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Show I'-: SPEAKING ENGLISH IN JAPAN I ; By FREDERIC J. IIASKIN ' ; The visitor In .In pun is imiiicdiuloly ' srnick by the universal ambition of ( tbo people to lenrn . tho tinglish lan- 1 gunge. Tlio Japanese recognize the fact I lhat Knglish has become the universal jjoin-currenl of conversation and (hoy arc dolcmtined lo possess it.. Taking a walk thro u t:h a. public park in Tokio an American'? onrs are greeted by the familiar: "Strike one!" ''Ball three!" "Safe!" The umpiro is clad Bj I in the kimono of his people, one nine i dresses in uniforms from an American sporting goods house, the other in 'na- B ' live costume, but the game is good American baseball and it is always coii-ducted coii-ducted in the English language. B The studv of Knglish is compulsory fl ' . in tho high school and is being grndn- B. ally introduced in tho elementary B-; schools also. A fow j'ears from now B J English will be spoken in cverv part L of Japan, and it will.be the national K business laugunge. The zeal of the H: - l''k school bovs is remarkable. Ameri- Bh cans or Britishers who have lived here for soinn time become impatient w-ith H' the students, but the newcomer is al- Bl' ways interested. The boys have learned B to be on iho lookout 'for the rubber- B necked stranger. Let him stop lo watch a game or look in a shop window in some section of the city remote from B 1 , tho foreign settlement, and he will bo. I surrounded by a group of high school boy? dressed in white-dotted blue fci- Bj V. monos. It ho will so inue.h as glance i i .it one of them encouraginglv the con- ! versation begins and the bovs volunteer Hj themselves as guides or interpreters. Bh' , They know that practice is required to H ' learn to speak a language and' they H! ,( never overlook an opportunity. An' Hji ' American on a trolley enr will have, the Kj services of two or three boys to aid BU him in finding his destination,, while BK , iho other passengers who do not kuow B)(N English look upon their young com- ij patriots with proud and approving , smiles. ( Even those boys who are too poor HfW lo go to school and must work, for J their living are possessed by the same j ambition. Such books as "English H-j Learned at Home'7 have an enormous Hj sale, and a foreigner who js shopping j is often asked by a working bov how HLl to pronounce some especially difficult Hij t word. Shopkeepers put up English Bj signs, some of them ludicrouslv funny. Hh and the imperial and municipal govern- Hi meats recogni.o English as "the other language" by placing English H. signs over the doors of all public in- B stitutions. The money of .la pan also bears English inscriptions, as well as K native characters. H! It 'has been within, the memory of Hr young men now living that the great- H est of Japanese scholars declared that Hl English-speaking people were inherent- H ly wicked because of the outrageous B language they used. lie "aid that an B Englishman or an American would say H "see the moon" instead of "moon H , t sec." which was absolutely idiotic be- B cause if the moon was not there how H could anyone sec it! Now a knowledge H of English is required as a standard of B eligibility to many positions, and with- H nut it no one is reckoned an accom- H plished scholar. i - B" The men educated in the universities H t of America and England speak excellent B ' English, but there are many Japanese who have never been outside of their V own country who are equally as pro- V ficicnt. One of the leading newspapers in Tokio has an English sub-editor who was born in a small village of interior Japan. 1 lis father and mother were H Christians and he fell under the in- H fluence of American missionaries. He B studied English in a Japanese univer- HBVl sity. and then went io Iivo with an Bl 1 American missionarv family. lie fli speaks not only English, but Auiericau, Bj and is equal to making an original .iokc B I ' in the purest of George Ade. His ac- ; ' cent is strange, of course, but no one H, 1 has any difficulty in conversing with B him upon the most abstract subject. lie translates the foreign cablegrams i .for his newspaper, and when such dis- B ji tinguished visitors as Secretary Taft, B or Mr. Bryan come to Japan ho 'is ?enl to interview them. He is often asked; ""Wher did you study in America?" f and it is not 'without pardonable prido t, that he replies: "ily English was B I 'made in Japan.1 " B B I The Japanese, students look to Ameri- I can sources more often than to English, B j perhaps because of tho fact thai Ameri- B e:in frantlators have been more active B than their British cousins. Tn the na- B tive book shops scattered all about tho B I groat citv of Tokio one sees the unmis- B . takablc evidence of American influence, fl 1 Thero are several different editions of B - "The Life of Eooevelt." and books B which hide, their mysteries under tho fl cryptic. Chinese characters declare their B I origin by tho half-tone cover pictures of Washington. Benjamin Krnuklm, UJeneial (Irani. IJncoln. I'-ryan, Cjlad stone and other great men of tho Oe-I Oe-I cident. The great majority of books Irnns-In Irnns-In t i'd from ICuglish into Japanese, are ' of a s.'ienlilic or technical character. J Manv standard Knglish novels have been' translated, but many more are to ! be found in editions for the student of English, containing copious foot-! foot-! notes in Japanese. In this way the I Japanese student is introduced to- tho delightful romances of Sir Walter Scott I and to (he stirring (ales of adventure from tho pen of Alexander Dumas, i coming from tin' Krench via r ho Eng-j Eng-j lish. The influence of Western litera-tine litera-tine is making itself fell upon Japan-J Japan-J ese writers, and many novels urn p- pearing which lake English fiction for i a model of construction. Heretofore Japanese poetry has .been ronlined I within I he nnrrowesl possible limits of I mechanical formalism, the custom re; I quiring that a poem must consist, of I either Ihirty-om: or sixteen syllables; I no more, no less. I ' ' The agitation in favor of abolishing the uso of ("hinese characters by law. and of substituting the Roman alphabet, alpha-bet, has resulted in the introduction of a bill in tho Diet, but it will be many years before the change will come about. The radical difference between the spoken and written language of Japan makes a phonetic rendition verv diflicult. And I he universal adoption of the Konian characters would cause great confusion. Nevertheless, the use of the Typewriter, the study of Enc-lih. Enc-lih. and the new ideas of literaluro arc- bringing about r condition which will one day relegate the Chinese characters char-acters from ovcry-day uso lo the limbo of the classics. t Every-day use of English is increasing increas-ing more rapidly than exact knowledge of correct grammar and orthography, and the result is a multiplication of ridiculous errors. Even the ambitious publications are not. always careful of their 1 ranslations. Tokio Puck is a comic weekly modeled along the lines of its New York contemporary of the same name in physical appearance, but differing vastly in the character of its humor. This publication is entirely the product of Japanese natives, but it appears ap-pears with a dual dress of Japanese and English. lis illustrated jokes and cartoons have their Japanese legend attached, at-tached, nt (he right hand of the picture, pic-ture, running vertically, and their English Eng-lish lecend underneaT"li. Its humor is so coarse anil broad that it would not be permitted. to circulate in Amer'ca, and it is condemned bv the higher class of Japanese newspapers as indecent and scurrilous. However, it. has a big circulation. In politics it is "agin the government, '" and it does not hesitate to attack anything short of the throne. In a recent issue there was a cartoon showing the Prime Minister and tho Minister of Finance seated in a carriage, car-riage, their faces distorted as if in terror, reading a newspaper. Above were portraits of the late King and Crown Prince of Portugal, and underneath under-neath this legend: "Marquis Saionji and Mr. Matsuda, who raised the taxes, read the news of the Portuguese assassination." assas-sination." Some of its attacks on the Primo Minister, although printed in English, are so vile that their exact character may not even be hinted at. i The. usual "English as she is spoke" curiosities may be seen eveo'wherc in Japanese cities. "Ferrules and Ice here," is a puzzler until one finds that "ferrules" is a free rendering of 'fuel.' "Beef and Hen Mot Here" is tho sign over a butcher shop. "Cen-trifugalized "Cen-trifugalized Milk" is milk from which the germs have been expelled bv the Pasteur method. The "sublime tailor" and the "higher washman" arc out for business, as is tho man who writes "uiy company do send baggages into any direction with a good cheapness." The sign over a candy store reads: "European Infections Here." Even these things are to bo taken as an earnest of the national ambition for "Western learning. The influence of the Japanese adoption adop-tion of English on tho future of world politics is not. to be underestimated. A century ago English was spoken by 20,000,000 persons, fewer than I hose who spoke French. Russian, Genua u or Spanish. Now English leads the list or European languages, being used by J 30,(100,000. the other languages following fol-lowing respectively: Kussian. German, I French and Spanish. In another gen-j gen-j eration Jaiian will add 10,000,000 or moro to tiie list of English-speaking people, and for that reason their connection con-nection with Anglo-Saxon ideas and ideals will be much moro close than if they had decided to adopt. German or French as the medium through which tiiey were to come into the Western world of lotter.". Ef the present dilli-culties dilli-culties between the United Stales and portions of the British empire on one hand, and Japan on tho other, can bo brought lo a peaceful solution, Anglo-American Anglo-American standards of thought will ultimately ul-timately triumph in the Orient. (Copy-right. (Copy-right. 1P0S. by Frederic J. Haskin.) ' |