Technical Education in Nara Japan: Text and Context of the Yōshi kangoshō (ca. 720)

The Yōshi kangoshō (Notes on Chinese Words by Master Yako, ca. 720) is a bilingual Sinitic-Japanese dictionary, now lost and surviving only in indirect transmission thanks to quotations in the Wamyōruijushō (Categorized Notes on Japanese Nouns, ca. 934) by Minamoto no Shitagō (911–983). The lexical domains covered by the Yōshi kangoshō deal with technical knowledge, such as terminology for anatomy and medicine, archery, constructions, shipping and shipbuilding, the textile sector (clothes, belts, shoes, sewing, weaving, sericulture, dye- ing, etc.), hippology and stock-breeding, agriculture, cooking, carpentry, sea and earth products, kinship. In this paper, I propose a reconstruction of the Yōshi kangoshō, furnishing the com- plete list of its quotations. I would therefore like to propose that the Yōshi kangoshō should be reconsidered as an educational tool for learning terminologies, and that it was particularly useful for the technical education of clerks.