CL wrote:

> I don't think that it was the spoken form that was used for official
> business, it was written.

I think it depends on which period of history we are talking about.
Obviously, the Chinese writing system lends itself to being used by grups of
people whose actual spoken languages are quite different, and written
Chinese serves to bind linguistic communities together inside China today.

However, during the Nara and early Heian periods (up to the 11th century)
Japan had prolonged close cultural and diplomatic contact with China. Many
Japanese scholars spent years of their lives in Japan, and returned with an
excellent knowledge of the spoken language. I'm pretty sure (without being
any kind of specialist in the area) that, in addition to China proper,
Japan, Korea, the Ryukyu islands and Burma (and perhaps other parts of Asia)
were using spoken Chinese as a lingua franca at that time.

Even after this, it was the custom, for hundreds of years, to recite kanbun
(Sino-Japanese) out loud and, while it differs greatly from spoken Chinese,
my understanding is that it has sufficient points of similarity (both with
Chinese and with Sino-Korean and Sino-Vietnamese) to be used as a basic
lingua franca.

CL continued:

> > The story goes that [Sugawara no Michizane] upset the Fujiwaras by
> > refusing to join an embassy to Chang-an.  Although he was considered
> > the best writer of the classical Chinese memorial form outside China,
> > he was aware that his pronunciation was terrible if even existent at
all.
> > Rather than bring Japan into disrepute by sounding like a hick or an
idiot,
> > he refused to go and was punished.

And Marvel asked:

> John, is that in your collection of books?

I have an old two-volume set (1852) that gives a pretty full history
(http://rarebooksinjapan.com/images/tenmangu2.JPG). I'll have to check the
specific reference, but according to my description, based on the work I did
on it a couple of years or so ago:

"In 894, Sugawara refused an appointment as kentoushi (cultural ambassador)
to T'ang China on account of growing instability in China and the dangers of
encountering pirates during the crossing. This was a historical decision,
leading to the demise of the tradition whereby Japan sent its greatest
scholars overseas and giving rise to a period in which the indigenous
Japanese culture flourished and developed."
(http://rarebooksinjapan.com/OLDERJAPANESEBOOKS.htm; scroll about
three-quarters of the way down.)

This is the first time I have heard the version that says he refused to go
because he knew his Chinese wasn't good enough, though Wikipedia says the
same thing:

"A potential ulterior motive [for refusing to go to China] may have lain in
Michizane's almost complete ignorance of spoken Chinese; most Japanese at
the time only read Chinese, and knew little to nothing about the spoken
language."
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sugawara_no_Michizane)

Frankly, I'm rather sceptical of this. Japan had sent many scholars to China
for centuries prior to this:

"After 400 AD, [Japan's contact with China] was direct and eventually peaked
at around 1000 AD. By that time there had been a massive influx of cultural
ideas and technology from China for about 300 years."
(http://tinyurl.com/zbfsp)

It's hard to believe that Sugawara - living at a time of such a "massive
influx" of Chinese culture and a noted poet in the Chinese language -
couldn't actually speak Chinese, especially since, "Sometimes, as a result
of his Chinese language skill he was appointed to diplomatic offices, to
host foreign embassies."
(http://www.answers.com/topic/sugawara-no-michizane)

--
John
http://rarebooksinjapan.com