64 Motoori Norinaga Studies of Japanese linguistics and literature really started up in the Edo Period. There were many people who did yeoman work in that field, but we will start with Kitamura Kigin. Kigin was born in the 1st year of Kan'ei (1624) in Oumi. He was born six years after Yamazaki Ansai and two after Yamaga Sokou. He devoted his life to the study and annotation of Japan's ancient literary works. Among his more famous works were A Commentary on Lady Murasaki's "Tale of Genji" (Genji Monogatari Kogetsushou), A Commentary on "The Pillow Book" of Sei Shounagon (Makura no Soushi Shunshoshou), and A Commentary on "Essays in Idleness" (Tsurezuregusa Bundanshou). In addition, he wrote annotations for Tales of Yamato (Yamato Monogatari), Japanese and Chinese Poems to Recite (Wakan Rouei Shuu), The Tosa Diary (Tosa Nikki), Tales of Ise (Ise Monogatari), One Hundred Poems from One Hundred Poets (Hyakunin Isshu), a Compilation of Eight Poetry Anthologies (Hachidaishuu), etc. His labor to show the way to read historical books was a major achievement. Because of his studies and his books, his life seems to have been a hard one, but at the age of sixty-five he come under the care of the shogunate and spent his waning years comfortably, dying in the 2nd year of Houei (1706) at the age of eighty-one. Born after Kigin, in the 17th year of Kan'ei (1641), and dying before him, in the 14th year of Genroku (1701), was the priest of Enjuan named Keichuu. Keichuu's original family name was Shimokawa. It had once been a famous family in service to Katou Kiyomasa with a stipend of 10,000 koku, but after Kiyomasa's fall, Keichuu's father entered the service of the Aoyama, commanders of the castle of Amagasaki, receiving a stipend of only 250 koku. In other words, he had been born into a reputable military house, but quickly entered a Shingon-sect temple and studied to became a Buddhist priest. At one point anguish led him to the point of committing suicide, but he tempered his body and spirit by ascetic wonderings deep in the mountains and valleys. Eventually, he shut himself up in Hisai in Izumi where he gave himself over to the study of Buddhist texts and Chinese classics. At the age of thirty-eight, he became the heat priest of Myouhouji in the Imasato area of Ohsaka. Under commission by the Mito branch of the Tokugawa family, he wrote an annotation of the ancient poetry anthology, The Collection of Ten Thousand Leaves (Man'youshuu). In his later years he lived in Enjuan in Ohsaka's Kouzu district where he worked on his writing. He died in the 1st month of the 14th year of Genroku (1701) at the age of sixty-one. Keichuu's most representational work was his annotation of the Man'youshuu, the Man'you Daishouki. This was the book that had been requested of him by Tokugawa Mitsukuni of Mito, and it was an extremely important work. To develop his explanations on the Man'youshuu, he studied many ancient works including the Record of Ancient Matters (Kojiki), the Chronicles of Japan (Nihon Shoki), the Engi Procedural (Engi Shiki), and the Collection of Ancient and Modern Poems (Kokinshuu). While studying them, he made an incredible discovery. His discovery was that in the classical period, the usage of the kana syllabary had been firmly set and there was no confusion allowed between "i" （い） and "wi" （ゐ）,"e" （え） and "we" （ゑ）, "o" （お） and "wo" （を） - they were clealy separate. This had been the proper way to write the language, and it was beautiful. He realaze that, in the chaotic environment from the medieval period onward, learning had somehow declined and the rules had been forgotten. To brink back the proper order and restore beauty to the language's from, he wrote The Book of Correct Japanese Characters (Waji Shouranshou) in the 6th year of Genroku (1693), nearly 800 years after the completion of the Kokinshuu in the 5th year of Engi (905). Thus it was Keichuu who put back in its original order the language that had become so disordered. For that, students of Japanese culture owe him a great debt of gratitude. There were those who maintained Keichuu's arguments were baseless, and they wrote eight volumes to refute theories that the classical syllabary had set rules for use. When Keichuu saw these, he was enraged. He grabbed his brush and produced five more volumes in a scathing refutation of them. Keichuu's instructions showed the proper form of classical texts and the true beauty of the language. Keichuu placed great inportance on the historical usage of the kana syllabary, and published that fact. Although he published his material, his study was not quite up to par, and Japan wuold have to wait for a later scholar to correct Keichuu. An important point, in the chart laying out the fifty-sounds in order, even Keichuu made a mistake with the placement of the "o" and "wo". Keichuu had: 　Ａ　　Ｉ　　Ｕ　Ｅ　　ＷＯ　　　あ　い　う　え　を 　･･････ 　ＷＡ　ＷＩ　Ｕ　ＷＥ　Ｏ　　　　わ　ゐ　う　ゑ　お instead of the correct: 　Ａ　　Ｉ　　Ｕ　Ｅ　　Ｏ　　　　あ　い　う　え　お 　･･････ 　ＷＡ　ＷＩ　Ｕ　ＷＥ　ＷＯ　　　わ　ゐ　う　ゑ　を It was Motoori Norinaga who put them in the correct order. In the 4th year of An'ei (1775) Norinaga wrote a book called Syllabary Sounds and Usage (Jion Kanazukai) in which he laid the material out clearly. Nearly seventy years later, in the 13th year of Tenpou (1842), Toujou Gimon in Wakasa wrote Namashina, a book on Japanese language study. In that work, he published his great discovery on the proper usage of "mu" （む） and "n" （ん）, which until that time had not been distinguishable one from the other. After detailed investigation of classical texts, he realized that "mu" actually had the sond of Ｍ and belonged in the file that began with that sound (i.e., ma, mi, mu, me, mo ［ま、み、む、め、も］), while "n" did indeed have the Ｎ-sound and so was a part of the n-file ((i.e., na, ni, nu, ne, no ［な、 に、ぬ、ね、の］ - and thus n). In the distant past, Japanese wrote beautiful language with the correct rules. The language had fallen into an over-simplicity, rending the proper forms and destroying its beauty. After falling into disorder during the mediaeval period, Keichuu - and then Norinaga - appeared on the scene, introducing the old ways and discovering the original rules, thus returning the Japanese language to its oroginal form.

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