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| Nippo Jisho | |
|---|---|
| Name | Nippo Jisho |
| Native name | 日葡辞書 |
| Caption | Frontispiece (reconstruction) |
| Author | Jesuit missionaries |
| Country | Japan, Portugal |
| Language | Japanese, Portuguese, Latin |
| Subject | Bilingual dictionary |
| Published | 1603 |
| Pages | ~500 |
Nippo Jisho is an early 17th‑century Japanese–Portuguese dictionary compiled by Jesuits active in Kyoto, Nagasaki, and Macau and first published in Nagasaki in 1603. It served as a practical lexicon for missionaries involved with figures such as Francis Xavier, Alessandro Valignano, and contemporaries operating in the wake of the Sengoku period and during the early Edo period. The work bridges linguistic practice linked to contacts between Portugal, Spain, and the Ryukyu Kingdom and contributed to later lexicography used by visitors from Netherlands and England.
The dictionary was produced under the auspices of the Society of Jesus at a time of intense exchange among ports such as Nagasaki, Hirado, and Macau and amidst diplomatic contact with envoys like those from the Tokugawa shogunate and trading delegations of the Dutch East India Company. Compilers included missionaries trained in Latin and Portuguese who engaged with local interpreters from regions including Kantō, Kansai, and the Ryukyus. Its publication coincided with events including the consolidation of power by Tokugawa Ieyasu and wider missionary efforts connected to leaders such as Toyotomi Hideyoshi.
Compilation drew on glossaries and field notes produced by Jesuits stationed in mission centers like Nagasaki and Macau, using orthographic conventions influenced by printers in Lisbon and Coimbra. Production employed press technology introduced to Asia via figures associated with early printing in Japan and printing houses linked to the Society of Jesus network across Goa and Macau. The 1603 edition was printed in Nagasaki during a period when missionaries coordinated with merchants from Portuguese India and envoys from Toyotomi administration; later copies and notes circulated among scholars in Rome, Seville, and Lisbon.
The work is organized as a bilingual lexicon with entries listing Japanese headwords in late Middle Japanese or early Early Modern Japanese orthography followed by Portuguese equivalents and occasional Latin glosses used by Jesuit scholars educated in institutions like the University of Coimbra and the Gregorian University. Entries encompass words for urban life in Kyoto, maritime terms used at Nagasaki and Hirado, religious vocabulary related to Christianity, agricultural terms from provinces such as Bungo and Satsuma, and courtly vocabulary linked to Imperial Court practice in Heian contexts. The arrangement mixes alphabetical sequences of Portuguese lemmas with Japanese kana and kanji readings, reflecting interaction with printing practices seen in texts from Seville and manuscript conventions used by missionaries in Macau.
Linguists and historians note the dictionary’s value for reconstructing phonology and lexicon of early Early Modern Japanese, providing evidence for pronunciations relevant to studies of Rendaku and mora timing, and offering data comparable with contemporaneous sources such as the Kōjien-era reconstructions and field notes from travelers like Engelbert Kaempfer and Philipp Franz von Siebold. Its Portuguese entries illuminate the lexicon of Portuguese in Asia, showing contact terms adopted into Japanese, similar to later borrowings seen in Dutch-origin vocabulary recorded by the VOC. The presence of Latin glosses connects the work to scholastic training at the Collegio Romano and to multilingual manuscripts circulating among missionaries in Goa.
Contemporaries among missionary networks, traders from the Dutch East India Company and diplomats from Korea noted the dictionary’s utility; later scholars in Europe and visitors such as Isaac Titsingh and Philipp Franz von Siebold used its data for comparative studies. It influenced subsequent lexicographical undertakings, including lexica prepared by translators attached to the VOC and lexicographers in London and Paris who studied Asian languages. The work also affected missionary training at institutions linked to the Society of Jesus and informed linguistic descriptions used by orientalists in libraries like those of Oxford and the Bibliothèque nationale de France.
Extant copies and manuscripts are held in collections in repositories such as the British Library, the Vatican Library, the Biblioteca Nacional de Portugal, and the archives of the Society of Jesus in Rome. Partial copies and transcriptions surfaced in the correspondence of figures like Valignano and in compilations preserved in archives in Lisbon and Seville. Modern scholars working at institutions including University of Tokyo, Leiden University, and University of Oxford have produced critical editions, facsimiles, and analyses comparing the dictionary to sources such as travelogues by William Adams and Jesuit reports cataloged in the Archivum Romanum Societatis Iesu.
Category:Historical dictionaries Category:Christian missions in Japan Category:Portuguese Empire in Asia