Literary Sinitic and East Asia

Kin Bunkyō (Professor emeritus, Kyoto University) is a zainichi Korean scholar who publishes widely in Korean, Japanese, and Chinese on premodern Literary Sinitic literary culture in general, and on Yuan dynasty drama in particular. Ross King (Professor of Korean, Department of Asian Studies, University of British Columbia) publishes widely on Korean historical linguistics and dialectology, as well as on comparative questions of language and writing in the Sinographic Cosmopolis.

Editors’ Preface

 Vernacular Reading in the Sinographic Cosmopolis and Beyond

Author’s Preface to the English Edition

Acknowledgements

List of Figures

Acronyms and Abbreviations



Introduction

 1 Buying Tickets at the Station

 2 A Ticket Gate

 3 Sinographic Expressions in East Asia

 4 “Vernacular Reading”: The Kundoku Phenomenon in the Sinographic Cultural Sphere



1 Reading Literary Sinitic—kundoku “Vernacular Reading” in Japan

 1 What Is Kundoku?

 2 Kundoku and Chinese Translations of Buddhist Sutras

 3 The Ideological Context of kundoku

 4 The Initial Stage of Kundoku: From the Early Nara to the Mid-Heian Periods

 5 Kundoku in the Period of Maturity: From the Mid-Heian to Insei Periods (ca. 10th to 12th Centuries CE)

 6 New Developments in Kundoku: From the Kamakura to Early Modern Periods

 7 Kundoku since the Meiji Period



2 Vernacular Reading in East Asia

 1 Hundok on the Korean Peninsula

 2 Hundok in Silla and Kokunten in Japan

 3 Ideological Background of hundok on the Korean Peninsula

 4 Vernacular Reading Phenomena on the Periphery of China

 5 Vernacular Reading Phenomena in China



3 Writing in Literary Sinitic: The Diverse World of Literary Sinitic in East Asia

 1 The World of Poetry in East Asia

 2 The Diversity of Literary Sinitic



4 Concluding Thoughts: The East Asian Literary Sinitic Cultural Sphere

 1 A Diverse Range of Ways to Pronounce Sinographs

 2 A Diverse Range of Ways to Read Literary Sinitic

 3 A Diverse Range of Literary Sinitic Inscriptional Styles

 4 Literary Sinitic Inscriptional Style and Social Class

 5 East Asian Literary Sinitic Cultural Sphere



5 Epilogue

Bibliography

Index of Named Individuals

Index of Texts Cited

Index and Glossary of Terms