Kaidā logogram
Encyclopedia
Kaidā script is a writing system
of unknown provenance once used in the Yaeyama
islands and on Yonaguni
, the southwestern-most of the Ryukyu Islands
in Japan
. They were primarily used along with Suzhou numerals for economic records: taxes, business transactions, crop and fishery yields, and the like. During the Meiji Era they were used for postings in primary schools; they were evidently accurate enough to make corrections to official announcements. Although some Kaidā tax records on wood are preserved in the National Museum of Ethnology
, the overwhelming majority have been lost or discarded over the years, particularly those written on material such as leaves. They are currently used on Yonaguni and Taketomi for folk art, T-shirts, and other products, more for their artistic value than as a writing or record-keeping system. Distinctions that were optional in the Yonaguni language
were reflected in kaida writing, as there are separate glyphs for commercially important distinctions like mare (mīnma) and stallion (biginma).
visited Shuri
on the main Okinawan island and, while unable to reach the Yaeyamas, copied single kaida characters and reproduced them in Luchu Islands and Their Inhabitants, published by the Anthropological Journal of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
In 1915 the mathematics teacher Kiichi Yamuro (矢袋喜一) included many more examples of kaida writing, barazan knotted counting ropes, and local number words (along with a reproduction of Sasamori's records) in his book on Old Ryukyuan Mathematics (琉球古来の数学). At this time kaida writing was still in daily use, but by the time anthropologist Tadao Kawamura (河村 只雄) made his anthropological study of the islands in 1940, the imposition of the Japanese language had accelerated and kaida writing was in decline.
With the abolition of the "head tax" in 1903, the primary impetus for kaida writing had been removed, but it lived on in the form of personal record keeping and even in sending packages (Kawamura 1941). In the 1930s the imposition of the Japanese language became more stringent, with the infamous dialect tags hung around the necks of children who insisted on using the local language, and kaida writing began to disappear. Today only a few elderly residents of the Yaeyama islands can remember the active use of kaida writing, and local record-keeping has long since been changed to Japanese.
Writing system
A writing system is a symbolic system used to represent elements or statements expressible in language.-General properties:Writing systems are distinguished from other possible symbolic communication systems in that the reader must usually understand something of the associated spoken language to...
of unknown provenance once used in the Yaeyama
Yaeyama
Yaeyama may refer to:* Yaeyama Islands, an archipelago in Okinawa Prefecture, Japan* Yaeyama District, Okinawa, an administrative division covering most of the Yaeyama Islands* Yaeyama language, a language spoken in the Yaeyama Islands...
islands and on Yonaguni
Yonaguni
is one of the Yaeyama Islands. It is the westernmost inhabited island of Japan and lies from the east coast of Taiwan, between the East China Sea and the Pacific Ocean proper....
, the southwestern-most of the Ryukyu Islands
Ryukyu Islands
The , also known as the , is a chain of islands in the western Pacific, on the eastern limit of the East China Sea and to the southwest of the island of Kyushu in Japan. From about 1829 until the mid 20th century, they were alternately called Luchu, Loochoo, or Lewchew, akin to the Mandarin...
in 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...
. They were primarily used along with Suzhou numerals for economic records: taxes, business transactions, crop and fishery yields, and the like. During the Meiji Era they were used for postings in primary schools; they were evidently accurate enough to make corrections to official announcements. Although some Kaidā tax records on wood are preserved in the National Museum of Ethnology
National Museum of Ethnology, Japan
The National Museum of Ethnology in Japan, is the Japan's largest research institute in the academic disciplines of humanities and social sciences, which was established in 1974 and opened to the public in 1977. It is built on the former grounds of Expo '70 in Suita, Osaka...
, the overwhelming majority have been lost or discarded over the years, particularly those written on material such as leaves. They are currently used on Yonaguni and Taketomi for folk art, T-shirts, and other products, more for their artistic value than as a writing or record-keeping system. Distinctions that were optional in the Yonaguni language
Yonaguni language
Yonaguni is a Ryukyuan language spoken by around 800 people on the island of Yonaguni, in the Ryukyu Islands, just east of Taiwan. It is most closely related to Yaeyama..-Phonology:...
were reflected in kaida writing, as there are separate glyphs for commercially important distinctions like mare (mīnma) and stallion (biginma).
Discovery of kaida writing by outside visitors
The first non-Yaeyaman author to comment on kaida writing was Gisuke Sasamori (笹森 儀助), who left copies of many short kaida texts in his Nantō Tanken (南島探検, Exploration of the Southern Islands), a record of his 1893 visit to Okinawa which also mentions the hard labor imposed on the islanders by the regime. Around the same time, British Japanologist Basil ChamberlainBasil Hall Chamberlain
Basil Hall Chamberlain was a professor of Tokyo Imperial University and one of the foremost British Japanologists active in Japan during the late 19th century. He also wrote some of the earliest translations of haiku into English...
visited Shuri
Shuri
Shuri may refer to:* Shuri, Bhutan* Shuri, Okinawa - former capital of the Ryūkyū Kingdom.* Shuri Kondo...
on the main Okinawan island and, while unable to reach the Yaeyamas, copied single kaida characters and reproduced them in Luchu Islands and Their Inhabitants, published by the Anthropological Journal of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
In 1915 the mathematics teacher Kiichi Yamuro (矢袋喜一) included many more examples of kaida writing, barazan knotted counting ropes, and local number words (along with a reproduction of Sasamori's records) in his book on Old Ryukyuan Mathematics (琉球古来の数学). At this time kaida writing was still in daily use, but by the time anthropologist Tadao Kawamura (河村 只雄) made his anthropological study of the islands in 1940, the imposition of the Japanese language had accelerated and kaida writing was in decline.
With the abolition of the "head tax" in 1903, the primary impetus for kaida writing had been removed, but it lived on in the form of personal record keeping and even in sending packages (Kawamura 1941). In the 1930s the imposition of the Japanese language became more stringent, with the infamous dialect tags hung around the necks of children who insisted on using the local language, and kaida writing began to disappear. Today only a few elderly residents of the Yaeyama islands can remember the active use of kaida writing, and local record-keeping has long since been changed to Japanese.
External links
- カイダ文字 (Okinawa Prefectural Government)