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In a learned and thoughtful book by Professor Gelb, of Chicago (A Study of Writing: the Foundations of Grammatology2), which I am quite incompetent to review as a whole, there are a number of misleading statements in the section headed Japanese Syllabary. The excuse for drawing attention to them here is that if uncorrected they may put readers who are without a knowledge of Japanese onto false tracks.
That the katakana, ‘ side kana’, is ‘so named because it appears chiefly in addition to the Chinese word signs’ (p. 159) is not the generally accepted explanation, nor does it seem very likely. The reason usually given for the name is that the katakana signs are parts, generally one or the other side, of Chinese characters.
- Type
- Notes and Communications
- Information
- Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies , Volume 16 , Issue 2 , June 1954 , pp. 392 - 394
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- Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies 1954
References
page 393 note 1 The verb 
is a difficult one. In the middle-Sabæan text R. 4646/1 it occurs in association with the verb ryś ‘ decree ’. In R. 4324/2 it is rendered by Höfner ‘ grant, give ’, but this must be regarded as conjectural, in view of the fragmentary nature of the line. A meaning ‘ come to terms with, come to an agreement with’ seems a possible development for late-Sabæan. So far as concerns middle-Sabæan, this verb must be distinguished from 
which is a technicality of agricultural practice. G. R., in stating that ‘ Beeston inclinerait (d'après Stehle) à tenir et pour des “ alternative forms ” ’ has by an oversight attributed to me a view which is the exact reverse of the one I actually expressed in TPS., 1951, pp. 19–20, where I wrote ‘ it is far from self-evident that and should be, as Stehle calls them, “ alternative forms ” of the same root’.
page 393 note 2 Reviewed on p. 422.