Go-on

Go-on (呉音) are one of the different readings of Japanese kanji. They are old pronunciations of Chinese characters, believed to be taken from China to Japan prior to the importation (by the Kenzuishi envoy to the Sui dynasty and monks studying abroad) of "kan-on" (漢音, lit. "Han sound") readings from Chang'an during the Nara period. Like kan-on readings, they are said to display the characteristics of Middle Chinese.

Introduced to Japan during the 5th and 6th centuries, when China was divided into separate Northern and Southern Dynasties, it is thought that go-on readings were imported either directly from the Southern dynasty, or through the Korean peninsula. This explanation is based mainly on historical reasoning: there was an influx of other foreign thought from China and Korea to Japan at that time, including both Buddhist and Confucianist thought. However, there is no historical documentation to conclusively demonstrate that go-on readings are actually based on Southern dynastic Chinese.

Go-on readings are used particularly often in Buddhist terms and legal terms, especially those of the Nara and Heian periods. When kan-on readings were introduced to Japan, their go-on equivalents did not disappear, and even today, go-on and kan-on readings continue to be used together. Go-on readings were also used for the Chinese characters of the ancient Japanese syllabary used in the Kojiki.

Name

Go-on readings were formerly referred to as "wa-on" (和音, lit. "Japanese sound"). The term "go-on" was first introduced in the mid-Heian period, likely by people who wished to promote kan-on readings. During the Tang Dynasty, people in the capital (Chang'an) referred to their own way of reading characters as "qínyīn" (秦音, shin'on, lit. "Qin sound") and all other readings, particularly those originating south of the Yangtze, as "wúyīn" (呉音, lit. "Wu sound"), or one of many other similar names. It is thought that Japanese students studying in China adopted this practice, and, taking the position that Chang'an's readings were the correct ones, they also began to refer to Japan's previously imported kanji readings as "go-on".

Go-on readings are also sometimes referred to as "tsushima-on" (対馬音, lit. "Tsushima sound") and "kudara-on" (百済音, literally "Baekje sound"). This is according to a tradition that a Baekjean nun named Hōmei taught Buddhism in Tsushima by reading the Vimalakīrti Sutra entirely in go-on.

History

In "Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan, Volume 8" by the Asiatic Society of Japan", an account is given on the history of Go-on and Kan-on:

"INFLUENCE OF CHINESE DIALECTS ON THE JAPANESE PRONUNCIATION OF THE CHINESE PART OF THE JAPANESE LANGUAGE. [Bead June 29,1880.]"

"1. In reading the Gospel of Mark in Japanese by Dr. Hepburn I was struck with the pronunciation of it si, to wash. It is sen. In the city of Sung Kiang, near Shanghai, this character is called sien. This also is the old pronunciation, as may be seen in Kang hi and in the Japanese dictionaries. Sung .Kiang is only thirty miles from Shanghai. In Shanghai, however, the final n is unknown in this word. The Japanese dictionaries give both sen and se as the sound, but sen is the more common. The Kan on is se or sat while the Go on is sen. But the Go on is the dialect of the Wu kingdom, apparently called Ngo or Go, and Sung Kiang is in the country formerly embraced in the Wu kingdom.

2. The Japanese have no theory respecting changes in the Chinese language, and from them we only know certain dates (not altogether trustworthy, as Mr. Satow has pointed out) of the introduction of Chinese sounds, and some few particulars respecting persons and places concerned. In the treatise §pj ffi ^! Gen-Shiyou Zhiyutsu-riyaku,1 first teacher the Japanese had, is given as A.D. 285. This is the fifth year after the last king of the Wu kingdom had submitted to the T'sin empire. The Wu kingdom had its capital at Nanking, and it was there that, some forty years before, Sun Kiucu had received a native of the Roman empire who called himaelf T'sin lun (Djin Ion). The capital of the T'sin dynasty was first at Lo yang in Honan, and afterwards at Changsha in Shensi. Wang jen is said to have been descended from the founder of the Han dynasty, Lieu Pang. Wang jen's grandfather went, says the account, from China to reside in Korea, in the kingdom then called Pe tsi (Pak tse). The Chinese dialect he made use of would naturally be that of Honan and Shan si, yet Lieu Pang himself B.C. 195 belonged to the Wu kingdom.

S. The Japanese say that Wang jen taught the pronunciation they call the Kan on, and that the Kan on dates in the first place from his time. In A.D. 780, before the time of Kou-bofu Dai-shi, who introduced the hiracjana native characters, it was found that it was necessary to have the official language uniform throughout Japan. The interests of the public service required this. It was decreed that Chinese should be taught with this object, and that teachers should be everywhere appointed. They were called "Tongue men" fjf A Zetiu-zhin. Four names are mentioned, apparently of Japanese origin, of teachers commissioned to act in execution of this decree. They instructed pupils in Chinese.

4. Six years later a Brahman from southern India is mentioned as arriving in Japan. He is called Bodhi. He was accompanied by a Cambodian named Buddha tetsu ^ fj. They came by way of China. Since it is not mentioned that they came from Korea, they would, it is likely, go by the route that Kou-bofu afterwards took from Central China. Kou-bofu, as the romance of his lifo recently published states, went from Ning po (fjjj $•) Ming Cheu) to Tsukushi.8 This romance is called Kou-bofu Dai-shi Go ichi-dai san-gi. The author is Kan-kuu, a priest of the Hofu-kai-zbi temple in Kiyau-to. A romance is of no authority, but it indicates what the author of this historical novel, writing A.D. 1888, thought was the route he took, and he may have had documents on which to found the statement. That Ningpo continued to be the chief port for north China for several centuries later is shown by the circumstance that in A.D. 1122 the Chinese ambassador to Korea, proceeding from Fien Hang on the Yellow river in the first instance, went from Ningpo in a fleet of eight vessels. The historian of the expedition mentions the use of the mariner's compass, the oldest known record of its employment in the literature of any country, so far as I am aware. The Wu country, which gives its name to the Go on of Japan, extended to the south from Nanking and Sucheu, so as to include all the Chinese colonies on the south-eastern seaboard. The dialeot would be homogeneous, it is likely, all the way from Nanking to Fucheu, which is mentioned by the Kiyau-to novelist as the port to which Kou-bofu Dai-shi was carried by a violent wind on his voyage to China, Ming cheu (Ningpo) was the chief port and Fucheu the next in importance. The junks of that time, when Tsung ming had still not risen out of the waters, would fear the vast sandbanks hidden under the muddy waters of the Yang tsi, and would prefer the Chusan archipelago, where the path to and from their harbour is easily traced among the islands. Later on, when the Ning po river became shallow, Kanp'u and Chapoo became the ports for Japanese trade. The elevation of Tsung ming, and the consequent formation of the north and south channels in its vicinity, opened the way for Shanghai becoming a port; and at the same time, by the elevation of the sea bottom, Chapoo lost its trade through the increasing shallowness of its anchorage. All this bears on the question of the dialect intended by the Go on.

5. A large number of words in the Go on commencing with w, y, e, etc., have h in the mandarin dialect. Such are ^j wa ( Kan on kuwaj, El wq(kuwai), gg waku (koku), g| waku (koku), it was (kmt-auj, %£ wefkeij, ilk' waku (kuwakuj. This last word the Chinese tonic dictionaries give with the weak aspirate as the initial, as in $j hu, where the h is scarcely heard in the old middle dialect. The Japanese 31 J| Giyoku-hen gives the initial as that of Jj wei, which never had an aspirate in the Chinese tonic dictionaries.

There are some others, as it, we (kuwaij, |g wo (kuwai), Jl wau (kuwau).

The Go on sounds have been in disrepute as compared with the Kan on. The literati have favoured the Kan on as not being Buddhist. Vol. vm. 61

Hence in the 3? J| Giyoku-hen the Go on is rarely given. When it is given it is because it has forced itself into notice by its own persistence in the case of certain common words like these here given.

All these words belong to the lower series, which consists of words with sonant initials. In this series the weak aspirate is correlate to g, d and b, as in the upper series the strong aspirate is correlate to k, t, p.

Only the Kan on sound is given in my authority (Giyoku-hen) in such words as §t kou, %fc ken, ^ kuwan, pi ko. These ought to have the nigori and be pronounced with the initial g. Or they should have dropped the aspirate, as may be shown was sometimes formerly the case with the Woo dialect of ancient China.

In looking over the Amoy dictionaries of Medhurst and Douglas I find the following instances where the h is dropped in words of the lower series fffc, £. M, j£, g|, jj^j 01 N. These are in Shanghai wo, wo, pen, Aung (very weak h, often entirely lost), Aen, ha, yan (very weak «), wang. In Amoy colloquial they are oe, wa, hung, ang, au, oe, eng, ng. In the reading sounds of Amoy they are hwa, hwa, wall, hang, he (as aw in saw), ho, an, hong. This peculiarity of the old Woo dialect may be thus seen to be preserved partially in the colloquial, and in the reading sounds. The same words are in Canton wa, wa, well, hung, hau, wu, han, wong. The old Woo dialect continued then all the way to Canton, if other points of resemblance can be found.

6. The question then which now shapes itself before our minds is as to whether the Go on of Japan is the dialect of South China from the river Yang-tsze to Canton, and the Kan on the north dialect of China particularly as spoken in the old capitals, Loyang and Chang-an.

I incline to the view that the northern and southern dialects of old China were not distinguished by any such great variations as exist at present, and that so far as the Go on and Kan on of Japan differ from each other, they represent with considerable accuracy the amount and nature of the variations.

Taking the omission of the aspirate in words of the sonant series as a test, we find at once by consulting the Korean transcription that the pronunciation registered with the Korean alphabet belongs to the Kan on, for the words which in Southern China lose h keep it in Korean reading. As there was formerly much intercourse by sea between Korea and Ningpo, we must suppose that Buddhism, which formerly flourished so greatly in Chekiang and Kiangsu, must have had a certain effect on the Korean pronunciation of words used by the Buddhists. Since that time the Confucian spirit in Korea has risen to the point of bigotry, and Buddhism has enjoyed little favour. In the public edicts against the Roman Catholic religion promulgated in Korea, one great fault pointed at with vigorous condemnation has been its alleged likeness to Buddhism. The peculiar pronunciation taught by the Buddhists iu Korea would not therefore be favoured by the literati, and it never gained the influence it had in Japan, where the government of the Shiyau-gun shewed on all occasions a warm admiration for the religion, books and ritual of Shakyamuni.

7. It is time to point out the other chief features of difference between the two prevalent Chinese orthographies preserved by the Japanese.

One of the most striking is b in the Kan on for m in the Go on. To account for this we must suppose that in Honan and Shensi a thousand years ago it was common to pronounce m like b, or construct a theory for the upgrowth in Japan itself of a faulty way of pronouncing m. The Kan on transcription has in most cases b for the m of the Go on. It is not so in all cases. In the History of the After Han dynasty8 the Japanese name Yamato is spelt with fgj ma.

The Syrian inscription erected 1,200 years ago in Changan uses jj£ for the word Messiah. This is G. mi, K. bi. The Sanskrit transcription is quite regular. M corresponds to m and b to b. The Korean transcription has also m for m. All these four authorities agree with the Go on. We conclude that the Go on sound also prevailed in north China, and that the Kan on variation has to support it in this instance only local peculiarities in certain parts of China, as in Fukien. The Amoy people have a very strongly marked b in most cases where m should occur. But there are no traces of this peculiarity in provinces farther North.

In Mongol behe occurs for the Chinese mek, "ink;" bal for the Chinese mit, " honey ;" Abida for Amida, the name of a Buddhist divinity. These are all the examples I can find. They indicate a fondness for b in preference to m, and nothing more. They do not prove that the old Chinese pronunciation also preferred b to m. We must follow the dictionaries and the Chinese, Syrian, Sanskrit and Korean evidence already given.

In the Amoy and Tiechiu pronunciation of words beginning in m, the usurping b resigns its position when a nasal final occurs. This seems to indicate that the original sound was in.

8. Thus we are reduced to the alternative that the Kan on peculiarity which consists in pronouncing b for m is probably of Japanese origin. This hypothesis seems on the face of it very unlikely. But what are we to do with the fact that the Chinese m represents Sanskrit in in the works of Hiuen Tsaug, the famous Buddhist traveller? His translations were made about A.D. 650 in Shensi. Could they have failed to contain traces of this initial 6 for m if such a peculiarity had existed there at the time in the spoken tongue of the people? On the other hand m is a very favourite letter in the Japanese vocabulary, and is found both in the native stock of words and in the Go on. Thus mata " and " is the Mongol bona, "and." Uma, " horse" is the Mongol morin. Amai, "sweet," is the Mongol amatai. Meshi, "food," is bada. Mi, " body," is biyi, beye. Motome, " seek," is bedere hu. If this change of m to b was Chinese it has left behind it few traces. In these circumstances the question, what was the occasion of b being in the Kan on prominently used for m must on the whole be decided against the Kan on.

9. Another difference between the Go on and Kan on is in the preference of the former for a medial ia and of the latter for a medial A. Thus fj hing "to do," "walk " is in G kiyau, shortened into Kid, and in A' hei. In Shanghai it is hang, in Amoy kiang (this ng is nasalized). It should be here noticed that the Go on is older than the Kan on, just as a present the northern dialect is new while the southern dialects are old. The language has changed more and faster in North China than in south. When ei took the place of ya in the Japanese transcription! it was the register of a step in the process of change and it heralded a further change to i, the present medial vowel.

10. In the Go on the initial n corresponds to the Chinese n. In Kan on it is sometimes changed to d. This it is difficult to find evidence for on Chinese ground. In Nanking n becomes I. The same is true in Hunan and in Fukien. The Japanese enunciate I or r often as if it were d. Have they themselves made the change from n to r and then from r to d? In the Chinese tonic dictionaries the letters n and l are kept well apart. So also the evidence from Sanskrit and Korean is in favour of the view that the initial n of north China was the same a thousand years ago that it is now.

We are driven then to the supposition that the Go on in writing n for the Chinese n is correct, and that the introduction in the Kan on of d in place of n is caused by Japanese habits of enunciation. The nearest approach to it that we can find in China is I for n in some modern dialects, and some of the teachers of Chinese who went to Japan to give instruction may have had this local peculiarity, which became exaggerated by their pupils through a tendency to change I to d. The result is seen in a Japanese initial d for the Chinese n. But the origin may be purely Japanese.

11. The change of m to b and n to d in the Kan on indicates weakness in the liquids and strength among the sonants. The want of power to separate r from t is another indication of the same thing, as also the tendency to change r into d which we find among some Japanese speakers.

12. The Kan on is more modern than the Go on. The orthography of the Kan on points to a certain progress made by the language between the third century and the seventh. Thus "stone," which is now sM, was in the time of the Go on zhiak, and in that of the Kan on zhek. Just as at present the language of south China is older than that of the north in its idiotisms and pronunciation, so also in the early Christian centuries the Go on of south China was older in form than that of north China. But the language of the south was more like that of the north then than now. By the growth of mandarin and the decay of ages great differences have been introduced. In the ruined abbeys of England it is found that in one a gateway remains and in another the church, here the refectory and there a tower. So in China one part of the old language has been retained in the modern speech of the province and another part in that of another. Time has been busy destroying the old language in all the provinces, but its most prominent peculiarities have been best kept in the middle and southern portions adjacent to the sea.' 18. The following examples will show the nature of the changes made in the interval between the time of the Kan on and of the Go on, or, as it may be, the variety in the pronunciation of the northern and of the southern Chinese a thousand years ago. The history of the two pronunciations extended itself over several centuries, and it was the work of many persons to establish them in Japan.

In chronology the Go on precedes the Kan on and the Kan on the mandarin.

In geography the Qo on is predominantly south and the Kan on predominantly north.

North China was first colonized and has had a much longer time then south China to develop the language. This accounts for the thorough changes that have taken place in north China.

'For the peculiarities of the dialects my grammar of the Mandarin Language and also that of the Shanghai dialect may be consulted.

14. The points where the Go on and Kan on are alike are much more numerous than the points where they differ. The following are examples

OLD SOUND.

tok

tai

wang

t'en

am

ti

zen

15. In the restored old sounds we have the finals k, t, p witnessed to by the Kan on and the Go on. Formerly in Japan when A mu was used for the modern V n it was possible to represent the old final m; but not in distinction from the old final n except imperfectly. Hence in the E -fj| {|j j$ ^ Shiyau-shin-ge tai-i, a Buddhist work, a copy of which I have, though the final signs mu A and n -y are both used, they are not employed with perfect regularity. Mu is used for final m of old Chinese in 78 cases correctly. Final n is used for the old Chinese final m in 28 cases. Final m is used for the old Chinese final n in 8 cases. Final n is used in writing the final n of the old Chinese in nearly 800 cases.

16. The result of this inquiry is that in the Go on the final m of Chinese was represented by the Japanese mu in three-fourths of the instances. The final n of Chinese was represented by n uniformly with few exceptions. The Go on at first aimed to retain the Chinese finals m and n in distinction from each other.

17. When I wrote my Mandarin Grammar 28 years ago I was only able to speak of the old Chinese language as continuing unbroken till the formation of the mandarin, without having data to speak distinctly of a northern and southern dialect. But it seems to me on the whole clear from the history and character of the Kan on and Go on that it is possible now to proceed further, and to divide the Chinese language as it was a thousand and fifteen hundred years ago into a north and south branch.

18. In restoring the old Chinese pronunciation, we have better help from the Japanese transcription than from any other source. We do not yet know the age of the Korean transcription, nor have we such good Korean dictionaries as we have Japanese. The Sanskrit words written in Chinese by the early Buddhist translators are much too limited in range to represent the full Chinese vocabulary. Whether the Koreans have a Go on as well as a Kan on we do not yet know.

19. What we now need is to have a vocabulary of Chinese words arranged both alphabetically and in the order of the tonic dictionaries. In such a vocabulary we need not only the Japanese sounds, but the restored Chinese old sounds. The Chinese sh, chi, ts and s, with all the aspirates, must be placed correctly where the Japanese confuse them. The final tsu and chi must be changed to a pure f in finals. The irregularity of the nigori must be rectified, and also of the final m and n in Buddhist works, such as the Shiyau-shin-ge.

20. A very useful practical result of inquiries into this subject would be an improved Kan on and Go on prepared and published with the Mikado's government authority, in which, for example, the final ng of Chinese should be restored. The Japanese can pronounce it extremely well now, though they could not do so, or thought they could not do so, many years ago. The very troublesome initial d for -the Chinese n should be changed for m and b to m wherever it can be shewn that the old Chinese pronunciation was not what the Japanese took it to be."

Characteristics

Go-on readings are generally less orderly than kan-on readings, but can be characterized as follows.

• The voiced consonants and unvoiced consonants of Middle Chinese are differentiated for initial consonants.
• The initial nasal stops of Middle Chinese are pronounced as nasals. In kan-on, they are pronounced as voiced plosives.
• In go-on readings of characters such as 素 ("so", "su"), 奴 ("no", "nu") and 都 ("to", tsu") otherwise equivalent "-o" and "-u" readings are both acceptable and widespread.

On readings of Kanji

character/word	Go-on (呉音)	Kan-on (漢音)
明	myō	mei
京	kyō	kei
下	ge	ka
上下	jō-ge	sho ka

See also

• Hakka Chinese
• Checked tone

References

Most of the content of this article comes from the equivalent Japanese-language article, accessed on June 5, 2006.