A Japanese Grammar

The Grammar of the Japanese language, which accompanied with this Preface, is simultaneously published in the English and in the Dutch languages, is an original work, not a remodelling or an imitation of any other works of that stamp at present existing. As the result of a many years’ study of the Japanese literature, it describes the written or book language, as it really exists in its ancient, as well as in its modern forms.

It also contains the author’s own observations on the domain of the spoken language, which his intercourse with native Japanese in France, in Engeland and especially in the Netherlands has afforded him ample opportunities to make; opportunities, which have been the more valuable to him, in as much as that they brought him in contact with people belonging to the most civilized and the most learned, as well as with those of the inferior classes of Japanese society. Thence he derives the right, even though he has never actually trodden the soil of Japan, to embrace the spoken language in the range of his observations, and to treat it in connection with the written language.

The author is convinced that, all he has quoted from Japanese writings, whatever their character, is genuine: he relies upon it himself, and trusts that the experience of others, unprejudiced, will find that it is so.

With regard to the manner in which he has conceived the language, and in all its phenomena treated it analytically and synthetically, he believes it to be in consonance with the spirit of this language, simple and natural, and, – his daily experience confirms this, – thoroughly practical.