Talk:Japanese script reform

Suggestion for an image

This image would I think be a handy illustration of the somewhat haphazard way in which the postwar kanji simplification took place: note the ken of kiken at the top of the dust jacket (old, complex) and that below on the obi of the same book (new, simple). The image would be merely fair-use, which is very slightly unfortunate, but few similarly simple alternatives would be copyleft. (Indeed, adding this image might impel people to look for copyleft replacements.) -- Hoary (talk) 11:08, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

Mazegaki and Kakikae

Note by original translator: The final section is in the original; see the link below to the version used. The proofreader seems to think otherwise. The last sentence (marked 'citation needed') is written thus: 「乱れた日本語表現を合理化主義の中で合法化してしまった」などと批判されることがある I didn't make any of it up, promise! 219.113.255.196 (talk) 07:56, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Have the Japanese Never Considered A Hybrid Approach?

I've asked a scholar in Japan, but he didn't seem to understand my question. The Korean script is an alphabet, but words are clustered to have the appearance of ideograms. Have Japanese scholars tried to standardize on kanji which are convenient for building words phonetically? (Yes, I am aware, vaguely, of the phonetic problems with kanji, but still...) Washi (talk) 19:58, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

This may be a few years too late but I will reply nonetheless. By "[Korean] words are clustered into ideograms", you could mean either 1) how korean puts spaces between words (わかち書き in Japanese), or 2) how letters stack to form syllables that are blocks, much like Kanji. Neither these two, nor Korean without Hanja is ideographic in nature though, so I assume you mean blocky. Also 'hybrid approach' is likely misleading me to think you mean kanji vs romanisation, so this answer is kind of wordy. You may wish to just read the last paragraph, where I directly answer your question.

For 1), you can see this happen in kana-only manuscripts (an idea that has at least dated back to the kana mojikai, see first issue), and something you see in Pokemon games for example in the modern day.

For 2), Kanji is already serving this purpose, although less "logically", i.e. the parts of Korean Hangul block are all letters, whereas the parts of a Kanji block are semantic, phonetic, borrowed, or etc. Kanji serves as a substitute for kana (the 'letters' of Japanese). In fact, Korean with Hanja could be pretty much identical to modern Japanese (the basic model of Hanja + helper hangul =~ Kanji + helper kana). You could subtitute Hangul with more Hanja, you could subtitute Kanji with more Kana.

So for 2), the only difference you could mean between Japanese and Hangul would be Hangul builds into blocks. Which isn't particularly significant: Japanese encompases several 'letters' in a single kana. From Paul H. Clark essay on Meiji script reform, this on romaji, and J. Marshall Unger on the Romaji experiment, Japanese had a few primary movements of note for this question: 普通文 (the simplification of Classical Chinese or kanbun), 言文一致 (get rid of kanbun in favour of writing as we speak or vernacular writing), the pruning of Kanji in use (i.e. creating the 常用漢字 list), removing historical kana, and going full romanization vs keeping Kanji. The first essay by Clark mentions there were other proposals considered, but I have not looked into them.

Re: "Have Japanese scholars tried to standardize on kanji which are convenient for building words phonetically", the whole journey from Man'yougana to Hiragana and Katakana (and the Meiji reform and WW2 reforms) was exactly the process of standarising on Kanji for building words phonetically. See the history of Hiragana and Katakana. There were several Kanji in use for pure phonetic value, these were short-handed into Katakana or cursive'd into Hiragana. E.g. あ takes after 安, but there were also 亜,愛,etc. in use for the /a/ sound. The 亜 and 愛 too had 'kana' forms (i.e. shorthands/cursive forms) called hentaigana. The Meiji script reform (1900s) standardised the inventory of symbols used for phonetic value, which are the modern Katakana and Hiragana. WW2 reform that is mostly relevant for this context was the pruning historical kana (e.g. やう→よう), which is still part of this process of standardising on phonetic Kanji. AngelFire3423 (talk) 22:41, 14 July 2021 (UTC)

Thank you so much for replying. I am still not quite sure what I am asking, but I had been thinking about the semantic nature of radicals plus the phonetic nature of kana/hangul, and supposing there must be a simplification that uses kanji in both modes with less of the baked-in complexity (and multiple sounds.... there's another can of worms) of kanji but without boiling it completely down to kana... I don't know; if my brain comes up with a clearer thought I'll share it. Thank you again. Washi (talk) 01:30, 15 July 2021 (UTC)