JAPANESE WAS FIRST taught at Edinburgh in 1976, when it was offered to students on the MA Honours in Chinese programme as part of their degree. In Scotland undergraduate degrees usually take four years and lead directly to an MA degree. In the late 1980s, with the appointment of Dr Nobuko Ishii, a specialist in mediaeval Japanese narratives, to a lectureship in Japanese, pre- Honours courses in Japanese language (Japanese 1 and Japanese 2) were set up. Japanese 1 had a limited number of places, but was open to students on any undergraduate programme, while Japanese 2 was open to students who had performed well in Japanese 1. Students on the MA Honours in Chinese programme were allowed to take these courses as Honours options in their third and fourth years, and this arrangement continued until the year abroad for MA Honours in Chinese was moved from second year to third year.

In autumn 1990, full undergraduate degree programmes (MA Honours) were established in Japanese and Japanese & Linguistics in a Centre for Japanese Studies within East Asian Studies. Dr Helen Parker, who works on traditional Japanese theatre, was appointed as a second Lecturer in Japanese: the post was supported by the Japan Foundation for the first three years. The first intending Honours students were admitted to the first year at this stage and, in addition, one or two students who had successfully completed Japanese 1 and Japanese 2 were allowed to progress straight to the third year of the newly established degree programme (i.e., the year abroad in Japan), so the first graduates were awarded their degrees in 1992. Professor Ron Asher (Linguistics and Dean of the Faculty of Arts) presented theatre director Ninagawa Yukio for an honorary degree at the degree ceremony in the same year.

In October 1993, Ms Hiromi Kawahara was appointed as the first Foreign Language Assistant, succeeded during the following year by Ms Kazuyo Igarashi. From January 1994, Dr Margaret Mehl, whose specialism was historiography and Meiji history, was appointed as a Lecturer in Japanese Civilization, and her mission was to set up a pre-Honours course in Japanese Civilization and a fourth year Honours course in Japanese History.