was a
Japanese 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 ...
, born in
Tsuruga,
Fukui Prefecture
is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located in the Chūbu region of Honshū. Fukui Prefecture has a population of 737,229 (1 January 2025) and has a geographic area of 4,190 Square kilometre, km2 (1,617 sq mi). Fukui Prefecture border ...
,
Japan
Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...
.
Biography
Hashimoto is especially noted for the discovery of
Jōdai Tokushu Kanazukai, which makes it clear that
Old Japanese
is the oldest attested stage of the Japanese language, recorded in documents from the Nara period (8th century). It became Early Middle Japanese in the succeeding Heian period, but the precise delimitation of the stages is controversial.
Old Ja ...
made more syllabic distinctions than later periods of the language. This discovery led him to hypothesize that Old Japanese had eight
vowel
A vowel is a speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract, forming the nucleus of a syllable. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness a ...
s, while modern
Japanese has only five. His systematic description of the
Japanese grammar
Japanese is an agglutinative, synthetic, mora-timed language with simple phonotactics, a pure vowel system, phonemic vowel and consonant length, and a lexically significant pitch-accent. Word order is normally subject–object–verb with ...
also laid the foundations of
language education
Language education refers to the processes and practices of teaching a second language, second or foreign language. Its study reflects interdisciplinarity, interdisciplinary approaches, usually including some applied linguistics. There are f ...
for Japanese children.
See also
*
Japanese literature
Japanese literature throughout most of its history has been influenced by cultural contact with neighboring Asian literatures, most notably China and its literature. Early texts were often written in pure Classical Chinese or , a Chinese-Japa ...
*
List of Japanese authors
This is an alphabetical list of writers who are Japanese, or are famous for having written in the Japanese language.
Writers are listed by the native order of Japanese names—family name followed by given name—to ensure consistency, although ...
References
1882 births
1945 deaths
Japanese writers
People from Tsuruga, Fukui
University of Tokyo alumni
20th-century Japanese linguists
Linguists of Japanese
{{Japan-linguist-stub