- 8 Aug 2005
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Japanese phonology comprehensively explains everything you see as a deficiency in kana and puts it into perspective. I'd urge you to study that but apparently you know too much to make any space for learning: your cup is already full, which is a pity because there's a bottomless punch bowl of knowledge that you have yet to dip into.Thanks for the tip. I enjoyed Bob Saget in Full House, but from the negative comments on the web, think I will stick to Fluffy. Now there's a comedian who can do sounds!
Incidentally, sounds are what language is made of, Not writing systems. But when the two are so divergent as the sounds of Japanese and the Kana orthographies, you should be able to see that kana cannot adequately represent the range of those sounds. Once again, it must have been very convenient back in the Heian Period, but it is sadly inadequate now. Unless and until you recognise that, you and your forum mates will be missing out on a lot of what is actually happening in spoken Japanese. And it will be a mistake to rely on the writings of Japanese nationals, unless they are those rare birds who happen to be trilingual at least. I'm sure that they exist, however: Japanese nationals with a really good ear for what is happening in their own spoken language. One such was a student of mine, another is a young Sophia graduate who taught herself English in Japan – of course using all kinds of media including songs – and who is really quite brilliant. I do feel that it is people such as these who will have a future influence on the transcription of spoken Japanese. So I and my Ohio State colleague will look forward to the point in time when digraphia becomes the rule rather than the exception. Who cares why most Japanese are stuck in their kana-majiri rut; let's look forward to the future! Yes, kana-majiri has its uses – as your moderator ably demonstrates. But it is surely not the only possibility...
There are legitimate complaints to be made about Japanese and maybe even improvements to address specific shortcomings, but your dream can't come true without completely warping the spoken language itself. Again, your aspirations don't seem motivated by a desire to make written Japanese easier for Japanese speakers, but to make it easier for people like you. Namely, you.
Though it demonstrates your intellectual cowardice, you can dodge my direct questions all you want, and continue to conjure up references to people we can't confirm as real... but I'll tell you who WILL have a future influence on the language: everyone who uses it. Like the millions of people who grew up primarily speaking some or several dialects of Japanese, or the millions of people in the Japanese diaspora who speak only with their parents or local community, or the language students that come ask their questions on this board, or my friends who grew up bilingual or trilingual in Japan and polyglots from Europe or Africa or Asia who can communicate and code switch effortlessly between languages. They all make their mark on the language they use, especially if the people around them pick up those same habits. Because language is a living, breathing morphology of vocabulary, grammar and syntax--both written and spoken--and it interacts with and changes with every person and other language that it touches. And you can't tell it what to do any more than you can tell millions or billions of people how they can or cannot use it.
Say, @S. MacObicin, why don't you write your Japanese responses in your romaji phonics to show us how superior they are? This thread is after all about the readability and ease of communication through written Japanese. I'm surprised you haven't just shown proof of your superior writing system by simply demonstrating it.