William George Aston

Aston was born near Derry, Ireland. He distinguished himself at Queen's College, Belfast (now Queen's University Belfast), which he attended 1859–1863. There he received a very thorough philological training in Latin, Greek, French, German and modern history. One of his professors was James McCosh. ==Career==

Aston was appointed student interpreter to the British Legation in Japan on August 16, 1864 after passing a competitive examination and obtaining an honorary certificate on August 10. He mastered the theory of the Japanese verb, and in Edo began, with Ernest Mason Satow, those profound researches into the Japanese language which laid the foundations of the critical study of the Japanese language by western scholars. He was appointed CMG in the 1889 Birthday Honours. Japan Aston made a major contribution to the fledgling study of Japan's language and history in the 19th century. Along with Ernest Mason Satow and Basil Hall Chamberlain, he was one of three major British Japanologists active in Japan during the 19th century. Aston was the first translator of the Nihongi into the English language (1896). Other publications were two Japanese grammars (1868 and 1872) and A History of Japanese Literature (1899). He lectured to the Asiatic Society of Japan several times, and many of his papers are published in their Transactions. and they were published in 2004. This part of Aston's personal collection is now preserved in the Institute of Oriental Manuscripts of the Russian Academy of Sciences in St Petersburg. ==Later years==

After retiring from the consular service, Aston published books on Japanese literature and Japanese religion as well as a number of articles on Korean subjects. He died 22 November 1911 at Beer, Devon. Along with the Japanese books already mentioned Aston's substantial collection of Chinese and Korean books was acquired by Cambridge University Library after his death. ==Research notes==

The only known likeness of Aston is in the National Portrait Gallery in London. A 1911 crayon drawing of Aston by Minnie Agnes Cohen only suggests what he might have looked like as a younger man. Very little is known about Aston's personal life because he left no letters or diaries. ==Selected works==

In a statistical overview derived from writings by and about William George Aston, OCLC/WorldCat encompasses roughly 90+ works in 200+ publications in 4 languages and 3,000+ library holdings. • 1869 — A Short Grammar of the Japanese Spoken Language • 1872 — A Grammar of the Japanese Written Language, with a short chrestomathy • 1877 — A Grammar of the Japanese Written Language • 1888 — A Grammar of the Japanese Spoken Language • 1889 — Early Japanese history • 1896 — Nihongi; Chronicles of Japan from the Earliest Times to A.D. 697 • 1899 — A History of Japanese Literature (available at Wikisource) • 1899 — Toriwi--its derivation • 1902 — Littérature japonaise • 1905 — Shinto, the Way of the Gods. • 1907 — Shinto, the Ancient Religion of Japan Articles • 1879 — "H.M.S. Phaeton at Nagasaki," Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan, Vol. 7, pp. 323–336. ==See also==