Kouji Sugi，a man who created own characters: Statistical Museum / 杉 享二・漢字を創ってしまった男：統計資料館

Short movie about Kouji Sugi

Kouji Sugi, born in 1828, became an orphan when he was a kid, studied Dutch when he was in early 20’s and in 1872 he became a head of statistics department for the Meiji government, the only 4 year old newly civilized Japanese government after the 'Shogun's' Edo government.

He was so involved in statistics and felt  necessary to create a new Kanji characters (Chinese origin character) for the word ‘Statistics’ since there were no words in Japanese to, then made up those charactors.

He put together some Kanji letters that pronounce similar to the English sound ‘statistics’.

Unfortunately, we no longer see these kanjis he created, too bad but nice try Sugi san!

Statistical Museum, Tokyo

http://www.stat.go.jp/library/english/index.htm

Museum entrance

杉　享二は1828年に生まれ、幼くして孤児となりオランダ語を20代前半に学び、1872年にまだ発足して４年目の明治政府の統計局の責任者となりました。

彼はそれまでに日本語に無かった「Statistics（統計）」という言葉を漢字で表す事が大切だと考え、創りだしました。

これは英語の「Statistics」に近い発音となるように、音を基に漢字を組み合わせたものでした。

残念ながら、今はこの言葉を見る事はありませんが、杉享二さん,一生懸命だったのですね！

統計資料館,　東京