A TEXTUAL RESEARCH ON JAPANESE GRAMMAR PUBLISHED IN MACAO DURING THE 17TH CENTURY: FEATURES AND LINGUISTIC OUTLOOK OF THE ARTE BREVE DA LINGOA IAPOA十七世紀在澳門出版的日語語法《日本小文典》的功能和語言觀

This article analyzes, from a textual and linguistic perspective, the Japanese grammar **Arte Breve da Lingoa Iapoa** (1620), published in Macau by João Rodrigues, with the aim of identifying its main characteristics and the underlying linguistic vision. Based on a comparative **textual research** b...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Review of Culture
Main Author: Chen Fangze
Format: Articles
Published: Instituto Cultural de Macau 2013
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Online Access:https://www.icm.gov.mo/rc/viewer/pdfViewerParts/40043/2726
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Summary:This article analyzes, from a textual and linguistic perspective, the Japanese grammar **Arte Breve da Lingoa Iapoa** (1620), published in Macau by João Rodrigues, with the aim of identifying its main characteristics and the underlying linguistic vision. Based on a comparative **textual research** between the **Arte Breve** and the author’s earlier work (**Arte da Lingoa de Iapam**), the study reconstructs how Rodrigues redefines the teaching of Japanese for European beginners in the missionary and intercultural mediation context. Methodologically, the article examines editorial and pedagogical choices (structure, reorganization of content, and degree of condensation), as well as theoretical decisions, especially the relationship between the description of Japanese and the Latin grammatical tradition. The results show that the **Arte Breve** represents a significant turning point: (i) it partially breaks away from structural dependence on the Latin model by proposing a system more suited to the study of Japanese; (ii) it **strategically integrates writing** and the learning of letters/syllabaries at the beginning of the manual; and (iii) it reconfigures grammatical categories, such as the notion of **article** (understood as a particle) and aspects of **conjugation** (including past-tense auxiliaries). It is concluded that the work, although Latinizing in terminology, reveals a functional and pedagogical orientation aimed at learners, reflecting a conception of Japanese that prioritizes the operational description of linguistic phenomena.
ISSN:1682-1106