Essays on Writing and Language in Honor - Sino-Platonic Papers

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Schnfrfestschrifi: <strong>Essays</strong> in Honor of John DeFraracis
had lived for a number of years in Europe, principally in Germany, and from Germany he had
brought back German philological methods (Germany was the country then most advanced
in linguistic science), as well as German influence on certain aspects of his thinking. As he
matured, Ueda turned more and more toward the Japanese past and tradition, stressing the
importance of Japanese national character in researching the, national language and
literature. He considered himself a true patriot, whose mission in life was to "restore and raise
the status of [the] Japanese language to a level above the 'yoke' of foreign (Western as well
as Chinese) languages."1°
Ueda's best-known work is the collection of essays entitled Kokueo no tame ("For the
sake of the National Language"). Whatever its value for linguistic scholarship, this work is
important because it represents the credo with which Ueda lived his life. Here are the famous
opening lines of the first volume:
The National Language is the bulwark of the Imperial Household;
The National Language is the blood of the Nation.ll
Consider also this passage taken from later in the work:
Just as blood shows a common birth in the realm of the flesh, language, for the people
who speak it, shows a common birth in the realm of the spirit. If we take the Japanese
national language as an example of this, we should speak of Japanese as the spiritual
blood of the Japanese people.12