During the Japanese Occupation of the Southeast Asian territories, the Military Administration aspired for the Japanese language to become the common language of the region. This is an official Japanese “East Asia” dictionary published by the Administration in Singapore (then renamed as “Syonan To”) for the locals. As the Japanese retained local civil servants for running the occupied territory, those who were proficient in the language were able to secure better positions in the bureaucracy. To aid their learning, this dictionary contains English, Chinese and Malay translations and phonetic transcriptions for Japanese words.
