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This is a slight introduction to translating a series of books on Japanese swords. First, a little about myself. I went through Japanese Language School at the State Department Foreign Language Institute in Arlington, VA, in 1964, while still in the U.S. Marine Corps. After graduating, I never used the language in any official capacity, and was sent to Hawaii, Vietnam, North Carolina, and California. I continued to study by listening to music, including Enka, Gunka, Minyô, and Naniwa Bushi, translating and also memorizing some of it. In Hawaii, the wife of a friend helped me re-write one of my textbooks into Okinawan, and we did language drills. Finally, on my way back to Viet Nam for a twilight tour (the last duty station before retiring), I was held on Okinawa, as President Nixon was pulling the Marines out from Viet Nam. Alas and alack, I still was not able to obtain a language billet, and retired the following year. I got rid of most of my books, and gave up pursuit of the language.
Fast forward to 1984. I had moved to New Mexico, and went to a local Japanese Festival, and listened to a Shigin presentation. I joined the Shigin group and also the Japanese American Citizens League. Two years later, I was the president of the New Mexico chapter, and the District Secretary and here I started doing abstracts of technical magazines. Later, I began translating patents full time. A friend asked me to translate some Japanese sword material, and thus I found myself on my present path.
When I first tried to translate the material, the question that came to mind was. "Have I ever seen this language before?" This became an oft-repeated refrain. Early on, I took copies from some of the pages to my Shigin practice, and asked for a little assistance from people born, raised, and educated in Japan, of various ages and levels of education. None of them could read any of it. At the time, I had been studying with the group for about 6 years, and it was not as if I were some stranger off the street, so I was not just being brushed off.
Some of the basic problems were: personal names and place names and technical terms relating only to swords. The friend that got me into this lent me a pair of books that had many of the names and technical terms translated from Japanese to English, but so rudimentary I do not even open them any more.
I managed to translate one book about blades from the Koto period, i.e., before 1596. Next, when I began to translate the book on the Shinto period, which covered 1596-1925, I thought it would be fairly easy, since I had already translated one book. Bad guess. This volume had not been re-written in the early 60s, and was still in pre-war Japanese. The grammar was a bit different, and, of course, a number of the kanji were in the archaic form.
My next project was a book on sword judging. I thought it would be a snap, after all, I had just translated two books on swords. However, this was another misjudgment on my part. The writing style was a bit different and there was a much greater depth to the treatment of the subject.
Finally, after to going to sword shows, I acquired a book, "Nihon Tô Meikan." This is a book of sword signatures, and lists about 25,000 smiths, with a total of about 6400 names. The most important feature of this book is that all names have their pronunciations in furigana. Also, there is a directory in the beginning of the book of all kanji used in the first position in names, arranged in stroke order/gojûon jun. In the back of the book, there is a section that lists each of the old kuni of Japan, and provides the pronunciation of each town name in each kuni that appears on a sword tang, along with the present-day address. This is especially important, since many of these place names have faded into the past.
My next project was to start the translation of a 10-volume series, "Nihon Tô Kôza." I obtained permission to use all the pictures, and agreed to pay a royalty, some up front, the rest when the books sold.
I translated the first volume using Word Perfect in DOS, and any Japanese text in the book was inserted using cut-and-paste. The next book was translated using Aldus Pagemaker in English. I inserted the Japanese text by using a graphic type font, which is very unattractive, and inserted captions for the pictures by scanning them and cleaning them up with bit mapping.
The next book I translated was the one on sword guards and sword fittings. This was like a whole new language. Not only were there Japanese names to contend with, but many of these artisans also used a Gô, which is usually a three-kanji name read in onyomi. I found a dictionary of these names, "Kinkô Jiten," but this only provides information on the individuals, no pronunciations. I obtained a later edition, in which about 10% of the names were spelled out in hiragana. In the introduction to the book the author specifically addressed the problem, stating that he inserted the pronunciations he was certain were correct. I now have a third edition, in which pronunciations are provided for all of the regular names. However, there is a separate section devoted to Gô, in which no pronunciations are given. The only help is that they are arranged in gojûon jun, which usually gives a hint as to the pronunciation of the first kanji. There is an index in the back of the regular art names, and it provides an English spelling of each name. It is arranged in gojûon jun, but the onyomi are used in listing them. Thus, if you want to look up a name starting with 宗 do not look under MUNE, but under SOU. A different dictionary of names uses a mixture of onyomi and kunyumi in the indexing, and you just have to try both.
Now then, to elaborate a little bit on names. I have a copy of the two-volume name dictionary by Nichigai Associates, and it is of some help. However, it can confuse the issue by providing too many choices. With swordsmith names, as a general rule, these are two ji, each ji usually has a two-syllable pronunciation, and these are usually read in kunyomi. For example, in one group, there is a TOSHINAGA 利寿, and besides him, there is a TOSHINAGA 寿永, and TOSHINAGA 利長. In some instances, 寿 is read as TOSHI, and in others it is read JU.
When dealing with metalworkers names, until I recently acquired the above-mentioned new edition, I used the general rule that, if the master's name was read in onyomi, so too were those of his students and successors.
There is a smith named SA左, and there is a line of smiths after him who preceded their name with SA 左, so you might have, for example, SA YASUYOSHI 左安吉. I came across SA MUTSU 左陸奥, at least that is how I read it. Then a man sent me an article about a sword in Australia made by SA MUTSU左陸奥. On closer examination (it was small print), I saw that the furigana said HIDARI MUTSU. Here is how that happened. There was a smith named KANEYASU包保 that was granted the title of MUTSU NO DAIJO陸奥大掾, and later, MUTSU NO KAMI陸奥守. He inscribed his mei in SAMOJI左文字 (left-handed writing), which had to be held to a mirror to be read properly. I do not know why this is considered "left-handed"; I had a brother that was left-handed, and I did not have to use a mirror to read his writing. You can see why this would be confusing to me. Anyway, he was said to be HIDARIKIKI左利, and so, he is known as HIDARI MUTSU左陸奥. You will not find him listed as such in any ordinary book, but I was able to verify this by using a five-volume sword encyclopedia. His son, who signed normally, is known as, you guessed it, MIGI MUTSU 右陸奥, and no, you will not find him listed as such.
In translating the book on sword guards and sword fittings, I used Windows 3.1 and Aldus Pagemaker, but this time I had a better font. Still, it was a gruesome task to insert the kanji. I had to switch back and forth between the kanji program and the word processor for each insertion, and because the base lines were different, I had to switch between graphic and text mode in order to align the base lines. Of course, this was done one time with however many kanji were in a given insertion. After the book was translated, it took about two months to insert the kanji.
That was enough of that. I obtained DOS J, Windows 3.1 in Japanese, and Aldus Pagemaker in Japanese. This greatly simplified the insertion of kanji, which actually created work, since I now had no excuse to leave kanji out from names, both personal and place, and dates. My object was to not only provide a translation of the material, but also to provide a learning tool for those that wished to learn enough to get around in some of the many Japanese books available on the subject.
The publisher of the books did not have any of the original negatives, so I had to lift the photos through conventional silver salts photography. For the first four books, the printer did this chore, but for the next book, since the printer had lost the employee that did this, I had to learn how to do it and do it myself at his shop. For the sixth book, I used a scanner, using a program that automatically removes moire (Image Assistant, Caere Corporation), and I printed it on a Lexmark Optra, with 1200 X 1200 dpi. In translating sword books, I find about seven or eight specialized dictionaries necessary: These include a five-volume encyclopedia on swords, a chimei jiten, a jinmei jiten, and a postal directory. These are, of course, all in Japanese. In addition, sometimes I need to reference historical dictionaries, and books in English, such as "Legend in Japanese Art" by Henri Joly. This last is necessary when translating material on sword guards and sword furniture, because the themes have to be explained. Also, I had to reference the Kojiki and the Nihon Shôki, because in writing about some of the swords in the Kotô periods, references were made to historical/mythical personages whom the average non-Japanese would not understand. This is in addition to regular dictionaries, such as the Daijiten, Nelson's Japanese English Character Dictionary, Kokugo Daijiten, and Morohashi's 12 Volume Dai Kan-Wa Jiten.
One problem I run into is the fact that sometimes, in the books, a section will be copied as is from an older book, and not translated into modern Japanese. Sometimes it is in Sôrô-bun, and sometimes in Kanbun. Regional terms are sometimes used. A couple of simple problems were as follows: at one time, 錵 was used for NIE, which is a fine crystalline structure. Some writers abbreviated this as 花, and if you were not aware of the former, you had a real problem. Also, 中心 is read as NAKAGO in sword parlance, which is the tang. This is also sometimes written as 忠, all the while 茎 existing as a perfectly valid ji for this term.
Throughout this time, I have managed to keep my computers running and upgrade them when necessary, whether hardware or software. After all, where can you go for help in New Mexico or West Texas when your computer won't run in Japanese?
Now, I should address marketing. This is a very specialized book for an extremely small market. I did initial printings of 400 each. I soon sold 250 copies of the reprints of the books on modern swords, Shintô and Shinshintô, and so reprinted the three volumes on Kotô swords, anticipating selling at least 150 right away. It took me years to sell that many. I advertise in publications directed specifically at the sword world. Not everybody that is willing to pay 10,000 dollars and up for a sword or 2,000 dollars for a tsuba (sword guard) is willing to pay the exhorbitant sum of 150 dollars for a book. As for publishing, I privately published the books, paying for both the printing and binding, so reprinting the three kotô volumes was not an astute move.
Finally, I guess I have to mention this. I have not lived as a civilian in Japan, nor have I lived with a Japanese person, in or out of wedlock. I cannot read newspapers or manga, but I can read electronic patents about as easily in Japanese as in English, and usually translate them using continuous voice-type dictation. I was an electronics technician in the Marine Corps. I also translate patents related to mechanical subjects, since I did study mechanical engineering in college for a while, with emphasis on machining and metallurgy. My verbal skills are very limited, since hermits do not engage in conversation to any great extent, and to learn a spoken language, one must speak it. I do like Karaoke, but only in Japanese, because the Japanese are too polite to laugh at me.
In his spare time, the author does patent translation.