『特命全権大使 米欧回覧実記』에 나타나는 한자 지명 표기에 관한 연구

Abstract

In this study, general declarations of Chinese Character Place Names in 『Beioukairanzikki』, a record of personal experience travelogue to the west was reviewed. In『Beioukairanzikki』, there were 13,431 declarations regarding 959 individual places, among which western place names expressed in Chinese Characters were 11,339 (84.4%), which shows the overwhelmingly high ratio of the use of Chinese Characters. When they declared place name by borrowing Chinese Characters, they used Gacha which borrowed characters regardless of original meaning as long as the pronunciation was similar. However, as the western place names declared by Chinese Characters were created based on the Chinese pronunciation, when they were read according to Japanese reading rules they would be read differently from the original sound and it became difficult to associate place names with the places themselves. Accordingly, in Japan, they devised some other methods such as changing Chinese Characters according to Japanese pronunciation or devising unique and original declaration system. Considering these, in this study, western place names declared by Chinese characters were classified by syllables and corresponding relationship between each syllable and Chinese character. According to the results, first, they used the open syllable rules to make a syllable longer. Second, when western place names had [r] and [l], those were merged into one during the conversion to Chinese characters.