Translation Requests

[Babylonjoke]

Thank you very much, Taki sent me some screens about one used by IJA.

Thank you again for the clarification

Kind regards

Babylon

[sjchan]

I have a general question. It seems that many of the war time documents (like many regimental histories written immediately after 1945) now released through JACAR is in traditional literal Japanese, which is quite different from modern Japanese. Are there resources (on line or otherwise) that deals with the mapping between between these two versions of Japanese?

[Akira Takizawa]

Pre-1945 documents were written in 文語.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_ ... e_language

If you want to read them, you must learn Classical Japanese.

Taki

[hisashi]

Today we write and read only 2,965 'JIS level 1' kanji in our daily life. Many youngsters goes short of that level. But UNICODE include more than 12,400 kanji for Japaneses. They are for rare personal names, rare location names and abandoned too complex fonts. Say 櫻 for 桜. Old literal Japanese use old complex fonts, old literal grammar and now abandoned 'thou hast' like vocabulary. In other words than Taki's, WE JAPANESE CANNOT READ THEM, very often. Do you read Latin?

[sjchan]

Paradoxically, some of the old complex fonts are closer to Chinese traditional fonts, which allow someone who understands Chinese but with only a cursory knowledge of Japanese to get a basic understanding of the texts. Unfortunately, as pointed out by Hisashi before, the online translator are totally useless for traditional Japanese.

Thanks for the information anyway.

[paulg]

Hello,
I have another flag in my collection that I have wondered about. Its interesting to me that the flag does not have much flair to its writing. The Kanji seems to be written in a very plain non stylized form. I am wondering if this flag can tell us anything. Is there a name of a person to whom it was dedicated? Can anyone recognize the shrine stamp at the top? Is there anything unusual about the flag? I do see Ki Buun Choukyuu , or praying for your everlasting fortune in battle, at the top. Thank you for your help and insight. This site is an excellent collector resource!
Paul G-

[paulg]

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[paulg]

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[paulg]

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[paulg]

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[paulg]

last/////Thanks so Much for your help

[hisashi]

Usually main messages on flags are in cursive, or semi-cursive script.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semi-cursive_script

But as paulg commented most kanji on this flag is in regular script.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_script

In general, writing cursive script was a gentleman's skill, but many gentlemen did not have one. I cannot. Often families asked somebody with good hand to write main outstanding phrases but the man who wrote large letters on this flag had poor hand. And down-right line of 長should be written through to right, as 人 on below-right corner of this flag shows. This man stopped the line and moved the brush to opposite direction. This bad manner appears both in 武運長久 on center and 長澤正人(長沢正人 in modern Japanese simplified style) on below right. So I guess large 長澤正人(Nagasawa Masato)　was the soldier's name and was written by the same man who wrote 武運長久.

Nobody with the family name 長澤 appears on this flag. So I suppose this flag was NOT from his family, or his colleague including aged, sophisticated men. His young friends prepared this casual flag and wrote all messages on it.

I cannot read the stamp.

[paulg]

Thank You Hisashi for helping me to understand this flag and its writing. What you have written confirms what I was thinking in regards to the writing on the flag. Once again, Thank you so much for your help!

Paul G-

[paulg]

Hello everyone,
I have another flag that I am trying to find out more about. I am doing research to find out if this flag can tell me anything, which will tell us more about itself. This is one flag which has a story to tell, I believe. It came from the pacific islands campaign. Can you please tell me anything you can about this flag. It has a bunch oh Kanji characters which I have never seen before. I am still gathering information about the veteran who brought this home with him. Is there any ference to any specific places on this flag? Both in Japan, or on a Pacific island? I have circled some of the Kanji characters that seem interesting to me. Is there a name of the Japanese soldier to whom this flag was presented? Thank You once again for your kind and generous help!

Paul G-

[paulg]

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