Should Japan Abolish Kanji?

Index said:

Does anybody remember that Japanese tounge twister regarding gardens (にわ；庭）,
some kind of bird (also にわ）, and the fact that there were two of these birds there (this time 二羽 which is also にわ).

I think it was something along the lines of "there are two bird in my garden" ie. にわににわにわがいる、that is 庭ににわ二羽が居る, or something like that. It makes no sense in just kana.

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I just saw this on the 和英交流 (wa-ei kouryuu) forum:

Enoshima said:

uraniwa niwa niwa niwa niwa niwa niwa niwatori ga iru.

sumomomomomomomomomomomomonimoiroiroaru.

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That second one is a killer.

Glenn said:

I just saw this on the 和英交流 (wa-ei kouryuu) forum:

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yeah I knew that one....my gf told me...first time I was like ?_? na...nani ?

Hiragana is a perfect japanese language to read and write in. It'd be much easier for everyone.

Foolish enough!!~

gokarosama said:

To state that "kanji is basically a copy of Chinese" doesn't suggest the writer has a good grasp of how all languages develop over time.

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I don't see there is any necessary to deny Kanji is derived from Chinese, 'coz it's universial knowledge that Chinese charactors are created by Chinese people, not by other people including Japnanese though they are now also using them!!maybe there is some difference between kanji and modern Chinese charactor, but dare anybody annouce that the Kanji is not a copy or imitation of Chinese charactor?!
Really foolish enough! and that's what make I hate Japanese----hypocritical, it seems that they are ungrateful----they are benefit from China in many sides, such as culture and technology. Though modern China so far is not comparable with Japan in many side, but definitely ancient China was powerful and advanced!~ you shall be proud to learn this great Chinese creation----Chinese charators from China!!

I'm all for what you said! and you can say that again!!

Even if Kanji is grammatically important, Kanji is culture.

They haven't got rid of the fundoshi despite other undergarments, they still have the photons, they still have the Kabuki, etc etc.

I'm taking Japanese (first level) in college right now and I must say Kanji is a bit hard but it takes time as with all things. It's really fun. It's easy once you start getting used to it. If you have a pictorial memory (most people do) then once you get the hang of it it's pie!

Besides how boring would it be if we had another romanized language. Characters are more fun.

Kanji is one of the reasons why I started to learn Japanese, ideographic and logographic symbols are fun and once you see how the hen and tsukuri and kanmuris
work (the left, right and top part) the kanji world starts to dance!!
A pity that mainland China has simplified kanji, but seem the Taiwanese has managed to keep the old kanjis, GJ!

It's funny how you say Chinese kanji as it is originally Chinese. In China they called it hanzi, I think. Anyway, a friend of mine said mainland China is using the original hanzi more and more, because the number of educated people is growing.

Meiki said:

It's funny how you say Chinese kanji as it is originally Chinese. In China they called it hanzi, I think. Anyway, a friend of mine said mainland China is using the original hanzi more and more, because the number of educated people is growing.

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I agree with what your friend said about the increase of use of "traditional" characters. Nowadays, in many Chinese soap-ops, the use of traditional characters is much more visible, especially in the subtitles of these dramas. Just 10 years ago, virtually none of the dramas would have used non-simplified characters.

There's also this theory about how simplified characters are easier (and faster) to write, yet the traditional characters are easier to read. Maybe that's one of the reasons why there's a shift in using more traditional characters. Personally I am in favour of using some simplified characters that may make writing easier (such as in the case of the Japanese surname "saito"), but I am not in favour of replacing characters with an easier-to-write version that has absolutely nothing to do with the original word (a typical example would be in the case for the word "back", in Chinese. "後"is replaced by"后", simply because both have identical sounds.

nhk9 said:

Nowadays,in many Chinese soap-ops,the use of traditional characters is much more visible,especially in the subtitles of these dramas.

Personally I am in favour of using some simplified characters that may make writing easier (such as in the case of the Japanese surname "saito").

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There is a gradually use of more Traditional Chinese recent years inside Mainland China,however Simplified version is kept intact in education.As of now,the widely usage of traditional Chinese limited in private business sector.Many if not all film DVD/VCD's have both Simplied and Traditional subtitle versions we can choose with remote control.

I support simplify certain difficult to write Chinese characters with over 25 or many strokes,as in word examples like " change " and " hair ".

Hey !! Ricecake san !! Tell me...since this thread's OP has been resting in peace for a while, and you have posted here in this line of thought, is the Chinese character for the English 'bald' the same as that for the English 'hair' but with just a few (or a whole lot more) less strokes? hee, hee, hee.....MM

I find Kanji fun to learn, and its oddly one of the one things I can be sure of at least studying a little bit each day... My tuttle cards, and my own kanji compound cards litter my desk...

...that said, I think that Kanji definitely add to the difficulties for foreigners living in Japan. Legal documents concerning immigration are written in a kanji-centric verbose form & the translated versions of these documents are not always up to date with the Japanese documents.

I don't think that Japan should, or will, change its writing system, but kanji does present a great cultural barier to full integration.

Mars Man said:

Hey !! Ricecake san !!

is the Chinese character for the English 'bald' the same as that for the English 'hair' but with just a few (or a whole lot more) less strokes ?

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The Chinese character for " bald " has close to 10 strokes versus nearly twice as much for " hair ".

One better word example is the character "animal ",it's challenging in writing.

Back to thread topic,there was a debate in Japan back in mid-late 19th century whether or not to abolish Kanji as Japanese witnessed the collapse of Sinosphere in the region,it never materialized evidently.

Thanks ricecake san !! Yeah, Chinese characters are fine, but, as I often tell my students . . . kanji wa amari kanjirarenai kara ne... (I can't feel Chinese characters so well, so. . .)

すみません but I find this question unreasonable !
Wiping out Kanji is almost like erasing all 日本語.You can't take out the soul of the language , the connoted and historical meanings, the actual beauty of learning 日本語.Besides I think that only lazy people who just don't want to learn Kanji ask for such a request.
ありがとう for letting me share my opinion. I'd like to know if anyone shares the same opinion with me.
またね！

The problem with kanji lies not in its cultural value, which is vast, but rather in its efficiency in the modern world. Learning it takes much longer than learning an alphabetic language and its associated phonics rules (and before you complain about English, please realize that English is a mish-mash of about 4 different languages, but it still has less phonetic rules than kanji has characters).

At the end of the Bronze Age, from Iran to Italy, every single major civilization abandoned ideogramic and syllabic scripts in favor of alphabetic ones. Cuneiform and hieroglyphics became ceremonial knowledge, held only by the priesthoods and the sages. The reason was simple: alphabets are easier to learn. In these ancient languages, a letter was almost always pronounced the same in every case that it was written, so phonics rules were simple. Learning to read was no longer the province of the priests or the aristocracy. Literacy was still low, but compared to the Bronze Age, it was much higher.

Why do I bring this up? Because, in many ways, the Japanese are still stuck in the late Bronze Age when it comes to writing. However, it does not seem to be detrimental. Now, I've never lived in Japan, and have no idea how literate or illiterate they are compared to other cultures. But it seems to me that they do not have any problems.

What is difficult, however, is the transition of their system to the modern keyboard. It is also difficult for someone who has learned to read an alphabetic system to learn an ideographic system. As ricecake pointed out, it takes twice the number of brushstrokes to write "bald" than "hair" in the original Chinese character. Some characters are simple, others are incredibly complex, requiring minute strokes to write, and requiring more energy to discern. It takes six or seven strokes to write the word "bald" out, letters and all, in English, though. So which system is more expedient?

The Chinese system is beneficial because of the vast language gaps in the country. It was devised so that it could be read from one end of the empire to the other. This is almost the equivalent of having a letter written by a man in Canada who only speaks Inuit that can be read by a man who only speaks Quebecois, American English, or Mexican Spanish.

Despite the cultural reasons to retain their traditional methods of writing, the ancient civilizations of the Near East and West all abandoned them in favor of alphabets. Even the Greeks abandoned the Linear A syllabary they had in favor of their more versatile and (for their language) appropriate alphabetic system. That the Chinese haven't is evident due to their unique situation. Even though the Koreans have developed a very unique alphabetic-style system, the Japanese have retained their traditional kanji-hiragana-katakana system, which is difficult for foreigners to learn, and cumbersome to utilize in the modern world of computers.

Perhaps some, such as Maciamo, might suggest they retain it because of its inaccessability to foreigners, suggesting insularity and ethnocentrism to be the reason they retain it. I, for one, would agree that insularity plays a small role, but it is more because of cultural pride in the uniqueness of the system, rather than ethnocentrism. It helps make Japan Japan. In addition, it seems to serve its people well (again, I am working on limited information here, though). The benefits of ease of learning and efficiency when writing or typing are not strong enough incentives to do what the Egyptians, Phoenicians, and Persians did.

Hmmm... I'm under the impression that most people who say kanji is unnecessary or inefficient are those who are not fluent in Japanese. In fact, kanji creats great efficiency especially in reading.

Following is a part of an article from Asahi.com.

日中首脳会談は８日午後に
安倍首相は８日朝、政府専用機で中国・北京に出発し、 同日午後に歓迎式典で迎えられた後、胡錦涛（フー・チンタオ）国家主席との首脳会談を行う。前後に温家宝（ウェン・チアパオ）首相、 呉邦国（ウー・パンクオ）全国人民代表大会常務委員長（国会議長に 相当）とも会談し、夜には温首相主催の晩餐（ばんさん ）会が予定される。

Since kanji has meaning, we can understand the content of the text at a glance. I forgot where I read it, so I cannot give the backing source (pity), but some test proved that average time required to get the same amount of information from English text and Japanese (mixture of kanji, kana) text, Japanese text takes far less time compared with English - because of kanji.

にっちゅうしゅのうかいだんは８かごごに

あべしゅしょうは８かあさ、せいふせんようきでちゅう ごく・ぺきんにしゅっぱつし、どうじつごごにかんげい しきてんでむかえられたあと、フー・チンタオこっかしゅせきとのしゅのうかいだんをおこ なう。ぜんごにウェン・チアパオしゅしょう、ウー・パンクオぜんじんみんだいひょうたいかいじょうむい いんちょう（こっかいぎちょうにそうとう）ともかいだ んし、よるにはウーしゅしょうしゅさいのばんさんかいがよていされる。

Without kanji, it is difficult to see where a word/phrase starts and ends, also it takes ages to understand the text correctly - かいだん? Is it steps, ghost story or conference? せい ふせん ようき? Holy post-it vessel? Oh no, it's せいふ せんよう き - chartered government jet! こっかいぎちょう に そうとう? National Assembly Chairman and President? No, it means "equivalent of National Assembly Chairman".... Telegraph used to be printed in katakana only, and that caused many mistakes and problems.*
(Besides, hiragana takes up a lot more space than kanji - another advantage, efficiency of kanji is a few syllables can be covered just by one kanji.)

Kanji makes it easy to understand.

Personally I find the opinion that the complicated writing system of Japanese language is used to prevent foreigners to integrate, or make it hard to access for them, etc. really absurd.
Japanese language is first and foremost the communication tool for Japanese speakers. We use it daily, we need to convey our thoughts and ideas, everything, correctly and efficiently. We have no reason to make it too complicated or difficult.
It is not something we created to keep ourselves to ourselves and not to let foreigners understand us! If kanji were a factor to make our daily communication too compliated or difficult, would we bother to use them and make our life difficult, just for the people who do not have to speak it and use it daily? No!

Japanese written in romaji is even worse.
Before Japanese word processor and internet were introduced, international communication was quite limited. I was at the very end of the generation that used telex (and no longer with paper tapes, there already was monitors with keyboard to send out messages). Fax was still expensive, so daily communication was made by telex. You can use only alphabets and limited number of marks, and it was really difficult to communicate Japanese people overseas - writing is not too bad, but reading Japanese in romaji is - like hell.

*off-topic note:
Funny (and maybe famous) example
(1)
Telegraph sent by a son to his father:
カネオクレタノム
The father replied
ダレニモラッタ、アマリノムナ
(Who gave it to you? Don't drink too much)
Actually the son meant カネ オクレ タノム (Send money, please) but the father misunderstood it for カネオクレタ ノム (got money, I'll drink).

(2)
A journalist from a newspaper visited another journalist from another paper for an interview. When leaving, the journalist asked to send a telegraph on his behalf, to tell them he's going back.
キシャノキシャハキシャデキシャ
which sounds very confusing, and actually means
貴社の記者は汽車で帰社
The journalist of your company is going back to the office by train.

undrentide said:

Without kanji, it is difficult to see where a word/phrase starts and ends, also it takes ages to understand the text correctly

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That could be adjusted by placing spaces between words like these.

For words that sound the same/have the same writing, context would be used.


I am not in favor of getting rid of Kanji, I just wanted to suggest that.

Sukotto said:

That could be adjusted by placing spaces between words like these.
For words that sound the same/have the same writing, context would be used.
I am not in favor of getting rid of Kanji, I just wanted to suggest that.

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Yes, it is possible to make it less difficult - I don't think it is impossible to read or understand without kanji, but still it will be extremely difficult and the disadvantage will be way far bigger than the advantage (do not have to learn so many kanji, easy to write, etc.) That's what I wanted to emphasize.

Just my 2 cents ...



The opinion of common Japanese only matters to me for they know what's best for them and their country,shame on those irrational Koreans.

Kanji does have it's values,I am not linguistic enough to expand it in greater details ( read : Lexicon's old posts can shed some light ).

ricecake said:

Just my 2 cents ...
The opinion of common Japanese

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This is good stuff.
Since language is ever evolving and evolves from everyday usage of everybody, perhaps suggesting that language should not be managed from on high with mandates for such changes?

undrentide said:

*off-topic note:
Funny (and maybe famous) example
(1)
Telegraph sent by a son to his father:
カネオクレタノム
The father replied
ダレニモラッタ、アマリノムナ
(Who gave it to you? Don't drink too much)
Actually the son meant カネ オクレ タノム (Send money, please) but the father misunderstood it for カネオクレタ ノム (got money, I'll drink).

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Wouldn't it be カネヲクレタノム? Because カネオクレタ means "The money was late." Maybe they don't use ヲ in telegraphs, but I figured they did.

kanji is also the japanese history.
even ordinary japanese can read and undersuand old documents.
therefore , the authority can not fake the history and propagate ppl like korea.
to ablish kanji is an erasure of japanese history.

JimmySeal said:

Wouldn't it be カネヲクレタノム? Because カネオクレタ means "The money was late." Maybe they don't use ヲ in telegraphs, but I figured they did.

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Very much likely. The truth is, it is a sort of myth or joke that has been circulated for quite a long time (don't know the origin but surely more than 30-40 years), and misunderstanding part I picked up from internet, there might be different versions (such as the one you mentioned which makes more sense)...
:joyful: