日本學者對於台灣南島語言研究的貢獻

Japanese Contributions to the Study of Formosan Languages

本文主旨在說明和評述日本學者對於台灣南島語言研究的重要貢獻。台灣的語言學研究，包括漢語方言和南島語，都是在日治時期由小川尚義奠定基礎的。是他最先發現灣南島語言保存了最多古南島語的現象。他的一生都奉獻給台灣語言研究。對台灣南島語言有研究和貢獻的日本語言學者，有以下這六位：小川尚義、淺井惠倫、土田滋、森口恒一、月田尚美和野島本泰。雖非語言學者，但在這一方面也有貢獻的，還包括伊能嘉矩、安倍明義、村上直次郎、清水純等人。小川和淺井的調查研究工作大都在二次世界大戰之前完成的，而土田是在戰後，他們三人對台灣南島語言都有全面性的調查研究和掌握。小川、淺井（1935）合著的《原語による台灣高砂族傳說集》和土田（Tsuchida 1976）的博士論文《古鄒語音韻》（英文）至今仍然是經典之作。其他三人都稍晚才開始，而且只專注於少數特定的語言：森口之於噶瑪蘭、布農、雅美，月田之於阿美和太魯閣，野島之於布農。台灣南島語言如今都是瀕危的語言。幸而在日治時期有好幾位日本學者為我們記錄和留下了各種語言很多珍貴的資料，包括他們生前已公開發表的著作和未發表的許多稿件，大都保存下來，現珍藏在日本東京外國語大學和南山大學，而且都已公開上網。

The main aim of this paper is to discuss important contributions to the study of Formosan languages by Japanese scholars. The pioneer linguist in Taiwan is OGAWA Naoyoshi, who laid the groundwork of linguistic studies of all the languages spoken in Taiwan, including Southern Min, Hakka and the aboriginal languages. He first found that Formosan languages retain many archaic features inherited from proto-Austronesian. Among many other publications, he published a monumental monograph entitled The Myths and Traditions of the Formosan Native Tribes, coauthored with ASAI Erin in 1935. Ogawa and Asai were the two leading linguists of Formosan language studies in the first half of the 20th century. They investigated all important languages and dialects of the mountain and plains tribes. Their field notes and manuscripts are kept at Tokyo University of Foreign Studies and Nanzan University in Nagoya, and the scanned copies can be accessed on the website. Some of these are extremely valuable because they are the only language data available for the languages that have become extinct. A few Japanese scholars, not majoring in linguistics, have also made contributions to the study of Formosan languages. They are INO Kanori, ABE Akiyoshi, MURAKAMI Naojiro and SHIMIZ Jun.TSUCHIDA Shigeru started to investigate Formosan languages in early 1960s and has made extensive field investigations of all the major Formosan languages and dialects. He inspired many other linguists working on these languages. Three younger Japanese linguists, MORIGUCHI Tsunekazu, TSUKIDA Naomi and NOJIMA Motoyasu, also work in this field, but, unlike their predecessors, each of them focuses on one to three languages.