Japanische Frakturfreunde

I learned about this not because I read Twitter a lot (I don’t!), but because of my preexisting interest in the historical kana usage, which I suppose proves that I am a pimply nerd, etc. The Twitter cluster now has an official website where they defend their odd hobby. I note that it is nowhere near as formidable-looking as its German equivalent.

At least they have a website now! The 歴史的假名遣派 has been going strong for some years, from Fukuda Tsuneari’s「私の國語敎室」 in 1960, to Hisashi Inoue’s delicious Tokyo Seven Roses in 1999, to a variety of introductions to writing in historical kana, that is, “how to lose friends and alienate people”, since then. Jinja Honcho’s newsletter Jinja Shinbo proclaims itself to be the only periodical published with historical kana usage, and has a long website post where they explain it to you. Looking around the cluster’s website, I see one of their members has had a personal page since 1999. But this is the first outright advocacy group I’ve seen, and they’ve only been publishing since 2012. I guess Japan doesn’t really do advocacy.

Here is some of the wacky stuff the Twitter cluster has gotten up to:

• 正かな同人誌制作委員會　其ノ一 2011/8
• 「正字正假名を一般的な表記にしたら、文字入力環境が破綻するよね？」「いや、實は既に道具がありまして」 2012/8
• 正字正假名に關する話（平成廿四年八月十九日イ） 2012/8
• 現代口語文で正字正假名遣（歴史的仮名遣）を使うことについて 2013/5
• 旧/正　かなづかいのはなし　1日目 2013/7
• 旧/正　かなづかいのはなし（番外編）　2日目以降・・・ 2013/7
• @tanukitanukiはネツト社會の敵である！ 2013/7

I note with some disappointment that it’s actually rather hard to obtain editions of famous books in 正仮名遣, although not quite as hard as Fraktur. Here’s what I came up with for Soseki’s Kokoro:

• [国会図書館デジタル化資料] こゝろ 大正３
• [国会図書館デジタル化資料] 漱石全集 大正７
• [青空文庫] こころ 新仮名遣い、新漢字 (注)
• こころ (岩波文芸書初版本復刻シリーズ) 2001年
• 漱石全集 (岩波書店) 1956年, 1966年, 1976年, 1985年, 1994年
• 漱石文学全集 (集英社) 1983年
• 夏目漱石全集（ちくま文庫） 新仮名遣い、新漢字

Posted: October 11th, 2013 | Tradition 4 Comments »