Page:A handbook of modern Japan (IA handbookofmodern01clem).pdf/261

Some of the peculiarities of Japanese sentences are illustrated in the following: "The man whom I met yesterday went to Tōkyō by the nine o'clock train this morning," if translated literally from Japanese, would read: "My yesterday-on met man-as-for, this morning's ninth-hour's train-by Tōkyō-to went."

In short, the Japanese language is an involved, complicated, impersonal, neutral, obscure, but withal a pretty, musical, logical, and polite tongue. Chamberlain says: "Japanese is probably—all things considered—the most difficult language on the face of the earth."

A Japanese book begins where an English book ends; it is read from top to bottom in lines running from right to left; and the "foot-notes" are at the top of the page, while the reader's mark is inserted at the bottom. Books are always arranged on a shelf or elsewhere, with the first volume at the right hand, or in horizontal piles. The Japanese call our style of writing "crab-writing," because it "goes backward" and across the page like a crawfish; and the individual just quoted, claimed to be able to judge of the hearts of foreigners by their writing, "which was crooked"! Inversion appears again in such expressions as "east-north," "west-south," instead of "northeast," "southwest." The address of a letter runs as follows: "America, United States, Illinois State, Chicago City, Hyde Park District, Washington Avenue, 0000 No., Smith, John,