Hashimoto Mantaro
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was a Japanese
sinologist Sinology, also referred to as China studies, is a subfield of area studies or East Asian studies involved in social sciences and humanities research on China. It is an academic discipline that focuses on the study of the Chinese civilizatio ...
and
linguist Linguistics is the scientific study of language. The areas of linguistic analysis are syntax (rules governing the structure of sentences), semantics (meaning), Morphology (linguistics), morphology (structure of words), phonetics (speech sounds ...
who is best known for advocating research on
language geography Language geography is the branch of human geography that studies the geographic distribution of language(s) or its constituent elements. Linguistic geography can also refer to studies of how people talk about the landscape. For example, toponym ...
,
linguistic typology Linguistic typology (or language typology) is a field of linguistics that studies and classifies languages according to their structural features to allow their comparison. Its aim is to describe and explain the structural diversity and the co ...
, and how different
areal features In geolinguistics, areal features are elements shared by languages or dialects in a geographic area, particularly when such features are not descended from a common ancestor or proto-language. An areal feature is contrasted with genetic relat ...
in the
varieties of Chinese There are hundreds of local Chinese language varieties forming a branch of the Sino-Tibetan languages, Sino-Tibetan language family, many of which are not Mutual intelligibility, mutually intelligible. Variation is particularly strong in the m ...
(such as tonal distinctions) reflect contact with other
language families A language family is a group of languages related through descent from a common ancestor, called the proto-language of that family. The term ''family'' is a metaphor borrowed from biology, with the tree model used in historical linguistics ana ...
.


Life and career

Mantarō J. Hashimoto was born in Sawano-mura (沢野村), Nitta District, Gunma (currently Ōta City). In 1955, he received a BA in
Chinese Literature The history of Chinese literature extends thousands of years, and begins with the earliest recorded inscriptions, court archives, building to the major works of philosophy and history written during the Axial Age. The Han dynasty, Han (202  ...
from the
University of Tokyo The University of Tokyo (, abbreviated as in Japanese and UTokyo in English) is a public research university in Bunkyō, Tokyo, Japan. Founded in 1877 as the nation's first modern university by the merger of several pre-westernisation era ins ...
, and began graduate studies, but dropped out of the doctoral course in 1960. He obtained a PhD in linguistics from
Ohio State University The Ohio State University (Ohio State or OSU) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Columbus, Ohio, United States. A member of the University System of Ohio, it was founded in 1870. It is one ...
in 1965, and his dissertation was on th
Phonology of ancient Chinese
From 1966 to 1969, he was a visiting professor at the
University of Hawaii A university () is an educational institution, institution of tertiary education and research which awards academic degrees in several Discipline (academia), academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase , which roughly ...
, Osaka City University, and
Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private Ivy League research university in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial ...
. Hashimoto became an assistant professor at the Institute for Asian and African Languages and Cultures,
Tokyo University of Foreign Studies , often referred to as TUFS, is a specialist National university, national research university in Fuchū, Tokyo, Fuchū, Tokyo, Japan. TUFS is primarily devoted to foreign language, international relations, international affairs and area studies. ...
in 1970 and Professor in 1973, where he remained for the rest of his life. Mantarō Hashimoto was married to Anne Oi-kan Yue-Hashimoto, who is currently
Professor Emeritus ''Emeritus/Emerita'' () is an honorary title granted to someone who retirement, retires from a position of distinction, most commonly an academic faculty position, but is allowed to continue using the previous title, as in "professor emeritus". ...
of Chinese Language and Linguistics at the
University of Washington The University of Washington (UW and informally U-Dub or U Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington, United States. Founded in 1861, the University of Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast of the Uni ...
. In 2002, the International Association of Chinese Linguistics established th
Mantarō J. Hashimoto Award for Chinese Historical Phonology
Hashimoto and his research are still mentioned internationally among East Asian linguists (JCIEA 2011: 80). According to one prominent linguist of Chinese, Hashimoto blazed the trail for two fields of research: the effect that
geography Geography (from Ancient Greek ; combining 'Earth' and 'write', literally 'Earth writing') is the study of the lands, features, inhabitants, and phenomena of Earth. Geography is an all-encompassing discipline that seeks an understanding o ...
has on
historical linguistics Historical linguistics, also known as diachronic linguistics, is the scientific study of how languages change over time. It seeks to understand the nature and causes of linguistic change and to trace the evolution of languages. Historical li ...
, and how
areal feature In geolinguistics, areal features are elements shared by languages or dialects in a geographic area, particularly when such features are not descended from a common ancestor or proto-language. An areal feature is contrasted with genetic relatio ...
s in the
varieties of Chinese There are hundreds of local Chinese language varieties forming a branch of the Sino-Tibetan languages, Sino-Tibetan language family, many of which are not Mutual intelligibility, mutually intelligible. Variation is particularly strong in the m ...
(previously called "
dialects A dialect is a variety of language spoken by a particular group of people. This may include dominant and standardized varieties as well as vernacular, unwritten, or non-standardized varieties, such as those used in developing countries or iso ...
") reflect prolonged
language contact Language contact occurs when speakers of two or more languages or varieties interact with and influence each other. The study of language contact is called contact linguistics. Language contact can occur at language borders, between adstratum ...
with other language families (Wang 1987: 378). Professor Hashimoto was a leading advocate of studying different areal features to gain information on the historical development of the Chinese language. He analyzed the Chinese varieties in
northern and southern China Northern China () and Southern China () are two approximate regions that display certain differences in terms of their geography, demographics, economy, and culture. Extent The Qinling–Daba Mountains serve as the transition zone between ...
and noticed the further north one traveled in China, the more the Chinese varieties began to resemble the
Altaic languages The Altaic () languages are a group of languages comprising the Turkic languages, Turkic, Mongolic languages, Mongolic and Tungusic languages, Tungusic language families, with some linguists including the Koreanic languages, Koreanic and Japon ...
that bordered them. Conversely, as one traveled south in China, the varieties began to resemble
Austroasiatic languages The Austroasiatic languages ( ) are a large language family spoken throughout Mainland Southeast Asia, South Asia and East Asia. These languages are natively spoken by the majority of the population in Vietnam and Cambodia, and by minority popu ...
that bordered them in the south. Hashimoto theorized that the varieties of Chinese had been heavily influenced by the non-Chinese languages on their periphery (Wadley 1996: 99–100). For examples, northern varieties have comparatively fewer tonal distinctions and more polysyllabic words than southern Chinese varieties with complex tonal systems and more monosyllabic words. The
syntax In linguistics, syntax ( ) is the study of how words and morphemes combine to form larger units such as phrases and sentences. Central concerns of syntax include word order, grammatical relations, hierarchical sentence structure (constituenc ...
of sentence structure is frequently subject–object–verb in northern varieties and subject–verb–object in southern ones.
Grammatical modifier In linguistics, a modifier is an optional element in phrase structure or clause structure which ''modifies'' the meaning of another element in the structure. For instance, the adjective "red" acts as a modifier in the noun phrase "red ball", provi ...
s contrast between to modifier- modified word order in the north and modified-modifier in the south (Wadley 1996: 102).


Selected works

The polyglot Mantarō Hashimoto was a prolific writer of scholarly publications in Japanese, English, and Chinese (see Tsuji 1988 for details). His subjects included
phonology Phonology (formerly also phonemics or phonematics: "phonemics ''n.'' 'obsolescent''1. Any procedure for identifying the phonemes of a language from a corpus of data. 2. (formerly also phonematics) A former synonym for phonology, often pre ...
,
lexicology Lexicology is the branch of linguistics that analyzes the lexicon of a specific language. A word is the smallest meaningful unit of a language that can stand on its own, and is made up of small components called morphemes and even smaller elemen ...
,
dialectology Dialectology (from Ancient Greek, Greek , ''dialektos'', "talk, dialect"; and , ''-logy, -logia'') is the scientific study of dialects: subsets of languages. Though in the 19th century a branch of historical linguistics, dialectology is often now c ...
,
Sinitic languages The Sinitic languages (), often synonymous with the Chinese languages, are a language group, group of East Asian analytic languages that constitute a major branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family. It is frequently proposed that there is a p ...
,
Hakka Chinese Hakka ( zh, c=, p=Kèjiāhuà; '' Pha̍k-fa-sṳ: '', zh, c=, p=Kèjiāyǔ; '' Pha̍k-fa-sṳ: '') forms a language group of varieties of Chinese, spoken natively by the Hakka people in parts of Southern China, Taiwan, some diaspora areas ...
,
Taiwanese Hokkien Taiwanese Hokkien ( , ), or simply Taiwanese, also known as Taigi ( zh, c=臺語, tl=Tâi-gí), Taiwanese Southern Min ( zh, c=臺灣閩南語, tl=Tâi-uân Bân-lâm-gí), Hoklo and Holo, is a variety of the Hokkien language spoken natively ...
, and the influence of
Altaic languages The Altaic () languages are a group of languages comprising the Turkic languages, Turkic, Mongolic languages, Mongolic and Tungusic languages, Tungusic language families, with some linguists including the Koreanic languages, Koreanic and Japon ...
on
Mandarin Chinese Mandarin ( ; zh, s=, t=, p=Guānhuà, l=Mandarin (bureaucrat), officials' speech) is the largest branch of the Sinitic languages. Mandarin varieties are spoken by 70 percent of all Chinese speakers over a large geographical area that stretch ...
. Some English-language examples:
The Bon-shio () Dialect of Hainan — A Historical and Comparative Study of Its Phonological Structure, First part: The Initials
(1960), ''Gengo Kenkyū'' 言語研究 (''Journal of the Linguistic Society of Japan'') 38: 106–135. *"The hP'ags-pa transcription of Chinese plosives" (1967), ''Monumenta Serica'' 26: 149–174. *''The Hakka Dialect: A Linguistic Study of its Phonology, Syntax and Lexicon'' (1973), Cambridge University Press. *''The Newari Language: A Classified Lexicon of Its Bhadgaon Dialect'' (1977), Institute for the Study of Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa. *"Current Developments in Sino-Vietnamese Studies" (1978), ''Journal of Chinese Linguistics'' 6.1: 1-26. *''The Phonology of Ancient Chinese'' (1978, 1979), 2 vols., Institute for the Study of Languages & Cultures of Asia & Africa. *"Typogeography of phonotactics and suprasegmentals in languages of the East Asian continent" (1980), ''Computational Analyses of Asian & African Languages'' 13: 153–164. *''The Be Language: A Classified Lexicon of Its Limkow Dialect'' (1980), Institute for the Study of Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa. *"A phonological characterization of syllabic intonations in the so-called tone languages" (1981), in ''Linguistics across continents: Studies in honor of Richard S. Pittman'', ed. by Andrew B. Gonzalez and David D. Thomas, Summer Institute of Linguistics 147–155. *
The Altaicization of Northern Chinese
' (1986), in ''Contributions to Sino-Tibetan Studies'', ed. by John F. McCoy and Timothy Light, E. J. Brill, 76–97. *"Hakka in Wellentheorie Perspective" (1992), ''Journal of Chinese Linguistics'' 20.1: 1-48.


References

*Tsuji Nobuhisa 辻伸久 (1988)
故橋本萬太郎教授 一 年譜と業績
(The late Professor Hashimoto Mantarō – Chronicle of his life and achievements), '' Journal of Asian and African Studies'' 35: 201–212. *Wadley, Stephen A. (1996), "Altaic Influences on Beijing Dialect: The Manchu Case", ''
Journal of the American Oriental Society The ''Journal of the American Oriental Society'' is a quarterly academic journal published by the American Oriental Society since 1843. The editor in chief is Peri Bearman (Harvard University).Mantaro Hashimoto in memoriam
, '' Journal of Chinese Linguistics'' 15.2: 378.


External links


Papers by Hashimoto
SEAlang Library.
Mutual Intelligibility of Sinitic Languages
Language Log ''Language Log'' is a collaborative language blog maintained by Mark Liberman, a phonetician at the University of Pennsylvania. Most of the posts focus on language use in the media and in popular culture. Text available through Google Search fr ...
6 March 2009 {{DEFAULTSORT:Hashimoto, Mantaro Japanese sinologists 1932 births 1987 deaths 20th-century Japanese linguists