Japan and the OED's scholarly reading programme

The library of the Oxford Dictionary Department contains a volume presented by A. S. Hornby in 1976 contining a facsimile of 'A Monograph on the Historical Development of the Functions of "for"' by Sanki Ichikawa. Dr Ichikawa was among the founding fathers of the historical study of the English language in Japan, and this work was his 1909 graduation thesis. The remarkable feature of this book is that the 256 pages are in holograph, beautifully handwritten in copperplate writing with scarcely a single correction. In his conclusion Dr Ichikawa writes:

'I am very sensible of the imperfections, both unavoidable and avoidable, that may have crept into the present thesis, but as the first attempt of a Japanese in the field of the historical grammar of the English language, which it is by no means easy for him to undertake, as matters stand, I hope due allowances will be made for the difficulties experienced in preparing this monograph.'

English scholarship in Japan has moved on momentously since this modest coda of Dr Ichikawa's, and I do not propose to outline its general development here. My purpose is simply to draw out some particular points concerning the OED.

The OED entry for the word 'for' had been compiled twelve years before Dr Ichikawa was writing, and the latter, while acknowledging his extensive debt to the OED, had a number of valuable comments to make on that entry. For example, he gave an Old English antedating of the phrase 'for nought', which OED has from the 13th century onwards. He rightly criticized the OED (sense 27) for not making a clearer distinction between the two constructions 'Your swords are now too massy for your strengths' and 'She is very beautiful for a country maid'. He discussed the phrase 'how's that for ---', giving examples of 'how's that for right', 'how's that for steep', 'how's that for cheek', etc. (lacking from the first edition, but partly supplied by the Supplement compilers who in 1976 added the specific formula 'how's that for high' (HIGH n. 3 b)).

In the Oxford Dictionary Department there has been no opportunity, until very recently, to catalogue, and systematically read, scholarly monographs, like Dr Ichikawa's, that contain information bearing upon the OED. But in the meantime, it need hardly be pointed out, English historical scholarship has gone from strength to strength. Hundreds of articles and books have appeared that either address the OED specifically (supplying antedatings, overlooked words, neologisms, etymologies, etc.) or treat some aspect of the history of the language in a way that directly or indirectly affects the OED's account of the vocabulary of English.

Two years ago a 'scholarly' reading programme was begun to try to make up for the lag in OED's response to the past 90 years' scholarship. Its first phase consisted of combing bibliographies for studies that were likely to be useful. Its second phase, now drawing to an end, has involved our sending about a dozen graduate researchers into various libraries to find these studies and convert their contents into comments or quotations that could be used in the revision of the OED. When studies are unavailable in Oxford academic libraries, research requests are sent to workers in London, Germany, the Netherlands, and the United States.

Among the hundreds of studies we have scanned there are, of course, many Japanese studies that follow the distinguished lead of Dr Ishikawa's 1909 thesis. We have found, however, that a considerable number of very promising-looking articles and books published in Japan are not available in Oxford. Without singling out authors by name, we know of studies on constructions of 'as' and 'with', on the development of 'do', on dialects in English literature in general and the works of specific writers, on the lexis of particular writers or works, on the relative pronoun, stress, and phonology in specific periods, and so on.

It is possible that, if we persist in our searches in different libraries, we shall eventually locate and excerpt successfully all the Japanese studies on our list. This could, however, take us some time. I should like to take the opportunity offered by this OED Newsletter to propose a parallel approach. I should like to ask Japanese scholars working in English linguistic history whether they would be able to help the OED project in any of the following ways:

1. By notifying us either of any studies published in Japan that they believe to be relevant to the revision of the OED, or of any relevant personal discoveries.
2. By sending us offprints or photocopies of any articles of the kind I have mentioned, written either by themselves or by colleagues.
3. By reading through any such articles or books and excerpting materials relevant to the revision of the OED, and sending these notes or quotations to us.

With reference to request no. 3 above: we can send anyone who proposes to carry out such a task for us (a) a list of the studies which we have not yet been able to find and (b) a set of guidelines, explaining our requirements in more detail, with examples. We plan to acknowledge all contributors to the third edition of the OED in the preliminary matter (or its electronic equivalent).

The OED has a long and happy history of collaboration with Japanese scholarship. In 1989, the Co-Editors of the Second Edition were given a very friendly welcome in Tokyo and other cities by audiences who were keen to hear about the creation of the new edition. At the same time, it was impressed on them that a comprehensive revision of the OED, including among many other things the updating of the etymologies, was a must for Japanese scholars. We hope that with support from Japan we will be able to gather all the fruits of 90 years' research into the third edition of the OED.