Can Japanese Read Old Japanese? (Interview)

[@ThatJapaneseManYuta]

The tale of Genji is pretty interesting so I’d recommend it if you are interested in Japanese literature. If you read it, you will understand that Japan isn’t really a socially conservative country traditionally.
But as you can see, if you speak today’s Japanese, you will be able to read a lot of classics.
So if you want to learn Japanese with me, I can send you some Japanese lessons where I teach you the kind of Japanese that Japanese people actually speak. Click here and subscribe bit.ly/3ioR1WR

[@devanvelo3725]

Can you explain the differences?

[@ceresbane]

I have the tale of genji in translated english.

[@setro5582]

I only know Genji 'cuz of Final Fantasy.

[@ceresbane]

@@setro5582 I know Genji because of his 14 loves and his final iconic waifu. Only knew the cliff notes until recently.

[@ktdoty9921]

This makes me curious, there is a Brazilian dialect of Japanese calledコロニア語， and I have heard that some of the older dekasegi who spoke it when many niisei and sansei started going back to Japan in the 80s and 90s had a hard time being understood since their Japanese was a mixture of outdated pre-world war 2 Japanese mixed with Portuguese loanwords. It'd probably be hard to find an older dekasegi who could actually speak in that Brazilian Japanese dialect, but that still seems like it'd be a cool video 😅

[@charlieliao8021]

Being Chinese, I was actually able to read the first one, but no idea on the second and third....

[@puppywhite8977]

Actually about 1/2 of the first article's content is kanji.

[@charlieliao8021]

@@puppywhite8977 yeah, that's why, and some old chinese expressions too

[@High_Priest_Jonko]

Can you please tell me what the old Chinese expressions are? 多谢！

[@charlieliao8021]

@@High_Priest_Jonko For example, in the first sentence, the way they wrote the date and year is based on Chinese tradition (not exactly a year in the Chinese calendar I assume, but old Japanese and chinese calendars work pretty much the same way). And also there is the place name in the last sentence, which is named based on old chinese.

[@karolinamarin2035]

jptop.buzz

[@KevinAbroad]

I'll never get tired of how you plug your Japanese lessons

[@Charly_dvorak]

You should make a review xd

[@KevinAbroad]

@@Charly_dvorak Hahaha maybe I should!!

[@BohdanMelnychuk]

Yeah the whole channel is just an ad series of the lessons 😂

[@catnap7579]

opposite effect here

[@anyonenoone9968]

@@catnap7579 Nobody asked for that.

[@Zebresh1]

The interaction at 3:30 was gold

[@Ramhams1337]

@33 7 i also thought he meant he wanted to cry reading the text because it was hard to read

[@makudonarudokairu]

The guy on the left was my favorite, kinda just told it how it is and how he honestly felt.

[@n4psters986]

me and my homies be like

[@Shirley36]

That group of guys were the funniest lmao

[@kadash7126]

Do you mean reaction?

[@jafar_mtr]

I would love to see Japanese people react to Emperor Showa's last speech,where he declared that the war is over. I have heard his Japanese was different from normal Japanese, and I'm curious if people today can understand it.

[@kelc-1373]

Yeah, I’ve heard the recording of the speech. it was chockful of Onyomi and almost sounds like a Chinese/Japanese hybrid

[@jafar_mtr]

@@kelc-1373Thanks, I didn't even knew that it sounds a bit like Chinese, that's very interesting. I hope he will make a video about that in the future or about what the people think about the Showa Era in general.

[@raiden5386]

I'd think it'd be interesting too, but I don't think people would want to relive such an unpleasant part of their nation's history (especially since some of the feelings still linger)

[@adde9506]

I imagine they either review this speech in school or wouldn't touch it with a ten foot pole.

[@ekszentrik]

Don't think that's a good example. They likely dissected it in school. Rather some random proclamation by him.

[@noemie8656]

"i can't read kanji"
also them: *reads the whole text* 😁

[@kaylee1772]

i think cause the kanji have hiragana next to them showing the pronunciation

[@adminmoderator3839]

I think when there is a hiragana next to kanji it becomes common sense or obvious what word is written just my opinion

[@huzelstep]

for kanji there are on-readings and kun-readings. when there are hiragana attached to kanji, they use the kun-reading most of the time.
my guess on this is, that they know most of the kanji from modern japanese and how to read them but not necessarily what they mean in this context.

[@Ardeact]

theres furigana next to them

[@VEGETA19954]

Interestingly enough the Genji Monogatari was originally written only in Kana. So the Kanji are actually a modern addition.

[@ourboy6878]

Despite Shakespeare being from only around 400 years ago, it's hard to read sometimes to the point of not being able to understand at all. Maybe this was because it was written in an artistic manner, and the casual vernacular was easier to understand. But it's interesting how Japanese can be understood that far back even in the 10th century.

[@ms.rstake_1211]

True

[@Maggot91ify]

Shakespeare is basically highly poetic Early Modern English so that's gonna hinder our understanding of it quite a bit. If we were to read more prosaic Early Modern English I'd say it wouldn't be as difficult to decipher.
Middle English would be harder to understand but still might be somewhat intelligible
Old English might be somewhat intelligible for simple enough sentences but anything more advanced would be quite different and reading works of poetry like Beowulf would be very much alien.

[@okuyasu4033]

www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43521/beowulf-old-english-version
lmfao and this was what early english looked like

[@VieiraFi]

As I understand it, italians can read and somewhat understand Dante. Of course, since it's a poem and full of references, they have to study to fully grasp it, but as I understand the language didn't change nearly as much as english.
Also, people say persian remained remarkably consistent over the centuries, like they seem to be able to read poems of a thousand years ago.
Greek changed a lot from attic from modern greek, but they seem to be a little better reading koine greek and somewhat understand. I've seen some claim to somewhat understand the new testament greek, for example.

[@user-tz3zl8ut4t]

、。、、！、それた

[@miguelangelsanchezpla3181]

8:00 is me reading normal Japanese

[@littlefishbigmountain]

So not too shabby then!

[@spardaprowess3277]

It's like English speakers struggling to read 1300s English.

[@nihilistic9927]

Unless you are a scholar, no one probably cant read 1300 English

[@flowerdolphin5648]

I think you could piece certain texts together a little bit if you sat down and seriously thought about what it could mean. There are words that are almost the same now & a lot of others are quite similar. It's just that middle English spelling is absolute hell and a few words and grammar are very germanic so you probably wouldn't know the meaning of those. But a lot of it is not so dissimilar to modern English. Like the Canterbury Tales, you could probably understand at least a little bit just fine.

[@rektdedrip]

@@nihilistic9927 I think Middle English was being used around that time which is still somewhat understandable to modern English speakers. There are Middle English texts you can find around the internet to check out. It's pretty interesting.

[@Xezlec]

@@nihilistic9927 Not true. Late 1300s isn't too bad. The main thing is you have to know that the old letter "þ" is pronounced "th". Look, read this Bible passage, from 1384:
And it was don aftirward, and Jhesu made iorney by citees and castelis, prechinge and euangelysinge þe rewme of God, and twelue wiþ him; and summe wymmen þat weren heelid of wickide spiritis and syknessis, Marie, þat is clepid Mawdeleyn, of whom seuene deuelis wenten out, and Jone, þe wyf of Chuse, procuratour of Eroude, and Susanne, and manye oþere, whiche mynystriden to him of her riches.

[@VictorMarwood]

@@Xezlec as someone whose native language isn't english that was hard af lol

[@xjmmjbnqfstjdijoj2044]

イタリア人の日本語学習者として、上代・中古日本語に触れ合う機会は滅多にないので、非常に興味深い動画でした!　僕もなるべく理解することに挑戦してみたんですが、半分ぐらいしかわかりませんでした（笑）! とにかく、投稿コメントを読みながら「やっぱり英語圏の視聴者さんと意見が全然合わないな〜」と思いました!　なぜかというと、イタリア語も日本語と同様に、何世紀も経っているにもかかわらずそんなに進化していない感じがするからです…もちろん現代人にとっては深く勉強しなければ全て理解するのは確かに無理かもしれませんが、普通にある程度推測することはできるのではないかなと思います!
Thank you Yuta-san for this extremely interesting video! As an Italian native speaker, I actually think Japanese and Italian both evolved pretty slowly in comparison to other "major" languages such as English or French, just to name a few... That's probably because both Japanese and Italian have relatively limited phonetic repertoires, plus Japanese imported many "academic" words from Classical Chinese, re-adapting them in order to make them fit their own language, and since those are basically logograms they carry a meaning within themselves, so that might explain to some extent why today's Japanese are still able to understand their "ancient language"...

[@mhdfrb9971]

Can you make video about ryukyuan or okinawan language? I heard that the ryukyuan languages has retained a lot of archaic features from old japanese

[@nodeue]

Would love to see Yuta videos about Ryukyuan languages but it might be complicated since I think he's based I'm Tokyo. Maybe he can play Okinawan language audio to people in Tokyo and see how much they understand?

[@natnaelabdissa8132]

Habesha?

[@VNSnake1999]

Was Ryukyuan language closer to Japanese or Chinese?

[@mhdfrb9971]

@@VNSnake1999 ryukyuan are japonic language so definitely closer to japanese even though they are mutually unintelligible

[@asobimo5532]

I'm actually learning this in collage and I also want a video on this!!

[@venusminora]

Oh my goodness. As a native English speaker, the lack of obvious subject identifiers in Japanese drives me crazy. You really need to check the particles and ask yourself constantly who is acting upon whom and for what purpose. We had to read Genji monogatari for class and I was going to flip a table.

[@hiuminglo3040]

I’m Chinese and an intermediate learner of Japanese. Hōjōki seems to be the easiest to understand since it contains certain numbers of Chinese words (kango). But when it comes to the last one, I can barely make a guess because of it was written mostly in old Japanese word (wago).

[@magnuscritikaleak5045]

漢字、、、

[@Solidude4]

Why are they all talking in sync so well though lmao

[@andreacunningham5696]

Japanese children have to learn to read in sync with each other (or the teacher). It's something that is drilled into them from their first year of schooling.

[@elliotw.888]

where i live, i used to go to sunday school and we read bible verses out loud from the powerpoint slides. it sounded pretty similar in the monotonous way stuff was being read out

[@HanyuuHOLO]

Asians

[@ihatenfts501]

@@HanyuuHOLO Blunt but true. It’s the East Asian way of learning lol

[@kerplunkboydotNET]

I cried a river watching "The tale of princess Kaguya"

[@thorbergson]

Such a beautiful work. I get emotional hearing the first chords of the ending song, especially since seeing the video of it performed at Takahata's funeral. Even considered making it a ringtone to desensitize myself to it:)
I'll just leave the rest of the music here instead
th-cam.com/video/6e3KFHmNyGE/w-d-xo.html

[@theTHwa3tes11]

Flashback

[@ifyouseekay]

when the girl said 読めへん i was like wait what since up till now i'd only heard non-tokyo dialects in fiction so it was weird hearing it from a real person

[@lahagemo]

i picked out at least three people with kansaiben and i was also astonished lmao

[@balusurisetti]

I worked in Osaka for 3 years.
People talk in Kansai Ben all the time except in official meetings..

[@Hoshikani]

the girl at 5:34 also "wakarahen"

[@kappakonbu]

I think this interviewer also has some Kansai accent.
I’m from Osaka🤗

[@antoniocasias5545]

Yass I was like Ōsaka!

[@user-zw9ic2pv8r]

I think at 7:02 he said "soshi" abbreviate of "makura no soshi"

[@antoniocasias5545]

Which is what?

[@NeoNeko99]

Yuta: If you want to learn Japanese… then come with me because we're going BACK IN TIME BOIIIIII YEAH

[@chinmustache6420]

I remember my Japanese teacher mentioned that older Japanese pronunciation was different than how modern speech sounds, especially because the sounds yi, ye, wi, wu, and we, are no longer used

[@simonlow0210]

And before the sound shift in modern japanese, ha/he/fu/he/ho was read as pa/pi/pu/pe/po and so on.

[@hexwolfi]

Written evidence also indicates that Old Japanese may have had as many as 8 distinct vowels compared to the modern 5. Today's voiced consonants were also prenasalized and never occurred at the beginning of a word.

[@LittleWhole]

@@hexwolfi They are not so much 8 "distinct" vowels as 8 "distinct" vowel classes and vowels. Some 甲・乙 vowel pairs have been reconstructed as just the same vowel but with a different glide (w or j) in between them or with no glide at all in one. This is with the exception of オ乙, which is actually a totally different vowel from オ甲 - it's the schwa.

[@taududeblobber221]

yi and wu were never used in japanese.

[@taududeblobber221]

@@kijeenki i shoud rephrase what i said: yi and wu were never used distinctly from i and u. if there was at any point yi it wasn't distinct from i and if there was wu then it wasn't distinct from u. also, you may see things like the wu in the name of the hello kitty song "i wanna wuki wuki time" for example, but it's just stylized romanization of u.

[@acgm046]

At first, I was confused because I thought the texts were going to be mostly complicated kanji, but then with all the hiragana I thought it looked like a typical text Japanese native speakers would be able to read and understand without an issue. Then, I was confused about the fact they didn't completely understand what they were reading! 😆
I'm glad Yuta explained so clearly the reason for that at the end. It's fascinating how the written language can be understood relatively easily after centuries, yet the contextual element is the differentiating factor between how people understood a given story or message centuries ago compared to now.

[@Xezlec]

I don't think it's just the context. The main problem seems to be ancient words and ancient grammar.

[@rynabuns]

i'm guessing it's similar to reading something like beowulf-you can probably read it, but to understand it takes a bit of study!

[@XSpImmaLion]

Language is an ever changing thing, but japanese case must be pretty unique as it went so long without external influences and without mixes.... up until now that is.
So, I have a personal interesting case to share.
Me, mom and relatives went to Japan twice, once in 2008 and once in 2018. Group of 6 people, all japanese looking, except on the first trip when a friend of my cousin also went - he's brazilian of portuguese descendancy, so caucasian looking.
My mom and an aunt of hers learned japanese as kids at home... not a whole lot, and they didn't use much of it after growing up, but they were just more familiar with the language in comparison to the rest of us.
The only problem is, their japanese is pre-WWII japanese. xD
Both sides of the family it was either my grandparents who migrated to Brazil when they were still kids, or grand grand parents who migrated... so I'm in between 3rd or 4th generation japanese descendant.
So, if you can imagine japanese without many foreign loan words... that's what it is.
Instead of asking where the toilet is, initially they were asking for "benjo". Milk isn't miruku, it's gyunyu. Jitensha instead of baiku. etc etc xD
Some stuff people got, some people were extremely puzzled.
It also didn't help that - we all look japanese, so people probably got very confused with these japanese people speaking this weird japanese, and that both my mom and her aunt also don't know a whole lot of english to begin with... so if the original old japanese words don't make sense to japanese people anymore these days, the english loan words don't make any sense for my mom and her aunt. xD
So it's like, WTF is toiretto peepa? xD Sometimes I knew how to say stuff without knowing japanese because I know english. xD Conversations always ended up in a mix of them trying to speak old japanese, me trying to pick up loan words, lots of gesturing, and the rest of the group who only speaks brazilian portuguese giving up... xD

[@qiunone614]

I don't agree "Japanese went so long without external influences". Actually Japanese the language didn't form natively nor internally. Ancient Japanese took 漢字(kanji)(Chinese character) from China and transcribed some of them into a simplified character set called 万葉仮名(manyōgana) which later evolves into modern Japanese characters. The Japanese intellectuals and royals used kanji for a very very long time and a huge amount of Japanese ancient books and tablets are written in Chinese. If you ever see the the written announcement of Japan's WWII surrender, you'll find it nearly in Chinese except for some inherent Japanese function words. Well, after so many years, Japanese is now borrowing words from the western languages and is becoming an English written in Katakana.

[@XSpImmaLion]

@@qiunone614 oh, on that point I totally agree, Japanese went long without external influences but it's origins are definitely Chinese and had a lot of Chinese influences in early history. I just meant that because of centuries of isolationist policy during the shogunate period, it's language and culture also didn't get as many external global influences as most other countries had... before the isolationist period the barrier was largely geographical being simply a nation that was hard to get to, though there were influences in culture that are still there to this day, like Portuguese trade, Korean and Chinese immigration, etc.

[@johnsonz9017]

As a Chinese people ,I can definitely say that I could understand nearly 90 percent of the old Japanese even I only know a little about Japanese language.Because most of which were written in kanji...lol

[@themaskedeconomist8404]

I only understood “waga” because of YuGiOh GX where Judai faces Darkness who kept saying “waga no turn”

[@dyflin3246]

Okay weeb

[@darkblade4340]

什么？

[@user-tb5fb7tx5c]

素晴らしい教養

[@Mikike94]

We've just learnt kobun in the last semester, and we're going to learn kanbun in this one :"D

[@Tomoyuki473]

That is super impressive. Even more so if you consider how much other languages (mainly english) have influenced Japanese in the last 3 or 4 generations.

[@nos8141]

Alot of the words is not changed from language to language, that is also why

[@Zhinoi]

Did they translate japanese to japanese? I think it's time for me to give up 💀

[@Xezlec]

OLD Japanese. An earlier form of the language.

[@georgewan438]

It's the same for Chinese to read ancient Chineses, most can be understood after thousand years.

[@reubencf]

Why not go read old English

[@TheQuestionmarkstudi]

I have a Kanji dictionary that pretty much has every Kanji ever and lemme tell ya, there’s some pretty crazy characters..

[@thorbergson]

*gasps* Spasm!

[@NoCareBearsGiven]

So your book has over 50000 characters?

[@magnuscritikaleak5045]

す珠宝。

[@rw42000]

This was really fun!
I would love to see a video asking people about 歴史的仮名遣, having them identify the correct spelling or something

[@colinubeh1180]

We do have somewhat similar tale of a princess who was born out of a bamboo shoot in South East Asia. Interesting.

[@feylights166]

I am reading a book on the history of the Japanese language. This video also makes me wonder what historical topics Japanese students are learning (though classics would probably be read in a college literature class).

[@feylights166]

Also, as with many of these videos, I wonder if those interviewed talk about the subject as they walk away.

[@hlb979]

interesting; if I try to read Dante's Divine Comedy - that is roughly from the same period of the Tale of Genji and is supposed to be the de-facto literary founding stone of my language (of course there's no problem in the written characters but) I almost struggle to the same point in understanding XD; most of the difficulty tho is because of the poetic form

[@TheFieryWind99]

7:02
"I like things like [inaudible]" has to be rather hilarious in and on itself.

[@themaskedeconomist8404]

The difference sounds almost like saying “waga no kokoro” instead of “ore no kokoro”
Like some words are different but the majority of main words are same or similar to the point where they’re discernable

[@PikaLink91]

I can read and understand Danish that is a couple hundred years old because the only difference is really that aa is now å, and that Danes back then almost wrote in poetry or at least with a very sophisticated tongue and most of the time I am able to piece it together fine.
........go back a thousand years though and I am lost as we wrote in runes back then xD

[@belldanime]

*laughs in Icelandic*

[@hmhbanal]

Old Japanese language had “ti” (teeh) and “si”
(shee), they became “chi”, and “shi”.

[@monowavy]

Can you tell us about the synchronicity some people seem to have with each other (e.g. these girls 9:20 saying many lines together)?

[@adiabd1]

japanese trained to read together since elementary school, as other comments has said

[@haru791]

I don’t see anything special. They’re probably looking at a board with the text, and going along line by line when translating.

[@kphk3428]

Maybe also because Japanese pronunciation is based on moras (sound units) which dictate the rhythm of speech.

[@SebKent1]

The English language has some historical forms also, such as Old English and Middle English, that are difficult to understand today unless you have been trained. Chaucer wrote 700 years ago in Middle English. and it takes some getting used to before you can understand it. Pretty amazing that Tales of Genji dates back even further, about 1000 years ago.

[@pabloramos1022]

Old English is more like some weird low German language aberration lel.

[@thorbergson]

Still more surprising is the fact that Genji is widely regarded not as a historical footnote or curiosity, but as one of the shining pinnacles of Japanese literature to this day

[@ldkmelon]

Very interesting! I think Polish is very similar with texts still readable from so long ago because not only writing style but also grammar hasn't changed too much.
I really wonder why some cultures (Japan, Poland, I'm sure others as well) pick a way to write their words and seem to stick to it while others like English change alot every 200 years or so?

[@thorbergson]

3:15 I understand the guy in the red jacket. Makura no Soshi is a most beautiful diary written by a bitchiest wittiest girl ever. I hope to be able to read it in the original one day.

[@KOBEASTXIV]

What i like about japanese people is that they tend to think deeply about things. I barely see that here in my country

[@venturavara7955]

Hello from Indonesia. Yuta Sensei, i suggest, may be this can be next video if you want to make it. I wonder, can Japanese write the kanji that usually we using hiragana or katakana? just for challenge. For example like" レモンときれいは、漢字で書けますか?" そういう質問かなあ。。　Thanks a lot

[@sanglish18]

Now that's interesting

[@user-du1vj3ro1j]

That would be a very one sided video, first of all the kanji version of 綺麗 is very common and also words like 檸檬, 林檎, etc everyone has seen a lot of times in their life even in kanji so of course they would be able to read it. Even if it's more rare and isn't used as frequently such as 檸檬 they would be able to deduce from looking at the kanji which in both characters means lemon tree

[@venturavara7955]

@@user-du1vj3ro1j or may be the challenge are not try to read, but try to write the kanji 😀. I mean they can read but doesn't mean they also can write(by hand) some of difficult kanji.

[@nemoatlantis7148]

I knew of Tale of Genji for the first time from Yamato Waki's shojo manga

[@hiswieder9398]

Those are Classical Japanese which is a literary language based on Early Middle Japanese written in kana. Old Japanese is much older than classical Japanese. Old Japanese is written only in kanji.

[@RB9522]

Reading out loud together seems common in Japan. It seems to be a way to unify pronunciation. But, it doesn't help with comprehension since the readers' mind is occupied with unifying/competing with the others. This video was an interesting insight into the Japanese language. Thank you.

[@hermdude]

Ah yes, Princess Kaguya. Stage 6B was the pretty hard to beat in my opinion.

[@michaeldavison5048]

That was actually really fun and interesting because it's like history and old stories in literature and I like talking and hearing about those kinds of things. Good video Yuta! I might have to go read those stories now.... hahaha

[@mbn9672]

The second group of guys were so funny 😂

[@jvu2ilj26]

The girl at 4:25 is absolutely GORGEOUS!

[@cofffaine2286]

For the first interview, the background music was Grand Escape from Radwimps and I just had a Goosebumps just listening from the song. It was more awesome when I've watched the anime on theater

[@Haou1828]

I've had to read all of these textes for university and it was so hard

[@alexdino1396]

this channel is criminally underrated

[@marcello7781]

Reminds me when I try to read olt tests and most of the times the font is almost unreadable.

[@adiabd1]

I'm a non English native speaker, and I still can't read the American declaration of independence, I just can't read those cursive fonts

[@Fight_SPR]

楷書のひらがなで書いてあったら、音読はできるだろうけど、墨と筆を使った草書で書かれてたら、音読することすら不可能になるねｗ

[@linistamanyemwe9108]

👋

[@jackchiang4117]

You are right. Old letters written by Cursive script are very hard to read. I’m envy that people who ever learned calligraphy .😂
School should teach everyone the writing way of calligraphy not only just rich children whose parents want they to learn !!

[@sakura_mw]

Reminds me of if English speakers reading Beowulf in Old English or Canterbury Tales in Middle English 😅 Classical Japanese literature is so interesting!

[@b04n]

Yutaさん:
Posted a video 15s ago
Me:
Im fast boyyyyyy

[@ms.rstake_1211]

Lol

[@kota8.19]

Ok

[@japanrain7436]

In all jlpt5 fashion: "早いですね。"

[@theTHwa3tes11]

@@japanrain7436 Yep, 早い！！！

[@Krenisphia]

mudda speed

[@kkrddr225]

The title is a bit misleading given all of these are what we'd call in English academic literature 'Middle Japanese,' which can broadly be split into two periods based on linguistic characteristics. The linguistic characteristics of it are quite different from what we see in the Manyoshu etc. which we would call Old Japanese.

[@Azulzinhokkk]

I love these kind of vídeos a lot! I find these people you get to interview very endearing

[@LindaThao]

Always interesting to watch Yuta’s video!

[@extraemail6870]

My Japanese American grandma say’s that when she went to Japan as a teenager (probably in the 1960s) she thought certain words they used for different things were funny/shocking. She said maybe it had to do with the fact that she grew up in a California japanese community where the sole japanese speakers were born in the 1860s-1880s. So it was those older Issei who were passing down the language to their American born kids and grandkids. Ofc, the language never developed/modernized like it did in Japan, so many JAs find themselves speaking an “older” version of the language today. Quite interesting

[@arpitakodagu9854]

Yes, particularly with respect to English loanwords!

[@Figgy5119]

Wait wait, this wasn't in Tokyo?? I heard the telltale signs of Kansai そうなんや, ~やから, ~やろう and 分からへん and 読めへん. What city did you do interviews in this time?

[@alestane2]

It's Osaka. I could find the spot at 2:25 using the sign, then confirm it in Google street.

[@ShinyMcshine]

it's amazing watching them be able to (mostly) decipher these texts from the 9th century, meanwhile Old English texts from the 9th century are all like "Syððan ǣrest ƿearð fēasceaft funden, hē þæs frōfre ġebād, ƿēox under ƿolcnum, ƿeorðmyndum þāh oðþæt him ǣġhƿylc þāra ymbsittendra ofer hronrāde hȳran scolde, gomban gyldan. Þæt ƿæs gōd cyning!"

[@victorclinciu6129]

same there, in Europe a lot of external factors changed the phonetic and writting system.

[@theTHwa3tes11]

😂😂

[@c0wqu3u31at3r]

@@victorclinciu6129 English inherited a fuckload of Norman French for a start.

[@flutterwind7686]

You could Romanize the spelling to get across what it was like phonetically.
Þ and ð is "th" (contrary to what some people might think, they were used somewhat interchangeably and did not necessarily map to voicing)
ƿ is just W, before 'w' was invented, and ǣ is the American a in Cat.
And those bars represented long vowels.

[@danielantony1882]

@@flutterwind7686 That doesn't make the words more recognizable. I can maybe understand 5% more from your explanation. The words are very germanic. I can't figure anything out.

[@jackchiang4117]

That’s funny. You guys interviewed some groups from Kansai area where the people are thought good at history (especially people from Kyoto).LOL.
And the parts of ancient Japanese languages is still remain in Kansai accent more than Tokyo or other places .

[@Seele2015au]

Yuta, Japanese text from as recent as the 1930s can look quite different from what it does now, as the number of kanji got markedly reduced in the meantime. A famous piece of text from that time was the Kwanon camera advertisement before they became Canon, a one-page print ad where the top 2/3 was the picture, and bottom 1/3 is text. It would be interesting to see if it presents any difficulty for modern readers.

[@chenzenzo]

I moved to Japan in 1995. I first lived in Chiba, and later within Tokyo I lived in Yakuska. Old Japanese is very different from today's modern Japanese.
For instance, the people I lived with spoke an older dialect. "Jin O Hanashima's Su, Ka." in older dialect, this is just asking someone if they speak Japanese.

[@Webberjo]

It's interesting to imagine how different the languages of today will be 1000 years from now.

[@ellermg]

Can you explain a little more about old Japanese and modern Japanese, maybe how it has evolved etc?
I'm curious now!

[@yusacetin4235]

So they can read kyuujitai kanji? Or were the kanji presented in shinjitai form?

[@josephcoram4361]

そうですね～。日本で国語を勉強しに行って、クラスはちょっと古典文学を読ませられました。難しかったんですよ。

[@musAKulture]

the first paragraph reminds me of the time i tried to.mail something from.japan to my home in china located at 朱雀门，so i asked the guy to write suzaku mon on the address line and he was like "oh wow so they are the same characters across the languages." and i said yeah my hometown is where kyoto and nara came from so most of the place names can be found...like 上野 京都 青龙寺 北大街 x条

[@dodongai]

I’m Chinese and use traditional Chinese, most of the words are straight forward for me… surprisingly!

[@davidyodo24]

How many times Yuta broke his ceiling during the Intro?

[@iusethisplatform]

English-speakers can't read 13th century English texts almost at all. It's like a different language all together @,@

[@Xezlec]

That's because of the Great Vowel Shift. Most other countries didn't have a major event like that, so they can go back a little further.

[@andreluiz6023]

@@Xezlec and the amount of invasions that brought loan words/expressions/structures

[@yum2735]

@@Xezlec This video was only about reading Late Old Japanese (aka Early Middle Japanese). Modern Japanese speakers wouldn't be able to understand the spoken language of the time. There's a good video called "Early Middle Japanese conversation" by minerva scientia that has the modern pronunciation of Early Middle Japanese in the first part and a more accurate pronunciation in the second part.
Similarly, the English written language is more conservative than the pronunciation and spelling often predates the Great Vowel Shift, so the written language is much easier to understand.

[@MybeautifulandamazingPrincess]

English is spoken by people from various places, but actual English people, ethnically Germanic, can understand most of old English. Other Germanics like Swedish or Germans, can understand even more of Old English than modern English speakers

[@brownbricks6017]

Do Classical Chinese next

[@MrPtrism]

10:17 The way she said that, I thought she was about to break into song.

[@penguin-tc1cx]

xd I mean, Japanese has intonations, so if you’re adept at listening to those, it can sound sort of like a song

[@BlitzboyGaming]

I notice old Japanese text uses more kanji than modern ones, and the kanji characters in the sentence are arranged and structured as how it is read and spoken similarly to how Chinese language would be written or spoken. Especially for the very first text. However, in both languages , the same kanji is pronounce and sound very differently. However after 100s of years later today, a lot has changed.

[@vivida7160]

Older Japanese uses more hiragana because it had more inflectional endings. These inflectional endings were the reason why hiragana was invented in the first place as the Chinese language from which the Japanese borrowed the writing system didn't have words that inflect. Some of the endings have been shortened or have disappeared over time, so now there is less need to use hiragana in writing.

[@ultraali453]

Nice video. Thank you for uploading

[@terryr.1243]

One of the things I discovered when I was stationed in Japan, is how many people flocked, enjoyed and REGULARLY ATTENDED Kabuki theater (KABUKIZA in Tokyo) and often did NOT understand it very well BECAUSE it was spoken in ARCHAIC Japanese. It's like Italian opera; it can be enjoyed very-VERY much without thoroughly understanding absolutely every word. I was brought-up on Italian opera and I NEVER get intimidated when I hear a language I do NOT thoroughly understand. I mean I do NOT ask (N)or expect English translations when I'm in a foreign country; I TRY TO LEARN "THEIR LANGUAGE"; I picked this -up in college when I was studying mostly Russian and Chinese, and thorough I am NOT thoroughly fluent in either language (People rarely give me enough practise because I a black [...you'd be surprised how many people are shocked to find-out a Black person ACTUALLY speaks these language {"If you DON'T use it, ...you LOSE it"}]), after studying them for years (2+ years in Russian and approximately 5 of MANDARIN Chinese) I can "STILL" speak and decipher them, and can tell the differences in dialects when I hear them.

[@flanzz8904]

Really love the channel keep it up

[@beneathaphrygiansky3875]

As Chinese I can almost understand the paragraph from Hijoki, although I hardly read Japanese. And I happen to have one of the book's Chinese versions, which is translated by 王新禧, here is his translation of the paragraph:
安元三年四月廿八夜，烈风劲吹，呼啸不宁。戌时许，自京都东南起火，迅即延烧至西北，旋又波及朱雀门、大极殿、大学寮、民部省各处，一夜间过火之地俱成灰烬。

[@user-dc6vq7zj6d]

I was wondering that in Inuyasha, would she be able to even understand what they were saying? Of course that was not too long ago, only a few hundred years (1400-1600ish)

[@Xezlec]

I can easily understand English from a few hundred years ago. My question would be whether they had the character of Inuyasha use any older turns of phrase. Probably not too much.

[@metalheadcomicbookfan797]

Don't worry folks, as a Filipino. I also had a hard time reading old Filipino poems.

[@Adhjie]

laguna?

[@metalheadcomicbookfan797]

@@Adhjie huh?? anong laguna? xD

[@Adhjie]

@@metalheadcomicbookfan797 LagunaCopperplateInscription mine is prolly yupa from kutai, amazing tho LCI has a lot of languages in it its almost like code switching
Salamat Petang not pagi/pari-pari anymore

[@metalheadcomicbookfan797]

@@Adhjie so ur indonesian??

[@Adhjie]

@@metalheadcomicbookfan797 yeh G'nite

[@joa8593]

You have to have picked three of the most famous works out there for "not famous" passages considering countless documents and government correspondences were written in classical Japanese.
The flow of a river never ceases, and yet the water within is never as it was. Scum upon still water forms and disperses, never retaining its form. People and places too are thus.

[@speedzero7478]

Dunno why I wasn't subscribed to you, I watch all your videos. Bam, subscribed now.

[@majaimay]

This is like a native English speaker trying to read middle English. We can make sense of about a third of it but it's real tough and the rest sounds like gibberish unless you really think about it

[@metamorphic2600]

Not middle english, more likely old english. Many native speakers struggle understanding or sometimes reading Shakespearean works

[@okuyasu4033]

Metamorphic
Dude, middle english is infinitely more difficult than reading shakespeare - who also i don’t think wrote in old or middle english.

[@metamorphic2600]

@@okuyasu4033 :/

[@BrognusBelgen]

@@okuyasu4033 You are correct, Shakespeare is considered Early Modern English. I'd say that written Old English would be closer to Icelandic than modern English. (Written anyways, verbal would be completely different.)

[@MybeautifulandamazingPrincess]

@@metamorphic2600 Shakespeare isn't middle English, it's archaic modern English. Middle English is from the middle ages, when English just started suffering some influence from French. Old English is a fully Germanic Ingvaeonic language (North sea Germanic), no influence of latin whatsoever
However English speakers can still understand 90% of old English, maybe not people that aren't ethnically English and just speak it because the place where they live speaks it, but ethnically Germanic people certainly can understand most old English. Also most borrowed words from latin origin now still have Germanic cognates for the same meaning

[@qwertyasdf2838]

Well it happens in other countries also, in Italy for example The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri (composed between 1307 and 1321)has obscure words and meanings to most of modern people and is teached at what you call college.en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divine_Comedy

[@Chu6um]

Strange as I'd used differences in languages between eras in comparison to learning new languages from old reference books. It was addressing some difficulties in learning English in Japan, and I'd used some of the reasons it might be difficult due to using old books to teach, not being as useful in modern conversational use. I'd used something more contemporary though, Miyamoto Musashi's Go Rin No Sho. Reading and comprehending the older literature can be tricky as you mentioned. Use of words and constructed phrases changes over time, and not understanding the period in which it's written in makes it difficult to fully understand the concepts being expressed.
Hope your new year goes much better than last year. Stay safe!

[@isotropisch82]

Interesting that they can still understand so much. English from 1000yrs ago (prior to any french influence and with much more complicated grammar) is impossible for normal people to understand at all (although speaking German would help). I would assume that it is partly because long periods Japan had limited foreign contact, which not only changes vocabulary, but also grammar and phonology.

[@destroyerinazuma96]

My acquaintance H. said that "old Japanese"/kobun lessons in high school were a pain.

[@donovanmcfay9831]

ユータ様のビデオは愛しています！

[@proudasiangirl576]

Interesting how you show up vertically in your into!

[@supechube_k]

i really thought they would have much more trouble with it

[@vizarrrd]

WakaraHEN
Zenzen CHAU
大阪でしょう？

[@AkiraUema]

That's so interesting!
Some old words that aren't used in Japanese anymore can still be found in the Ryukyuan languages. For example, the Ryukyuan word "tuji" for wife is cognate with the Japanese "toji" (spelt 刀自) and the Ryukyuan "nee" for earthquake is cognate with the Japanese "nai" (spelt なゐ).

[@hypatia-du-bois-marie]

I think this is 古文, classical Japanese, not 上代日本語, Old Japanese.

[@cz2301]

You should,ve shown them Zeami,s 明宿集 lol, mostly written in katakana

[@TheSilverphoenix88]

I don't care what others have said, you Yuta-san are とてもイケメンだよ！

[@FOLIPE]

We have a relatively hard time understanding written Portuguese from 1000 years ago too, it's only normal, since languages change over time.

[@andrewfontana3136]

So relatable, being able to read a lot of words but with not a lot of understanding. Is it bad that watching this was oddly satisfying, seeing nihonjin struggling with their own language? lol

[@randomuser7375]

Your content is very interesting.

[@victoriamarfina9819]

I wish Japanese subtitles of the interviewees' speech were included too. Or if instead of English hard subs there were soft subs for both English an Japanese. That would be helpful for everyone learning Japanese.
It is interesting how the third group of young girls were speaking in your normal everyday Tokyo-ish Japanese, and the first groups used some dialect.