ABC Dictionary of Ancient Japanese Phonograms

The title ABC Dictionary might indicate that this is a book for beginners, but it is in fact a very specialised academic work of value to advanced researchers into sixth to eighth century Japanese language use. A more accurate description would be a concordance of ancient Sino-Japanese character use. As such, it is a major work of scholarship but unfortunately, its arrangement means its content is only easily accessible to experts.

The dictionary covers the 1,215 characters used in the earliest Japanese texts. Each entry contains the character, its Old Japanese reading (in an unusual Romanisation, see below), a range...