questions about archaic japanese

[Stefan]

does anybody know any good sites for learning classical/archaic japanese vocab and/or grammar

[Yudan Taiteki]

vocab "and/or" grammar?

I think Tony has a site with classical grammar on it, but there's not a whole lot online. You pretty much have to get print books. Even then, the pickings are pretty slim; the standard way for people to teach classical Japanese seems to be just to give the students a Shogakkan copy of Hojoki or Taketori Monogatari and start going.

[Stefan]

そっか忝い　ユダン-様。

[blutorange]

While learning Japanese I was also interested in learning more how the Japanes language evolved and to understand archaic constructions/phrases still used. I found a very good book called "A Historical Grammar of Japanese" which is freely avaiable here: http://www.archive.org/details/historic ... 00sansuoft

It aims to be a linguistic description of how the Grammar evolved. As it was written 80 years ago, it doesn't use a too scientific language and is generally easy to understand. There are many examples mostly taken from classical sources to illustrate the constructions under discussion. After reading it, I understood Japanese grammar and syntax so much more and I could remember things better due to being logical.

As for vocabulary,there are some (monolingual Japanese) dictionaries of classical Japanese. Here's a list I found: http://library.osu.edu/wikis/library/in ... l_Japanese

I guess there aren't many J-English dictionaries. But if you want to get fluent in Classical Japanese, you should understand modern Japanese anyway.

[Hinoeuma]

I was lucky enough to find a copy of Haruo Shirane's 'Classical Japanese, A Grammar' at my local used bookstore. I'm saving serious study for when I advance farther, but from my initial read-through, it seemed like an excellent book. I'd also recommend the "Classical Japanese Reader and Essential Dictionary" by the same author.

[Hektor6766]

blutorange wrote:

I found a very good book called "A Historical Grammar of Japanese" which is freely avaiable here: http://www.archive.org/details/historic ... 00sansuoft

I've read almost 100 pages in the first sitting. It's fascinating, and does provide valuable insight into the developmental logic behind the modern language.