Complexity or Simplicity: A History of Japanese Orthography

The Japanese writing system, with its origins in Chinese, is among the most complicated writing systems in the world (Hallen, 1999).  It is this complexity however that makes it so fascinating, as Japanese writing combines the use of four writing systems.  These are: kanji, hiragana, katakana and romaji.  Kanji, which was adopted from Chinese has symbols that have one or more meanings (Hallen, 1999).  One of the first kanji that is taught is the single symbol that represents sun, moon, fire and water (Hallen, 1999).  There are under two-thousand kanji being used in Japan today, as each unique idea requires a symbol and they must all be different from one another which only adds to the complexity as some symbols differ by a simple stroke direction (Hallen, 1999).  The next two systems, which are commonly known as kana, are easier to learn and understand because they are syllabic.  The first is katakana, which is identified by the angular shape of its characters is used for transcribing foreign works like erebētā (elevator).  The second kana, which is much more cursive, is hiragana, and it is used to write words that have no kanji associated with them.  The last system of writing is romaji, which uses the Western alphabet to write Japanese (Hallen, 1999).

The combination of these four writing systems makes Japanese writing among the most difficult to learn.  There were actually numerous attempts throughout Japanese history to either adopt a western-style alphabet or abolish the Chinese kanji completely, but none of these attempts ever came to fruition.  Japanese children are required to learn all three writing systems, including up to one-hundred kanji each year starting in elementary school.

The origin of Japanese orthography can be traced back to the 6^th century A.D.  It was during this period that the diplomatic relationship between the the Chinese Han Dynasty and the Japanese Yamato rulers resulted in an influx of Chinese culture into Japan, including: religious beliefs, art, practices for governing and manufacturing, and most importantly the Chinese writing system (Accredited, 2010).  The introduction of Chinese characters allowed the Japanese to write their first books, the Kojiki (Records of Ancient Matters) and the Nihon Shoki (Chronicles of Japan) (Accredited, 2010).  However, it was the limitations of the Chinese writing system that had the greatest impact.

The 9th century brought about the emergence of syllabic writing in Japan with two sets of characters: hiragana and katakana.  While both of these systems are based on Chinese characters, they are much less visually complex, and are easier to memorize as each system is made up of approximately fifty syllables in comparison to the nearly two-thousand kanji characters (known as Jōyō kanji hyō) required by the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (Today Translations, 2010).

It was Buddhist monks who developed the script that would eventually become katakana.  While reading and translating Chinese scriptures, the priests would use a shorthand script of characters that they would write beside the original kanji to help them represent the Japanese intonations that were not native to Chinese.  These symbols, which are recognized by their angular appearance, were commonly used by men in combination with kanji before the 10^th century when hiragana became more widely used among the Japanese population (Accredited, 2010).  Hiragana, which translates to “ordinary syllabic script” was developed by women who desired a more elegant script for writing (Accredited, 2010).  It is because of its origins that hiragana is also known as onna-de (“women’s hand”).  It is almost completely phonetic and is used for words that are either native to Japan or those that were inherited from Chinese.

In addition to the Chinese, Japanese orthography was heavily influenced by the Portugese who arrived in the 16^th century in hope of establishing trade relations between Japan and Europe.  While initially developed by Yajiro (a Japanese Catholic), it was the Portugese missionaries who initially printed the romanized system of writing Japanese (JNT.com, 2010).  In additional to helping promote and refine the romaji writing system, the Portugese introduced moveable type and printing technology to the Japanese and were also responsible for the first Japanese (to Portugese) dictionary called Nippo Jisho, which contained the over thirty-thousand Japanese words (Foreign Translations, 2010).

In modern Japan, each of the four writing styles has a unique role in Japanese orthography.  Kanji, which was historically considered the language of the educated is still very commonly used as approximately 40% of Japanese words originated in Chinese (Accredited, 2010). The ease with which words and phrases can be identified using this ideographic writing system allows it to remain popular.  Katakana, which was used in combination with kanji by men in Japan until the 10^th century is now used mostly for foreign words, advertising in magazines and television and the transliteration of names.  Hiragana is used for linguistic elements such as adverbs, nouns and adjectives and is also the writing style of choice for children’s books, textbooks, and in print to help with pronunciation.  The term for the hiragana used for the latter is furigana.  It is actually illegal for newspapers to be published without furigana in instances where kanji are used that are not in the official list of kanji provided by the Japanese government (Ager, 2010).

There are three modern systems of romaji: Hepburn, Nippon-siki, and Kunrei-shiki.  The most popular of the three systems is Hepburn, which is named after Rev. James Curtis Hepburn who transcribed it in his dictionary (Breen, 2004).  Since World War II, the reading and writing of romaji has been taught to all Japanese students  when they are introduced to English as part of the junior high school curriculum.  Romaji is also used in Japanese passports, menus, educational materials for foreigners, and on the majority of street signs so that those people who do not understand Japanese may still visit the country without being completely overwhelmed.  Romaji is also used on electronic devices that are unable to display Japanese characters, although the localization of software programs into Japanese is quite common (WordIQ.com, 2010).

To the uninformed, it would be easy to regard Japanese orthography as complex and overwhelming.  The reality is that it is a very logical combination of writing systems that blend the past and present while preparing for the future through the initiative of the Japanese government who understands the importance of writing and vocabulary as part of an education.  And what better way to prepare students for the future then to teach them a writing system that was developed with the help of countries throughout the world.

References

Accredited. (2010). Japanese. Retrieved from
http://www.alsintl.com/resources/languages/Japanese/.

Ager, S. (2010). Omniglot: Writing systems and language of the world. Retrieved from
http://www.omniglot.com/writing/japanese_hiragana.htm.

Breen, J. (2004). Japanese Writing. Retrieved from
http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jwb/jwriting.html.

Foreign Translations. (2010). Japanese Language History. Retrieved from
http://www.foreigntranslations.com/page-content.cfm/page/japanese-language.

Hallen, C. L. (1999). An Overview of the history of the Japanese language. Retrieved from http://linguistics.byu.edu/classes/ling450ch/reports/japanese.htm.

JNT.com. (2010).Romaji. Retrieved from
http://www.japanese-name-translation.com/site/romaji_article.html.

Today Translations. (2010). Japanese Language History. Retrieved from
http://www.todaytranslations.com/our-language-his.tory/japanese-language-history.php.

WordIQ.com.(2010). Romaji. Retrieved from
http://www.wordiq.com/definition/Romaji