A Study on <I>Exercises in the Yokohama Dialect</I>

Abstract

Some twenty years ago, this writer referred to Exercises in the Yokohama Dialect in Yokohama in the Meiji Era. As Frank Daniels (1948) states, “for all its fooling (humorous 'English' spellings of Japanese words, mock-serious grammatical notes, etc.), ” the pamphlet shows its author to have been “an acute and accurate observer.” The review of the pamphlet in The Japan Gazette (Nov. 1, 1879), reprinted from The New Quarterly Magazine, indicates the author of the pamphlet was Hoffman Atkinson, though his name does not appear on any of the copies this writer has seen. Hoffman Atkinson was a resident of Yokohama for several years and later became secretary of the American Legation in St. Petersburg.No copy of the first edition has been found, but its review is found in The Japan Weekly Mail (Nov. 22, 1873). A copy of the second edition (1874), as well as some copies of the revised and enlarged edition, has been kept in the Yokohama Archives of History. The edition, revised and enlarged by “the Bishop of Homoco, ” was published in 1879, and has been reprinted many times, though the date of reprint is not always included.Some facts about F. A. Cope, whose pseudonym was “the Bishop of Homoco, ” and about John Grigor and Ng Choy, to whom, in addition to Max Muller, the pamphlet was dedicated, have been ascertained.