Authentic(ating) Voices of the Folk: Yanagita Kunio's Criticism of Language Reform
Yanagita Kunio (1875-1962) is best known as an expert on premodern Japanese folk traditions. While his research on dialect is often relegated to the disciplinary boundaries of minzokugaku, he also shares much in common with the Meiji and Taishô literary community in his concern with the possibility for representing an authentic reality through national language. In tandem with his research on regional expressions, he offers severe criticism of centralized language reform. His main concern is over a gradual and increasing loss of personal voice, which he believes is caused by the "parroting" and "memorization" perpetuated by the mass media and the school system. He proposes an alternate method for creating a nationally shared language: a pedagogical stance that draws upon what he saw as the natural "language-creating" abilities of the folk. Conversely, he wonders whether this approach is still possible, given the radical changes that have taken place in the national language even during his own lifetime. Seemingly concerned about the populace-in-general, he presents himself as part of this pre-linguistic double-bind. In his long career as a writer and speaker, Yanagita observes that he has "not once...felt that [he] was able to write or say just what [he] thought." He asks, how can one record things "as they are" when one no longer has the words to think them with? This paper will expose the disjunctures between self, language and national identity found primarily in Yanagita's critical writings on language and dialect such as Kagyûkô (Reflections on Snails, 1927).