was a Japanese

Japanese people

The are an ethnic group originating in the Japanese archipelago and are the predominant ethnic group of Japan. Worldwide, approximately 130 million people are of Japanese descent; of these, approximately 127 million are residents of Japan. People of Japanese ancestry who live in other countries...

 linguist

Linguistics

Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. Linguistics can be broadly broken into three categories or subfields of study: language form, language meaning, and language in context....

, born in Tsuruga

Tsuruga, Fukui

is a city located in southern Fukui Prefecture, Japan.-Outline:One of city of Wakasa Area, present southern Fukui Prececture. Municipalized on April 1, 1937....

, Fukui Prefecture

Fukui Prefecture

is a prefecture of Japan located in the Chūbu region on Honshū island. The capital is the city of Fukui.- Prehistory :The Kitadani Dinosaur Quarry, on the Sugiyama River within the city limits of Katsuyama, has yielded the Fukuiraptor kitadaniensis and Fukuisaurus tetoriensis as well as an unnamed...

, Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

.

Biography

Hashimoto is especially noted for the discovery of Jōdai Tokushu Kanazukai

Jodai Tokushu Kanazukai

is an archaic kanazukai used to write Japanese during the Nara period. Its primary feature is to distinguish between two groups of syllables as discussed below that later merged together.-Syllables:Following are the syllabic distinctions made in Old Japanese....

, which makes it clear that Old Japanese

Old Japanese language

is the oldest attested stage of the Japanese language.This stage in the development of Japanese is still actively studied and debated, and key Old Japanese texts, such as the Man'yōshū, remain obscure in places.-Dating:...

 made more syllabic distinctions than later periods of the language. This discovery led him to hypothesize that Old Japanese had eight vowel

Vowel

In phonetics, a vowel is a sound in spoken language, such as English ah! or oh! , pronounced with an open vocal tract so that there is no build-up of air pressure at any point above the glottis. This contrasts with consonants, such as English sh! , where there is a constriction or closure at some...

s, while modern Japanese

Japanese language

is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...

 has only five. His systematic description of the Japanese grammar also laid the foundations of language education

Language education

Language education is the teaching and learning of a foreign or second language. Language education is a branch of applied linguistics.- Need for language education :...

 for Japanese children.

See also

• Japanese literature
  Japanese literature
  Early works of Japanese literature were heavily influenced by cultural contact with China and Chinese literature, often written in Classical Chinese. Indian literature also had an influence through the diffusion of Buddhism in Japan...
  
  
• List of Japanese authors