critic of Heian Literature; coined the term "Mono no Aware" to describe the standard for good Japanese literature. The WP page on him as of yet has but one citation, which I just added. There are many articles on Google Scholar and JSTOR on him.
• Kindaichi Haruhiko - contemporary Japanese linguist; he has a fully-established WP page and is well cited on Google Scholar. While the page is not a stub, it could still be developed to include some of his other works and collaborations with Ono Susumu, another celebrated Japanese linguist.
• Hashimoto Shinkichi - Old Japanese linguist, known for his work on Japanese Grammar and implementing this knowledge to improve children education of Japanese language; he mentored Ono Susumu. He is cited 100+ time on Google Scholar, although JSTOR yields no direct results
• Ono Susumu - Japanese and Tamil linguist, concerned with the origins of Japanese language ; Ono is most widey critiqued for his hypothesis that Japanese is genetically linked with Tamil. His WP page only mentions his works, but does not even present them in a basic way, telling the main tenants of his claim or paraphrasing his contributions to the field.
• Shichirō Murayama - Japanese linguist, focusing on the Altaic language family. His WP page as is cites many of his works, includes a brief overview of his CV, but does not discuss any of his ideas or otherwise contributions to the field. It does say, though, Murayama is an 'authority' on Altaic languages. As Google Scholar suggests, much of his work is on the origin of the Japanese language, like Ono Susumu.

The article under review is called "Edward T. Hall". Link: Edward T. Hall

The article is written from a NPOV presenting the substantial facts about Hall as a cultural anthropologist. That is, the otherwise trivial information is kept to a minimum, if there is any at all. Most of the reference links work, however a few do not lead to a specific source, but rather a website or something else that is not easily verifiable. There are also a few key terms, such as Extension Transference, that are hyperlinked but when clicked on do not lead to substantiated articles that fully explain the concepts. As a quick remedy, I added in two paragraphs to give the reader a basic grasp of one of Hall's major contribution in his field.

One troublesome aspect to the article is that there are no discussions in the 'talk' page behind the article. In general, the biography focuses too heavily on his academic and professional background. I don't think his personal life should get equal coverage necessarily, as his most notable contributions stem from his professional field work, but I feel like this biography gives us only a very one-sided representation of Hall. There are in fact some interesting anecdotes from his life that he talks about in his books, and rather than having the reader read through one of his books, it would be better to present the anecdotes directly in his biography.

Disregarding the appeal of supplementary information that could be in the article, I must say that the style and format in which it is written are both appropriate and follow Wikipedia guidelines. And even though Hall was not so much a linguist as cultural anthropologist (in terms of focus area), he still brought up the relevance of his work to the efficacy of foreign language pedagogy. As far as linguistics goes, he draws attention to something which I feel is too often overlooked in linguistics - the role that culture plays. I don't mean to say that culture is completely absent or not mentioned at all in linguistics, but I feel it is generally not given enough attention or credit. For example, Hall brilliantly proposes the terms "High-Context" and "Low-Context" cultures. Formally, linguists realize that in Japanese and Chinese, for example, personal pronouns are often dropped; but linguists, I feel, are all-too-eager to analyze this as a formal feature of either language's grammar and not think about the cultural implications this may have.

I just hope that if, one day, someone writes a (Wikipedia) encyclopedia article/biography on me after I die, that the article is not a 10-15min read. Although, the nihilist side in me still accepts that possibility.