Characteristics of Vocabularies in Western Learning Materials: Their Relationships with and Differences from Dictionaries

Abstract

Vocabularies in Western learning materials were originally unpublished manuscripts compiled by 17th-century Dutch-Japanese interpreters in Nagasaki and had the additional role of acting as dictionaries. At the end of the 18th century, however, the roles of vocabularies began to change through the publication of Haruma Wage (波留麻和解, a Dutch-Japanese dictionary) in 1796 and of Ruiju Kōmōgoyaku (類聚紅毛語訳, a Japanese-Dutch vocabulary) in 1798. This paper illustrates the roles of the vocabularies compiled in the 18th and 19th centuries, based on textual examinations, focusing on their relationships with and differences from dictionaries published in the same period.