Japan, Edo, Nagasaki

Engelbert Kaempfer

From the publishers leaflet: "Engelbert Kaempfer was the most celebrated German explorer of the baroque period. He stayed in Japan from 1690 to 1692. His reports in Amoenitates Exoticae and in the History of Japan have shaped European views of Japan fo centuries. One can directly trace the stereotypification of the consensus society and the image of the self-contained country back to Kaempfer. This volume includes the most important essays and contributions presented at two conferences held in 1990 on the occasion of the 300th anniversary of Kaempfer's landing in Japan - a symposium held in Tokyo by the German Institute of Japanese Studies and a symposium organized bz the Engelbert-Kaempfer Society Lemgo. It considers biographical, historical, linguistic, botanic, medical and geographical aspects of Kaempfer's work. Along with articles on Kampfer's research on the Near East and India, the publication gives prominence to work by Y. Brown, W. Michel, W. Muntschik, Y. Nagasumi, P. van den Velde and others who offer new insights into Kaempfer's work on Japan and connected materials." --- Using several unpublished sources from the Kaempfer collection in the British Library this paper deals with Kaempfer's research on the Japanese language: Kaempfer's method of transliteration, his glossary and phrase samples, his notes on the writing system as well as his view on the origin of the Japanese language and its relation to the Chinese language etc. This is the first study ever on that matter.

Book chapter

17th century, early modern period, Genroku period