This is a master's thesis describing wamei 和名, the vernacular (that is, non-Linnaean) naming of animals and plants in the Japanese language. It does not presume any knowledge of Japanese. I believe that any student of Japanese who is interested in both the history of that language and natural history will also find this interesting. (I was rapt for hours, reading it yesterday.)
ABSTRACT
Since prehistory Japanese people have named animals, plants and natural phenomena using their own language. Neither the advent of Chinese as a written language in the sixth century nor subsequently of modern Western science and its associated literature in the nineteenth substantially changed this practice.
Vernacular names remain the principal vehicle for natural knowledge within Japan, offering beginners a path to advanced scholarship that does not require the acquisition of a foreign language. They are not subject to formal laws such as those governing scientific nomenclature but instead to the rule of consensus. They nevertheless represent a parallel system based on more localized concepts that at species level is equally or more granular than scientific nomenclature, and their cultural grounding in the Japanese language means that they link to broader networks of local knowledge.
This paper explores the history of Japanese vernacular names in natural history and examines their scientific, epistemic and social functions. Their growth in number and sophistication following the scientific reforms of the Meiji period is linked to the establishment of a national education system that sought to teach Western science without adopting its parent languages.
Examples are given of historical and contemporary usage of Japanese names in natural history, and the ongoing debates over their use, function and regulation are reviewed.
LINK
Nature of names: Japanese vernacular nomenclature in natural science.
(Paul Callomon, 2016, Drexel University)
by frankenbuddha