On the Merits of Kanji (Rant)

On the Merits of Kanji

The Japanese Language is often seen as a difficult one, especially for English speaking people. This is in part due to how structurally different the Japanese language and in part due to the socio-linguistic history of the language.

In any investigation into Japan’s past, a strong command of the Japanese language is vital. But this command is not only in the use of the language but an understanding of the language and its etymology.

The Japanese Language went through reforms in the 20th century to simplify it and to make it most accessible to the masses. One of the best decisions that took place was keeping the use of kanji in the language.

 

Kanji are one of the most complex aspects of the Japanese language. They are so difficult that Korea decided to get rid of them almost entirely. For some, this is seen as a great step forward in simplifying and making the written word more acceptable but there are drawbacks to this. Throughout the history of East Asia the people of what are today- China, Japan, N/S Korea,, Vietnam were heavily influenced by the writing originating in China. This writing system carries with it hundreds of years of history, culture, and meaning that any phonetic writing system lacks.

In Japan, the debate over the use of Kanji is not new. Today we have a list of characters that have been curated in a way that best helps to convey the Japanese language. The list that we have is by no means exhausting the totality of characters that exist in Chinese but what Japanese does is uses the combination of phonetic and pictorial characters to enhance the way that it’s written form communicates.

 

Japanese Used to be Hard. If you are thinking how could Japanese have been harder than it is today? The answer is –decentralization. Prior to the 20th century, the way that Japanese was written lacked a solid uniformity. If we take a look at the three ways that the language can be expressed we will have a better understanding.

Kana: This is the base for many people. What is today for many learners the first step into the language, used to be one of the most confusing aspects. Go for yourself and look up the historical kana forms and pronunciations. Prior to 20th-century kana reforms, Kana had multiple possible reading and several kana could be used for the same phonetic bit. What the reform did was to uniform the sounds and then the second round of reforms came that made it so every sound had only one kana. What is interesting that you can note is that some parts of this still linger in the language today. (The examples of [ha/wa] is the most notable. There are also the much more that are noticeable in the subtle and sometimes not so subtle ways that dialects are represented through the standard kanji.

(Self-indulgent side note: The reality of the disconnect between the written and spoken languages is not one that is unique to East Asian languages. The best example is the Scandinavian languages. Norwegian is a language is written with spelling intended to represent danish. This is not necessarily a terrible thing. In the south, spoken Norwegian had been influenced by danish when Denmark ruled Norway. In this case, the danish writing is a functional fit for spoken Norwegian. The problem arises when you head north. As you leave the areas of Danish influence you the gap between written and spoken starts to widen until it is almost comical how the written and spoken forms are supposed to be the same. One intrepid Norwegian set out on a mission to fix this. He didn’t want any dirty Danish in his Norwegian. He thought that the Norwegian written language should reflect what is actually being spoken. He incorporated aspects of all the different dialects throughout Norway to create a new writing system that more faithfully reflected the spoken word. This new writing system became know as Nynorsk (new Norwegian) which is in contrast to Bokmal (Book language). And thus we can see how trying to represent language in a written form can be a messy business. There needs to be unity in the language before there can be a coherent writing system. As we can see that unity spoken tongues is rarely achieved in a practical manner.

Kanji: The kanji that are used today are the product of careful curation and numerous revisions and attempts. Similar to historical kana usage the number of kanji being used was much greater than it is at present. In addition, each word could be represented by a different character of the form of a character depending on the region of purpose. This made creating a writing system for a diverse state difficult. There were several difficulties faced with the unregulated use of Chinese characters. The first is that in addition to kana which lacked regulation learning several thousand characters was not a realistic expectation for the majority of people. This lead to a lengthy education process that could not compete globally. Newspapers were one of the biggest proponents of kanji reform. Printing was a monuments task and it would cut costs to limit the number of characters being used in print.

The strength of using Chinese characters is that they carry with them meaning outside of the phonetic information. For communication purposed this is more important. Even if one can not pronounce the characters they can still have an understanding of what they mean. This is one of the strengths of kanji use. Throughout Asia, the kanji is a unifying cultural link.

 

Hangul: A Kanji-less future?
When Korea implemented the move to hangul it severed ties to the past. Today Koreans can not read older texts and names are the last refuge of the kanji. Relinquished to a small yet important corner of the language’s domain. Now, this creates a separation between the Korean speaking communities and their neighbors to the east and west. For the

So how did Kanji use in the Japanese Language become what it is today? Well, throughout the 20th century through a complex series of reforms, deliberations, studies and wars the modern Joyo list was born.

The Kanji list used today is one that is a guideline for compulsory education and dictates what kanji can be used in official documents. Between 1900 today this list was created and underwent extensive changes to its content and implementation. From debates on how kanji use should be limited or even abolished to the creation of a list of official kanji the process not only tells the tale of how Japanese came to be simplified but also the story of Japan in the 20th century.