Nihongo - In Defence of Japanese (Hardcover)

The Japanese language is often under attack by linguists, translators and even amateurs for having a seemingly vague set of rules, making it near impossible to ever fully grasp all of the language's facets. Roy Andrew Miller guides the reader through these often contradictory allegations by evaluating Japanese in the light of linguistic science. He also pays particular attention to the problems inherent in certain systems for describing the language, and to questions posed by published translations from Japanese literature.