Story help

[letianchen]

So I am reading this story on my spare time apart from my other textbook work

太宰治 思ひ出

Here are some things that stood out

立つてゐた

ゐた , SO I looked this up and this is wi, what exactly is it doing, its in quite, a bit of the sentences.
Also how old is this? Alot of the words look weird to me, or I probably dont know enough japanese.
For example
言ひ添へた and 言ふも
What exactly are these saying?

 

[Toritoribe]

That's called 歴史的仮名遣[れきしてきかなづかい] historical kana orthography.

Historical kana orthography - Wikipedia

Those words correspond to 思い出, 立っていた, 言い添えた, 言うも in modern kana usage, respectively.

思ひ出 was published in 1936.

 

[letianchen]

ah I see, ill come back to this stuff later when I have a better handle of things. Do japanese kids study this type of literature in school, like we study shakespear and the like, here?

 

[Toritoribe]

Yes, but in modern kana usage. Unlike classical literature until Edo period , those are basically written in modern Japanese. Probably most of all Japanese students have read the same author 太宰's 走れメロス in junior high school. We learn historical kana orthography in classical Japanese class in high school.

 

[letianchen]

I see,that's interesting lol. Thanks for your response, it seems your English is better than mine

 

[nekojita]

There are some works on aozora which are in modern kana - look for stuff labelled "新字新仮名". e.g. 走れメロス.

 

[letianchen]

Do you know of any with english translations ? I would like to come back to this later, im not that good at japanese still in my first year