Should Japan Abolish Kanji?

[kireikoori]

How would Sinizing our own language make every language the same?
Finnish has used the Roman writing system for years, yet they're still not even considered in the same language family as Indo-European.

Written language =/= spoken language.
And I'm not say we "Westerners" drop the Roman writing system. I'm thinking a duality would be good, that we learn both.

 

[grapefruit]

The issue of having difficulty with locating word boundaries could be overcome with introducing spacing between each word like the Korean language does these days. It is just a matter of habit.

It would be beneficial to invest the time spend on kanji learning in other subject learning such as math, science, and English.

 

[undrentide]

The issue of having difficulty with locating word boundaries could be overcome with introducing spacing between each word like the Korean language does these days. It is just a matter of habit.

It would be beneficial to invest the time spend on kanji learning in other subject learning such as math, science, and English.

If you learn Japanese language, you'll realize it is extremely difficult to read Japanese written only in kana, with or without the space between words. Function of kanji is not just to show the word boundaries...
With kanji, one can grasp the meaning at a glance. Without kanji, it would take a lot more time, and what should we do homonyms?

 

[bammbamm&pebbles]

With kanji, one can grasp the meaning at a glance. Without kanji, it would take a lot more time

ditto .... ditto ....

 

[Chirpy9]

I am a staunch lover of Kanjis.
I dont think of any reason why Japan should abolish Kanji. Today it is Kanji, tomorrow it can be writing Hiragana. People might come up and say, Lets abolish Hiragana. Instead, start righting in Romaji only.
I think other than people and culture, its the languge - the kind of script - that makes a country stand apart.
So, definitely its an absolute no-no as far as Kanji abolition is concerned.

 

[grapefruit]

With kanji, one can grasp the meaning at a glance. Without kanji, it would take a lot more time, and what should we do homonyms?

It is possible to grasp the meaning of a word at a glance without kanji. Koreans can grasp at a glance the meaning of the word that is written in Hangul. Indeed, the same issue of identification was discussed when Koreans initiated reducing the use of Chinese characters. Today, the new generations don't feel any difficulty reading text in Hangul.

The issue of homonyms is a myth. In speech, none of us gets confused because words have context. What is mentioned before in text enables us to narrow down the domain. Word associations also help. It is true that written language is different from speech, but with enough context, readers can follow the story, because bottom-up processing is not the only process employed in reading text.

The reason why we all feel difficult comprehending text without kanji is that we are not used to reading text without kanji. If you take a look at texts that use katakana and kanji instead of hiragana and kanji (official documents were written in this way before the end of the war) you will find this style is difficult to read. The perceived difficulty is due to little exposure to the style. With sufficient training, you can read smoothly.

One problem unique to Japanese, however, is the length of text. If kanji is not employed, the text will be too long. Korean does not have this problem because one Hangul character is capable of packing two consonants and one to two vowels. Japanese hiragana or kanakana on the other hand can signify only one consonant and one vowel.

Oh, then Japanese should employ Hangul instead.

I'm not saying that abolishing kanji is a better choice, but that it is possible to abolish kanji without sacrificing communicative value. There are many reasons for preserving kanji, though.

 

[Chidoriashi]

but that it is possible to abolish kanji without sacrificing communicative value. There are many reasons for preserving kanji, though.

I must say I disagree with this. Having kanji allows for nuances in words to be more effectively communicated. Also because kanji has meaning, it makes for easier understanding of new and/or complicated words.

 

[undrentide]

It is possible to grasp the meaning of a word at a glance without kanji. Koreans can grasp at a glance the meaning of the word that is written in Hangul. Indeed, the same issue of identification was discussed when Koreans initiated reducing the use of Chinese characters. Today, the new generations don't feel any difficulty reading text in Hangul.

The issue of homonyms is a myth. In speech, none of us gets confused because words have context. What is mentioned before in text enables us to narrow down the domain. Word associations also help. It is true that written language is different from speech, but with enough context, readers can follow the story, because bottom-up processing is not the only process employed in reading text.

It is possible to understand the meaning by reading text without kanji, but not at a glance. One needs to read with paying a lot more attention.
And the issue of homonyms is not a myth. Yes, it is possible to guess the correct meaning from the context, but even when we are talking (not writing), we sometimes ask to the speaker which word he means by asking "which kanji?" I believe that the definition of the word "intelligiblity" is being able to be understood without effort. Japanese text without kanji lacks intelligibility.

きしゃのきしゃはきしゃにてきしゃした。
うらにわにはにわ、にわにはにわ、にわとりがいる。

The above sentences are classic example to show the importance of kanji in Japanese text. :roflmao:

I've read somewhere (forgot where, but it was not on internet but a book or a magazine) that kanji also makes it easy to guess the meaning of the word even one does not know the word or thing it refers.
The authour took an example of the word limnology.

In English, limnology means "the scientific study of bodies of freshwater (as lakes)". The "-logy" is often used for study so one can guess it is a study of something, but unless one knows the Greek word limnē it is difficult to understand what kind of study limnology is.

In Japanese it is 湖沼学. Even people who do not know there exist such a study, it is easily understood that it is the study related lakes thanks to the common kanji.

If this word is written in kana, we have the same problem in English.
こしょうがく.
One wonders whether it is 呼称 or 故障 or 胡椒 or 湖沼 + 学.
Or should it be 額 or 岳 or 楽 or 顎? (I could list a lot more "gaku").
Or maybe punctuation is incorrect, it might be not koshou+gaku but ko+shougaku?

The point is, with kanji, it is possible to understand the meaning "without" any context.

One problem unique to Japanese, however, is the length of text. If kanji is not employed, the text will be too long. Korean does not have this problem because one Hangul character is capable of packing two consonants and one to two vowels. Japanese hiragana or kanakana on the other hand can signify only one consonant and one vowel.

Oh, then Japanese should employ Hangul instead.

Haha, you now proved yourself another reason NOT to abolish kanji!

With kanji, the text won't be so long.

 

[Chidoriashi]

In English, limnology means "the scientific study of bodies of freshwater (as lakes)". The "-logy" is often used for study so one can guess it is a study of something, but unless one knows the Greek word limnē it is difficult to understand what kind of study limnology is.

In Japanese it is 湖沼学. Even people who do not know there exist such a study, it is easily understood that it is the study related lakes thanks to the common kanji.

If this word is written in kana, we have the same problem in English.
こしょうがく.
One wonders whether it is 呼称 or 故障 or 胡椒 or 湖沼 + 学.
Or should it be 額 or 岳 or 楽 or 顎? (I could list a lot more "gaku").
Or maybe punctuation is incorrect, it might be not koshou+gaku but ko+shougaku?

The point is, with kanji, it is possible to understand the meaning "without" any context.

Thanks for the illustration undrentide, that was my point exactly.

 

[grapefruit]

Thanks for the illustration undrentide, that was my point exactly.

Well. What's the point of listing 呼称 or 故障 or 胡椒 or 湖沼学. If you are talking about geology it will be 湖沼学. If you are talking about food or plant it is more likely to be 胡椒. If you are talking about linguistics it is 呼称. It is impossible to see these four words without context in real life. We are not talking about index of a dictionary.

 

[Chidoriashi]

I was more pointing out the complicated words part. I did not have a clue what that limnology thing was, but looking at the kanji 湖沼学 i immediately knew.

And I am not a native Japanese speaker but like undrentide also mentioned, i can recall times when have identified the kanji of the word i was saying in order to clarify the meaning. Japanese without kanji would definitely not be a positive change.

I am not sure why Korea did away with kanji and I am only speculating here, but i would guess that Koreans did away with kanji more for political and nationalistic reasons rather than practical ones...

 

[grapefruit]

I was more pointing out the complicated words part. I did not have a clue what that limnology thing was, but looking at the kanji 湖沼学 i immediately knew.

And I am not a native Japanese speaker but like undrentide also mentioned, i can recall times when have identified the kanji of the word i was saying in order to clarify the meaning. Japanese without kanji would definitely not be a positive change.

I am not sure why Korea did away with kanji and I am only speculating here, but i would guess that Koreans did away with kanji more for political and nationalistic reasons rather than practical ones...

I agree with the semantic transparency of the word 湖沼学 when it is written with Kanji. However, it is also conceivable to come up with a term like みずべがく or ぬまちがく, combining native Japanese words and some (but not all) of Sino-Japanese words that are semantically transparent and actively used by many.

One of the drawbacks of kanji introduction to Japanese is that kanji use has spread too much in Japanese vocabulary, almost obliterating opportunities for words constructed with native Japanese morphemes to emerge.

Plus, it does not seem that the process of word coinage is purely driven by semantic transparency. Indeed, in many cases, the currency of a word does not depend on how clear the meaning of the word is. Say, 経済 and 環境 are hard to understand unless one knows the meaning of each word ahead of time.

Nothing is more clear on this when our attention is shifted to the ubiquitous spread of katakana words in recent years. Nobody can argue that these katakana words are easy to understand. Yet, the spread of such words is amazing but often saddens me.

I was watching a Japanese medical drama today and the word フェロー (fellow) caught my attention. The Japanese language has the word 実習生 for it, but somehow the English loan word replaced it. "ナースステーションNurse station" could have been 看護師室 or something else with native words. Everyone must be familiar with this trend. It almost looks like that the Japanese people simply gave up on coining new expressions themselves.

Anyway, my point is that the idea that the word's semantic transparency determines the use of language is not, in close examination, as verifiable as one would think.

As Chidoriashi mentioned, language policy is more related to other factors such as nationalistic pride (standardization of a language cannot be separated from this), learning issues, financial issues, and so on.

Koreans got rid of Kanji to unshackle themselves from the tainted past. They went great lengths to get rid of words originated from Japan and China. This coincided with their achieved independence after Japan's defeat to the war.

Japan and China once in the past envisaged getting rid of kanji altogether, for they perceived that their written systems somehow made them hard to catch up with the West.

Vietnam stopped using kanji because of the French occupation. They were forced to adopt an alphabetical writing system.

At this moment, Japan has no reason to change its writing system so I don't root for abolishing kanji, but abolishing kanji is not unachievable.

The society's mood has changed over the years too. The term 当用漢字表 (a tentative list of kanji characters to be taught in school) changed into 常用漢字表 (a list of ordinarily used kanji characters).

 

[Chidoriashi]

Well I do agree that it is not like the Japanese language would die without kanji and the language could adapt and adjust without it, but for me it would still be a great loss. I will admit when i began learning Japanese, despite kanji"s aesthetic appeal it was a pain in the ***. But now having semi-mastered it, it has become probably my greatest aid in furthering my knowledge of the language. Being a non-native speaker and thus running across unknown words all the time, having kanji to assist my comprehension has become indispensable. I have truly gained new sympathy for people struggling to learn English without such aids.


I also agree that katakana loan words have gotten out of hand. I also have always speculated upon why it is even necessary when there are perfectly good native Japanese words that can be used. A lot of Japanese who I have asked about the issue to say that many words get pulled from English when intellectuals (or people that just wanna sound smart) start coining the words and phrases. The irony of that is though half of the time the word is not even coin correctly and takes on a new life of its own as 和製英語. Your mention of the word フェロー is a great example. In reality 実習生 is best translated as trainee or possibly apprentice. The word fellow, in English however is simply used to describe someone on the same level as someone else or someone in the same situation as someone else. It is also used to describe comrades etc.. Thus, the misuse and mistranslation of many words runs rampant throughout Japanese katakana words creating a paradox for the plethora of Japanese trying to master English, yet at the same time getting confused by the use of the words in their own language.


Many also say loan words have gotten out of hand two though because of the simple fact that these words are not always widespread, and confusion is created when two native speakers are talking an one coins a word which the other is not yet familiar with. I used think this was just a generational gap thing, but it seems that Japanese of similar ages are sometimes experiencing these problems with katakana words as well.

 

[AkikoKawaii]

Abolish is not the appropriate word for this topic. Abolish is used for government or political regimes not for changing language.

abolish denotes a complete doing away with something, as a practice, institution, or condition to abolish slavery

To abolish a law

Abolish kanji is not used in that context.

The question should be?

Is the use of Kanji not as important in modern times?

or

Is the use of Kanji important in modern times?

 

[grapefruit]

Abolish is not the appropriate word for this topic. Abolish is used for government or political regimes not for changing language.
abolish denotes a complete doing away with something, as a practice, institution, or condition to abolish slavery
To abolish a law
Abolish kanji is not used in that context.
The question should be?
Is the use of Kanji not as important in modern times?
or
Is the use of Kanji important in modern times?

Well, I believe that kanji is more like part of the writing system or writing convention. It is not part of the language itself. So in a way, it can be taken as a practice of visually representing the language. Isn't it possible for the government to ABOLISH the policy (the western linguistics emphasize on speech) if the practice is seen negative?

 

[Chidoriashi]

Yeah, abolish is just fine to describe this issue, seeing as how kanji is a system of writing. And government policy dictates if and how it is to be taught in schools. Though I am not sure why it is even necessary to nitpick about this.

 

[Glenn]

Sukotto> Umm actually it should be 漢字が好きです。 "suki" is never preceded by "wa" in a regular statement. Saying "Kanji wa suki" is like saying Kanji likes..... something. "wa" can only precede "suki" when showing contrast. "魚は嫌いだけど肉は好き" (sakana wa kirai dakedo niku wa suki") I hate fish, but I do like meat.
Not trying to pick on you or anything, but people seem to make this mistake a lot on this forum. So I just thought I would help you out.

Also to add to your comment Kanji was transferred to lots of different cultures. Many south east Asian countries once used Kanji.. or Hanzou (whatever it is called in Chinese)... at one time or another throughout their histories.

I didn't see anything wrong with the sentence 漢字は好きです. Kanji is the topic after all, and the emphasis here is on liking it.

 

[undrentide]

I didn't see anything wrong with the sentence 漢字は好きです. Kanji is the topic after all, and the emphasis here is on liking it.

It depends on the context.
If it is just a plain, neutral statement, it should be
漢字が好きです。

Using は makes it sound as if the speaker implies there's something else,
i.e.
漢字は好きです。（でも、カタカナは嫌いです。）
漢字は好きです。（でも、愛しているとまでは言えませ ん。）
or as the answer to the question
漢字は嫌いですか？

 

[Chidoriashi]

Glenn> I looked back at Sukutto's statement to be sure there was not any other context surrounding it, and he/she just simple suddenly said "漢字は好きです" which by itself does not sound natural as undrentide has explained. I also asked a Japanese co-worker to ensure I have not been taught wrong all this time and she agreed it should be 漢字が好きです in this case. It is hard to know sometimes though. Despite reading about them and understanding them somewhat in theory, i still have trouble being able to use は and が correctly all of the time.

 

[Glenn]

I see. The more I thought about it after posting the more that seemed to be the case, but when I read it I had the feeling that it was like "so they may be able to write Japanese without kanji, but it's got lots of importance culturally and it would be a logistical nightmare to abolish it. Besides, I like kanji." In that sense it seems like 漢字は好きです seems to be more appropriate to me. But maybe それにしても（とにかく）漢字が好きです would be better?

As far as は and が in general go, I've read a lot about them and have a decent theoretical understanding of them as well, but wonder how often I misuse them. I mostly only have my own conjecture as to whether I used the right one at any point in time, and that's not all that helpful. As much as I know and can recite their functions, I still don't fully understand them, so using them correctly feels like a crap shoot sometimes.

That's not limited to は and が, though. When to use potential vs. non-potential verb forms, when to use ～ても as opposed to ～ば, ～と, or ～たら, and other things like that I get wrong because in English we use one form, but in Japanese they have a completely different way of thinking about some things. Like I told my ex-girlfriend, こういう時は他言語を学ぶ難しさを痛感するな～ (and corrections to that are welcome, by the way).

 

[caster51]

at first, Japan has ever discussed to abolish kanji.
Japan carefully observed South Korea

as a result, Japan noticed that there are quite a lot of the evils practice in them.

even A lot of abandonment disputants at that time are telling it to expand the Chinese character now.

korean does not realized its evil practices

 

[nice gaijin]

at first, Japan has ever discussed to abolish kanji.
Japan carefully observed South Korea
as a result, Japan noticed that there are quite a lot of the evils practice in them.
even A lot of abandonment disputants at that time are telling it to expand the Chinese character now.
korean does not realized its evil practices

evil? care to elaborate, or is this just going to elicit more racist comments from you?

 

[caster51]

evil? care to elaborate, or is this just going to elicit more racist comments from you?

I dont know what you talking about?
I just use it bacause of this
evil - Words - Japanese Dictionary Tangorin


Amazon product ASIN 4569695183

 

[nice gaijin]

I know what evil means, but it seems like a strange word to choose unless if your intention is to paint Koreans as something sinister. what "evil" practices are you talking about?

 

[caster51]

I know what evil means, but it seems like a strange word to choose unless if your intention is to paint Koreans as something sinister. what "evil" practices are you talking about?

evil practice is a Just evil practice for korean language..
i never said a korean is an evil.

they can not read even 40 years old newspaper.
This might be one exactly evil.....