Ryunosuke Akutagawa (1892-1927) opens his 1927 novel “河童” (”Kappa“) with an interesting-looking passage.
叁年前の夏のことです。僕は人并みにリュック?サックを背负ひ、あの上高地の温泉宿から穂高山へ登らうとしました。(San-nen mae no natsu no koto desu. Boku wa hitonami ni ryukku sakku o seoi, ano Kamikōchi no onsen yado kara Hotaka-san e 苍辞产辞谤ō to shimashita, It happened the summer of three years prior. Like anyone else would, I shouldered a backpack, and attempted to summit Mount Hotaka from that Kamikochi hot springs inn.)
Does anything look strange about it to you? Perhaps you spotted the ひ (hi) used instead of い (i) in 背負い (seoi, to carry on one’s back)? Or maybe it was the ら (ra) in what would now be 登ろう (苍辞产辞谤ō, climb)? Avid climbers might know the mountain he’s speaking of as 穂高岳 (Hotaka-dake). In fact, the passage would have looked even more different if it had retained its original 旧漢字 (kyū kanji), older Chinese characters that were eventually replaced by the simplified, modern ones we know today.
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