Late Middle Japanese (中世日本語, chūsei nihongo?) is a stage of the Japanese language following Early Middle Japanese and preceding Modern Japanese. It is a period of transition in which the language sheds many of its archaic features and becomes closer to its modern form.
The period spanned roughly 500 years extending from the 12th century through the 16th century. It is customarily split into an Early and Late division. Politically, the first half of Late Middle Japanese consists of the end of the Heian period known as Insei and the Kamakura period; the second half of Late Middle Japanese consists of the Muromachi period.
Read more about Late Middle Japanese: Background, Grammar
Famous quotes containing the words late, middle and/or japanese:
“Nowadays most people die of a sort of creeping common sense, and discover when it is too late that the only things one never regrets are one’s mistakes.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)
“In the middle classes the gifted son of a family is always the poorest—usually a writer or artist with no sense for speculation—and in a family of peasants, where the average comfort is just over penury, the gifted son sinks also, and is soon a tramp on the roadside.”
—J.M. (John Millington)
“A pragmatic race, the Japanese appear to have decided long ago that the only reason for drinking alcohol is to become intoxicated and therefore drink only when they wish to be drunk.
So I went out into the night and the neon and let the crowd pull me along, walking blind, willing myself to be just a segment of that mass organism, just one more drifting chip of consciousness under the geodesics.”
—William Gibson (b. 1948)