The Japanese script reform is the attempt to correlate standard spoken Japanese with the written word, which began during the
Meiji period
The was an era of Japanese history that extended from October 23, 1868, to July 30, 1912. The Meiji era was the first half of the Empire of Japan, when the Japanese people moved from being an isolated feudal society at risk of colonizatio ...
. This issue is known in
Japan
Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...
as the . The reforms led to the development of the modern Japanese written language, and explain the arguments for official policies used to determine the usage and teaching of
kanji
are logographic Chinese characters, adapted from Chinese family of scripts, Chinese script, used in the writing of Japanese language, Japanese. They were made a major part of the Japanese writing system during the time of Old Japanese and are ...
rarely used in Japan.
History
Pre-World War II reforms
A misconception is held that Japanese script reform originated from the
Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers during the
Occupation of Japan
Japan was occupied and administered by the Allies of World War II from the surrender of the Empire of Japan on September 2, 1945, at the war's end until the Treaty of San Francisco took effect on April 28, 1952. The occupation, led by the ...
, but in fact, a plan had already been put into place prior to the occupation. Reform efforts date back to at least 1900, and proposals to reform kanji usage had been developed in the 1920s.
In the 1900 kana usage reforms,
hentaigana (old variant forms of kana) were eliminated, though
historical kana orthography
The , or , refers to the in general use until orthographic reforms after World War II; the current orthography was adopted by Cabinet order in 1946. By that point the historical orthography was no longer in accord with Japanese pronunciati ...
(dating to the
Heian period
The is the last division of classical Japanese history, running from 794 to 1185. It followed the Nara period, beginning when the 50th emperor, Emperor Kammu, moved the capital of Japan to Heian-kyō (modern Kyoto). means in Japanese. It is a ...
, a millennium before) was retained. A separate character for ''n'' was also prescribed; previously it had been written as (the same as ''mu'') and was a hentaigana for both these sounds. A proposal to eliminate certain kanji from use was implemented in a number of regions and overseas territories in the 1920s, near the end of the
Taishō period.
In November 1922, the , the precursor to the
Japanese Language Council, now the Japanese Language subdivision of the
Agency for Cultural Affairs
The is a special body of the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT). It was set up in 1968 to promote Japanese arts and culture.
The agency's budget for FY 2018 rose to ¥107.7 billion.
Overview
The age ...
, selected and approved a list of 1,962 kanji characters for daily use. This group of characters formed the basis for the ''
tōyō kanji'' list, which eventually developed into the modern ''
jōyō kanji
The are those kanji listed on the , officially announced by the Japanese Ministry of Education. The current List of jōyō kanji, list of 2,136 characters was issued in 2010. It is a slightly modified version of the tōyō kanji, kanji, which ...
'' list. In December 1923, the committee approved a set of reforms for kana usage; the prototype for the modern kana system.
Reforms
The reforms made after the
Second World War
World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
have had a particularly significant impact on accepted kanji usage in the modern Japanese language.
On 12 November 1945, the
Yomiuri Shimbun
The is a Japanese newspaper published in Tokyo, Osaka, Fukuoka, Fukuoka, Fukuoka, and other major Japanese cities. It is one of the five major newspapers in Japan; the other four are ''The Asahi Shimbun'', the ''Chunichi Shimbun'', the ''Ma ...
newspaper published an editorial concerning the abolition of kanji, and on 31 March 1946, the first American Education Delegation arrived in Japan at the invitation of the
Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers (SCAP) and issued its first report. The report pointed out the difficulties concerning kanji use, and advocated the use of
rōmaji
The romanization of Japanese is the use of Latin script to write the Japanese language. This method of writing is sometimes referred to in Japanese as .
Japanese is normally written in a combination of logogram, logographic characters borrowe ...
, which they considered more convenient. As a result, the gradual abolition of kanji became official policy for the SCAP, and the ''tōyō kanji'' list and modern kana usage proposals were drawn up in accordance with this policy.
''Tōyō kanji''
The ''
tōyō kanji'' list, containing 1850 characters, was published by the
cabinet on 16 November 1946 with the intention of completely abolishing the use of kanji in the future. The list reduced the number of kanji deemed appropriate for daily use, and categorized certain kanji for specific use in official publications and documents.
Prior to this reform, an attempt had already been made to standardise several kanji, known as ''
kyūjitai
''Kyūjitai'' () are the traditional forms of kanji (Chinese written characters used in Japanese writing). Their simplified counterparts are '' shinjitai'' (). Some of the simplified characters arose centuries ago and were in everyday use in bot ...
'', with other forms, known as ''
shinjitai
are the simplified forms of kanji used in Japan since the promulgation of the Tōyō Kanji List in 1946. Some of the new forms found in ''shinjitai'' are also found in simplified Chinese characters, but ''shinjitai'' is generally not as exten ...
'', but was not conducted systematically. For new character forms, changes were only made to several characters with minimal modifications.
Another separate attempt was made to limit the number of
kanji readings, but the first list proved much too restrictive. For instance, the character for fish had its readings limited to ''gyo'' and ''uo'' when the most common reading, ''sakana,'' was not officially recognized by the list. These shortcomings were acknowledged in the revised list of ''tōyō kanji,'' published on 28 June 1972.
On 5 July 1956, the
Japanese Language Council announced a list of substitute characters for words that contained characters not on the official list in an effort to ease the implementation of ''tōyō kanji''. This use of alternative, common kanji in place of rarer ones was called (also written as ).
Different characters for words were unified using characters from the ''tōyō kanji'' list. The list below shows some examples, with the non-''tōyō kanji'' placed in brackets.
* ''chūmon'' (order, request)
* ''iseki'' (historic ruins)
* ''kōsei'' (rebirth, originally read ''sosei'', and may be written as to reflect the original reading)
* ''chie'' (wisdom)
* ''ryakudatsu'' (pillage, plunder)
* ''bōgai'' (jamming, interference)
* ''ikō'' (intention, idea)
* ''kōwa'' (reconciliation, peace)
* ''kakutō'' (fighting)
* ''shokan'' (letter, epistle)
Jargon
Jargon, or technical language, is the specialized terminology associated with a particular field or area of activity. Jargon is normally employed in a particular Context (language use), communicative context and may not be well understood outside ...
and other specialized words that could be written in more than one way were generally written using characters from the list.
* ''kokkaku'' (skeletal structure)
* ''kikei'' (birth defect)
Other words that used kanji that were not included in the list were given phonetic substitutes.
* ''bōgyo'' (defence)
* ''sendō'' (abet, agitate)
* ''eichi'' (wisdom)
* ''konkō'' (mix)
* ''gekikō'' (excited, enraged)
For kanji compounds with characters that could not be reasonably substituted, the recommendation was to write the "missing" kanji in ''kana'' instead, a practice known as , which is very common in
the name of chemical elements.
* ''hifu'' (skin)
* ''izoku'' (Yi people)
* ''fusso'' (fluorine)
* ''tanpakushitsu'' (protein)
* ''yū-utsu'' (melancholy) and ''utsubyō'' (depression)
However, the recent prevalence of
computers
A computer is a machine that can be programmed to automatically carry out sequences of arithmetic or logical operations ('' computation''). Modern digital electronic computers can perform generic sets of operations known as ''programs'', ...
has made it easier for Japanese speakers to identify and use rarer characters, and the idea of having a list of approved characters has come under reconsideration.
Japanese media have increasingly used non-approved kanji with ''
furigana
is a Japanese reading aid consisting of smaller kana (syllabic characters) printed either above or next to kanji (logographic characters) or other characters to indicate their pronunciation. It is one type of ruby text. Furigana is also know ...
'' to aid the reader in place of ''mazegaki''.
Kanji for names
On 16 February 1948, 881 of the ''tōyō kanji'' were designated to be taught during primary education, and became known as the ''
kyōiku kanji
The are kanji which Japanese elementary school students should learn from first through sixth grade. Also known as , these kanji are listed on the . The table is developed and maintained by the Japanese Ministry of Education (MEXT). Although t ...
'' (education kanji).
In the same year, Article 50 of the
family register law made it illegal to name a child using characters not on the official list. When this law first came into effect, the
Ministry of Justice
A justice ministry, ministry of justice, or department of justice, is a ministry or other government agency in charge of the administration of justice. The ministry or department is often headed by a minister of justice (minister for justice in a ...
declared that all newborn babies must be registered in the ''
koseki'' (the Japanese family registry) with a name that used only
hiragana
is a Japanese language, Japanese syllabary, part of the Japanese writing system, along with ''katakana'' as well as ''kanji''.
It is a phonetic lettering system. The word ''hiragana'' means "common" or "plain" kana (originally also "easy", ...
,
katakana
is a Japanese syllabary, one component of the Japanese writing system along with hiragana, kanji and in some cases the Latin script (known as rōmaji).
The word ''katakana'' means "fragmentary kana", as the katakana characters are derived fr ...
or ''tōyō kanji''. However, in 1951, an additional 92 characters were approved by the government as ''
jinmeiyō kanji''; kanji acceptable for use in names. This list was modified in 1997 to increase to a total of 285 characters. At the time, eight characters from the original ''jinmeiyō kanji'' list were added to the ''
jōyō kanji
The are those kanji listed on the , officially announced by the Japanese Ministry of Education. The current List of jōyō kanji, list of 2,136 characters was issued in 2010. It is a slightly modified version of the tōyō kanji, kanji, which ...
'' (daily use) list, and were removed from the group of ''jinmeiyō kanji''.
On 27 September 2004, another 488 kanji were approved for use in names, partly as a result of the ruling by the
Sapporo
is a Cities designated by government ordinance of Japan, designated city in Hokkaido, Japan. Located in the southwest of Hokkaido, it lies within the alluvial fan of the Toyohira River, a tributary of the Ishikari River. Sapporo is the capital ...
High Court that it was unacceptable for so many common characters to be excluded from use in names simply because they were not part of the official list. 578 characters were initially added, though some characters unsuitable for names such as (grudge, resent), (haemorrhoids) and (corpse) were removed as a result of public feedback.
Criticisms
The ''tōyō kanji'' list, which was created as a step towards the abolition of kanji, had undergone frequent criticism by scholars. In 1958,
Tsuneari Fukuda wrote an article in the magazine ''Koe'' pointing out that it was impossible to restrict kanji use, and in 1961, several prominent anti-reformists walked out of the Japanese Language Council general meeting in protest of the dominance of the phoneticists, who were always re-elected to their positions on the council.
The following year, Japanese Language Council member
Tomizō Yoshida argued that the council should base their reforms on standardising the current writing system using a mixture of
kanji
are logographic Chinese characters, adapted from Chinese family of scripts, Chinese script, used in the writing of Japanese language, Japanese. They were made a major part of the Japanese writing system during the time of Old Japanese and are ...
and
kana
are syllabary, syllabaries used to write Japanese phonology, Japanese phonological units, Mora (linguistics), morae. In current usage, ''kana'' most commonly refers to ''hiragana'' and ''katakana''. It can also refer to their ancestor , wh ...
, and in 1965,
Morito Tatsuo, the then chairman of the council, announced that the complete abolition of kanji was now inconceivable and that Yoshida's suggestion would become official policy.
Modern kana usage
On 16 November 1946,
historical kana usage underwent official reform to reflect modern pronunciation as . In addition, two kana, ''wi'' and ''we'', were officially declared obsolete, as the pronunciations they represented had dropped from the language many centuries before.
Some reformers wished to eliminate kanji altogether, and have a phonetic written language only using kana, but this was decided against, and further reforms were halted.
Modern kana usage still has one or two incongruities, as reform was halted at an intermediate stage. On 1 July 1985, the government confirmed that no further reforms would be made in the near future.
*Three
particles
In the physical sciences, a particle (or corpuscle in older texts) is a small localized object which can be described by several physical or chemical properties, such as volume, density, or mass.
They vary greatly in size or quantity, from s ...
maintain their historical kana form: the topic marker ''wa'' is written ''ha'' instead of , the direction marker ''e'' is written ''he'' instead of and the object marker ''o'' is written with the otherwise archaic kana ''wo'' instead of .
*The sounds ''ji'' and ''zu'' are usually written with the kana and respectively, with two exceptions. In compound words of Japanese origin where the second element normally begins ''chi'' or ''tsu'' and is
voiced in the compound, the kana and are used instead. For example, ''hanaji'' (nose bleed) consists of ''hana'' (nose) and ''chi'' (blood). As ''chi'' is written using the ''kana'' , ''hanaji'' is written , adding a ''
dakuten'' to the original kana to indicate that it is
voiced
Voice or voicing is a term used in phonetics and phonology to characterize speech sounds (usually consonants). Speech sounds can be described as either voiceless (otherwise known as ''unvoiced'') or voiced.
The term, however, is used to refe ...
. This is a form of
morpho-phonemic orthography, to indicate that it comes from voicing a rather than voicing a or being an unrelated .
* and are also used in words of Japanese origin if the preceding kana is the unvoiced form of the same character. For example, the words and are written in this manner, though the correct kana usage for ''chijimi'' (the Japanese word for the Korean dish ''buchimgae'') is , as opposed to , as the word is not native to the language.
* and are never used for words of Chinese origin. The character is usually read ''tsū'', but in compounds it may be read as ''zū'' (for instance, ''yūzū'' (flexibility) is written ) with no regard to its usual pronunciation.
Reintroduction of older kanji in mass media
When reporting the lawsuits regarding cases of
Minamata disease
is a neurological disease caused by severe mercury poisoning. Signs and symptoms include ataxia, numbness in the hands and feet, general muscle weakness, loss of peripheral vision, and damage to hearing and speech. In extreme cases, insanity, ...
in 1970, the non-tōyō kanji ''on'', "grudge", was used to refer to the feelings of the bereaved families. As a result of this widespread coverage, this kanji was reintroduced into popular usage, which opened the door for many more kanji to be rehabilitated.
''Jōyō kanji'' and the Japanese Industrial Standards
The ''
jōyō kanji
The are those kanji listed on the , officially announced by the Japanese Ministry of Education. The current List of jōyō kanji, list of 2,136 characters was issued in 2010. It is a slightly modified version of the tōyō kanji, kanji, which ...
'' list, consisting at that time of 1,945 characters, was published by the Japanese government in 1981 to serve as a replacement for the ''
tōyō kanji'' list. This newer list was based on the older ''tōyō kanji'' list, though ''jōyō kanji'' was more of a guide to kanji usage while ''tōyō kanji'' was created to gradually eliminate kanji usage.
Around the same time, the
Japanese Industrial Standards Committee
The is a standards organization and is the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) member body for Japan. It is also a member of the International Electrotechnical Commission.
The committee consists of a Council under the Ministry of ...
(JIS) also attempted to create a standardised kanji
character set
Character encoding is the process of assigning numbers to graphical characters, especially the written characters of human language, allowing them to be stored, transmitted, and transformed using computers. The numerical values that make up a c ...
for use in
computing
Computing is any goal-oriented activity requiring, benefiting from, or creating computer, computing machinery. It includes the study and experimentation of algorithmic processes, and the development of both computer hardware, hardware and softw ...
and
word processing A word processor (WP) is a device or computer program that provides for input, editing, formatting, and output of text, often with some additional features.
Word processor (electronic device), Early word processors were stand-alone devices dedicate ...
, and to assign a unique
character code
Character encoding is the process of assigning numbers to graphical character (computing), characters, especially the written characters of human language, allowing them to be stored, transmitted, and transformed using computers. The numerical v ...
to each kanji for data processing. This character set was, like the ''jōyō kanji'', merely a subset of the thousands of documented kanji, and became known colloquially as the JIS kanji set. The character set has undergone several revisions since its inception. The first of these, officially known as
JIS C 6226, or more commonly as the old JIS kanji set, was published in 1978 and contained 6802 characters. After the creation of the ''jōyō kanji'' list in 1983, the old set was expanded to contain 6877 characters, including some non-kanji characters. This is known as the new JIS kanji set, and was designated as
JIS X 0208
JIS X 0208 is a 2-byte character set specified as a Japanese Industrial Standards, Japanese Industrial Standard, containing 6879 graphic characters suitable for writing text, place names, personal names, and so forth in the Japanese language. Th ...
in 1987.
Approximately 200 characters were changed from their traditional form to their simplified form in the change from the old JIS to the new JIS set, meaning that word documents written on computers using the old character set would not display the same characters when displayed on a computer that used the new character set.
The JIS character set makes no distinction between the forms of characters, so it is not possible to distinguish between traditional and simplified forms. However, some characters, such as , , and , are distinguished within the character set, despite being variations of the same character.
Gaiji
Increased use of
kana to kanji conversion on word processors and computers during the mid-1980s brought drastic changes to the amount of Japanese written by hand. As a result, the use of kanji outside the ''jōyō kanji'' increased, reversing the prior trend of using fewer kanji. These characters were called ''
gaiji'' (lit. "outside characters")
The preface to the Japanese Language Council internal report on the ''jōyō kanji'' states that the council's decision on the forms of characters not on the approved list is pending, and will await research from each field. The new JIS character set
extends kanji simplification to ''gaiji'', creating a discrepancy between the standard forms of characters used in literature and materials produced on a computer or word processor. There is pressure for the Japanese publishing industry to adopt the new JIS character set abbreviations, and the resulting variation in ''gaiji'' led the Japanese Language Council, in their final report in December 2000, to produce a list of standard forms for many of these kanji to be used as a guideline. This list is called the in Japan.
This list was compiled by researching the various gaiji forms used in printed materials, and 1022 major characters were given standard forms to be used in print type face. 22 of these characters were simplified common forms, and the abbreviated forms of three
radicals were acknowledged as permissible alternatives for these characters. However, the general policy of the list was to use traditional forms for all gaiji.
Though newspaper publishers had been firm advocates for reducing the number of kanji, the release of the ''gaiji'' list forced them to reduce
''mazegaki'' in newspaper print. Subsequent issues of the tended to increase the number of permissible characters, so that former ''mazegaki'' words could be written as kanji (for example, the use of in place of or in place of ). As newspapers began to use computerised typesetting, some newspapers reintroduced
ruby character
Ruby characters or rubi characters () are small, annotative glosses that are usually placed above or to the right of logographic characters of languages in the East Asian cultural sphere, such as Chinese ''hanzi'', Japanese ''kanji'', and Kor ...
s to indicate the reading of uncommon kanji. Though not a unified movement, there was a general trend towards increased kanji use. Other mass media organizations followed suit, and the also reduced the amount of ''mazegaki'' used.
There were substantial discrepancies between the ''gaiji'' list and JIS forms, but these discrepancies were corrected in 2004 with the release of
JIS X 0213, which brought the JIS in line with the Japanese Language Council. The changes in
jinmeiyō kanji made by the
Ministry of Justice
A justice ministry, ministry of justice, or department of justice, is a ministry or other government agency in charge of the administration of justice. The ministry or department is often headed by a minister of justice (minister for justice in a ...
during the same year also conformed to this standard printed form, with being an exception. Computers have also moved towards a standard form following the printed character forms. However, JIS X 0213 subsumes personal place names and other proper nouns that were excluded from the ''gaiji'' list, so confusion may still result for characters like , where the character form differs between the printed standard and naming standard.
''
Jōyō kanji
The are those kanji listed on the , officially announced by the Japanese Ministry of Education. The current List of jōyō kanji, list of 2,136 characters was issued in 2010. It is a slightly modified version of the tōyō kanji, kanji, which ...
'' and ''
jinmeiyō kanji'' (list as of 2000) were not included on the ''gaiji'' list, so the standards for those characters are the forms used in the jinmeiyō kanji list. Similarly, and , which were added to the jinmeiyō kanji list in 1990, remain the standard forms for the same reason, even though traditional forms exist for those characters (a dot in the middle of for , and a double-dotted radical for ). These kanji remained unchanged in the alterations made to the list in 2004. On the other hand, the characters 堵 and 逢, which were added to the jinmeiyō kanji list in 2004, do have a standard printed form with a dot in the middle of and two dots on the radical, and were amended accordingly in JIS X 0213.
Historical advocates for reform
The use of kanji as part of Japanese orthography has been a matter of debate since at least the end of the
Edo period
The , also known as the , is the period between 1600 or 1603 and 1868 in the history of Japan, when the country was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and some 300 regional ''daimyo'', or feudal lords. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengok ...
. The use of kanji has been criticised for various reasons, the main criticisms being:
*There are too many kanji, and it is difficult to remember how to read and write them.
*The
Latin alphabet
The Latin alphabet, also known as the Roman alphabet, is the collection of letters originally used by the Ancient Rome, ancient Romans to write the Latin language. Largely unaltered except several letters splitting—i.e. from , and from � ...
is used internationally, and using kanji separates Japan from the rest of the world. This argument was used from a technical point of view after the appearance of the
typewriter
A typewriter is a Machine, mechanical or electromechanical machine for typing characters. Typically, a typewriter has an array of Button (control), keys, and each one causes a different single character to be produced on paper by striking an i ...
and computer.
*Processing kanji is more time-consuming on word processors and computers.
*Text that uses a mixture of kanji and kana requires
kanji conversion, which is inefficient in comparison to text that only uses kana or rōmaji.
These criticisms led to arguments that reduction or eradication of kanji was a matter of national interest. The idea of abolishing kanji is often referenced to
Maejima Hisoka's report titled , which was submitted to the ''
shōgun
, officially , was the title of the military rulers of Japan during most of the period spanning from 1185 to 1868. Nominally appointed by the Emperor, shoguns were usually the de facto rulers of the country, except during parts of the Kamak ...
''
Tokugawa Yoshinobu
Kazoku, Prince was the 15th and last ''shōgun'' of the Tokugawa shogunate of Japan. He was part of a movement which aimed to reform the aging shogunate, but was ultimately unsuccessful. He resigned his position as shogun in late 1867, while ai ...
in 1866. The report argued that kanji should be abolished because the process of learning kanji was inefficient; however, in recent years the existence of this report has come into question. Other advocates of kanji reform include the following:
*
Kamo no Mabuchi,
:Critical of the number of kanji, and argued that kana were more convenient because they were phonetic characters like the alphabet. Notes that a
French dictionary was written using only 50 characters, and that
Dutch uses only 25 characters.
*
Motoori Norinaga
was a Japanese people, Japanese scholar of active during the Edo period. He is conventionally ranked as one of the Four Great Men of Kokugaku (nativist) studies.
Life
Norinaga was born in what is now Matsusaka, Mie, Matsusaka in Ise Province ...
,
*
Fukuzawa Yukichi, (1873)
*
Maejima Hisoka, (1866)
*
Nishi Amane
was a Japanese philosopher. He studied law and economics in the Netherlands. He became a political advisor to Tokugawa Yoshinobu before and after the Meiji Restoration. He served as a bureaucrat in the Ministry of War, the Ministry of Educati ...
, (advocating the use of rōmaji)
*
Suematsu Kenchō, (1886)
*
Ueda Kazutoshi
*
Mori Arinori, (Advocating the use of English)
*
Nanbu Yoshikazu (Advocated the use of rōmaji)
*
Baba Tatsui,
*
Shiga Naoya, (Advocating the use of French) (''Kaizō'' magazine, April, 1946)
The romaji issue is still occasionally pushed by fringe writers, for example the 2011 book by
Katsuhiko Tanaka ().
Current issues
Character-related issues
Current opinion favors the inclusion of the character under the Jōyō Kanji list in order to promote the more positive word for handicapped person, , because the current word for handicapped, , uses the character , which means “damage” or “harm” (invoking pity) and has a secondary derogatory meaning of "harm or evil influence".
''Mazegaki''
The current issue of ''
mazegaki'', mixing kanji and kana to write a single word, originated with the modern reforms, particularly the introduction of the ''tōyō kanji'' list. Though the intention was to have words requiring characters that were not included on the list to be substituted with a suitable synonym, in reality, the rule was circumvented by writing these kanji in kana and making ''mazegaki'' commonplace. Foods commonly written either just in kana or in mazegaki include (''shōyu'' soya sauce) and (''
miso
is a traditional Japanese seasoning. It is a thick paste produced by fermenting soybeans with salt and kōji (the fungus ''Aspergillus oryzae''), and sometimes rice, barley, seaweed, or other ingredients. It is used for sauces and spreads; p ...
''). Other words commonly written as ''mazegaki'' include , , , , , and where the traditional forms are , , , , , and respectively. Note that in some cases the unused kanji is very complicated ( has 23 strokes), while in other cases the character may be relatively simple but not on the official list (e.g. has only 9 strokes). This is also common for medical terms, which often use rare kanji, as in for .
''Mazegaki'' is not enforced and is rarely used in literature, where traditional forms are often used, although it is common in media outlets such as newspapers and television broadcasts, since non-Jōyō kanji are not supposed to be used in these contexts. In extreme cases, ''
jōyō kanji
The are those kanji listed on the , officially announced by the Japanese Ministry of Education. The current List of jōyō kanji, list of 2,136 characters was issued in 2010. It is a slightly modified version of the tōyō kanji, kanji, which ...
'' may be written in this way in television programmes or manga aimed at younger children or language learners – for example (''honyūrui'' "mammal") as . ''Mazegaki'' may also be used in signs, possibly as katakana – for example, (''hifuka'' dermatologist) may be written as to improve legibility from a distance.
At the time of the introduction of the ''tōyō kanji'' list, the use of
ruby character
Ruby characters or rubi characters () are small, annotative glosses that are usually placed above or to the right of logographic characters of languages in the East Asian cultural sphere, such as Chinese ''hanzi'', Japanese ''kanji'', and Kor ...
s, also known as
furigana
is a Japanese reading aid consisting of smaller kana (syllabic characters) printed either above or next to kanji (logographic characters) or other characters to indicate their pronunciation. It is one type of ruby text. Furigana is also know ...
, led to high printing costs for newspaper companies due to difficulties in typesetting, and ''mazegaki'' eliminated the need for furigana. The resulting reduction in printing costs caused the restriction or abolition of kanji to give serious economic advantages to newspaper companies, and they became heavily involved in decisions made by the Japanese Language Council.
''Kakikae''
The use of common kanji in place of uncommon ones with the same reading is known as ''kakikae'' ("changed writing"). One of the most common examples is the use of instead of , both pronounced ''sai'', when writing ages, as in rather than . Another common example is ''chūsen'' (lottery), which is often written as , in addition to the mazegaki mentioned above. A rarer example is the word ''chinden'' 'settlement (of sediment)', which is a combination of the characters 'to sink' and 'sediment', so the meaning is evident from the kanji. However, in modern writing the uncommon character has been substituted with 'Mr, lord' (omitting the 3-stroke
water radical on the left), a similar character with the same pronunciation but a different meaning, yielding the combination , which could now be construed to mean 'sinking lord'.
Various hybrid simplifications also exist, using simpler non-standard characters. This is generally used in handwriting instead of print, and these characters are known as ''
ryakuji'' ("abbreviated characters"). For example, replacing with , both pronounced ''to'', is ''kakikae'', as these are both standard characters, but replacing with the non-standard character (: contained in ) is a ''ryakuji''.
Controversy
Advocates of the method explain that it makes content easier to read and will attract a wider audience, while critics argue that it is sloppy and erodes traditional culture. Further, ''mazegaki'' is criticized because in some respects it makes the text more difficult to read, as it is not clear whether the ''
hiragana
is a Japanese language, Japanese syllabary, part of the Japanese writing system, along with ''katakana'' as well as ''kanji''.
It is a phonetic lettering system. The word ''hiragana'' means "common" or "plain" kana (originally also "easy", ...
'' (or ''
katakana
is a Japanese syllabary, one component of the Japanese writing system along with hiragana, kanji and in some cases the Latin script (known as rōmaji).
The word ''katakana'' means "fragmentary kana", as the katakana characters are derived fr ...
'') are part of a
content word Content words, in linguistics, are words that possess semantic content and contribute to the meaning of the sentence in which they occur. In a traditional approach, nouns were said to name objects and other entities, lexical verbs to indicate acti ...
, or if they are ''
okurigana
are kana suffixes following kanji stems in Japanese written words. They serve two purposes: to inflect adjectives and verbs, and to force a particular kanji to have a specific meaning and be read a certain way. For example, the plain verb f ...
'' or performing a
grammatical function
In linguistics, grammatical relations (also called grammatical functions, grammatical roles, or syntactic functions) are functional relationships between constituents in a clause. The standard examples of grammatical functions from traditional g ...
(
inflection
In linguistic Morphology (linguistics), morphology, inflection (less commonly, inflexion) is a process of word formation in which a word is modified to express different grammatical category, grammatical categories such as grammatical tense, ...
or
particles
In the physical sciences, a particle (or corpuscle in older texts) is a small localized object which can be described by several physical or chemical properties, such as volume, density, or mass.
They vary greatly in size or quantity, from s ...
).
As they are phonetic substitutions, one of the problems with using ''mazegaki'' and ''kakikae'' is that the original meaning of the word is not clear from the characters. ''Kanji'' have both sound and meaning, and most compounds are created by combining both (''
ateji
In modern Japanese, principally refers to kanji used to phonetically represent native or borrowed words with less regard to the underlying meaning of the characters. This is similar to in Old Japanese. Conversely, also refers to kanji used s ...
'' usually use only sound, and
jukujikun
are logographic Chinese characters, adapted from Chinese family of scripts, Chinese script, used in the writing of Japanese language, Japanese. They were made a major part of the Japanese writing system during the time of Old Japanese and are ...
usually use only meaning, however). For example, the of ''hatan'' means 'rip', but the is ''kana'' ''tan'' and does not carry any meaning. Furthermore, ''mazegaki'' may cause problems in discerning the intended reading; for example, the word ''shinshi'' ("sincerity"), when written as , may be misconstrued as *''mashi'' or ''makotoshi'', causing momentary confusion.
Although there are some examples where ''kakikae'' uses a simpler character with a similar or related meaning and is generally not criticized, for the most part the substitutions have been purely phonetic and the practices of ''mazegaki'' and ''kakikae'' have been criticised for legitimising sloppy Japanese and eroding part of
Japanese culture
Japanese culture has changed greatly over the millennia, from the country's prehistoric Jōmon period, to its contemporary modern culture, which absorbs influences from Asia and other regions of the world.
Since the Jomon period, ancestral ...
.
Variant characters in Microsoft Windows
In 2005,
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company, technology conglomerate headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Founded in 1975, the company became influential in the History of personal computers#The ear ...
announced that the fonts
Meiryo,
MS Gothic, and
MS Mincho in the
Windows Vista
Windows Vista is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was the direct successor to Windows XP, released five years earlier, which was then the longest time span between successive releases of Microsoft W ...
operating system would comply with JIS X 0213:2004. Though this removed incompatibilities with the accepted ''gaiji'' forms in the Windows environment, it did raise concerns that the characters would be displayed differently depending on the version of Windows system used, re-creating the problems that occurred in the shift from the old to new JIS character set. Microsoft allayed these fears by announcing that the standard Japanese fonts on Vista would be
OpenType
OpenType is a format for scalable computer fonts. Derived from TrueType, it retains TrueType's basic structure but adds many intricate data structures for describing typographic behavior. OpenType is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corpora ...
compatible, and old character forms could also be used by converting between variant forms. In actuality, the
Adobe Systems
Adobe Inc. ( ), formerly Adobe Systems Incorporated, is an American software, computer software company based in San Jose, California. It offers a wide range of programs from web design tools, photo manipulation and vector creation, through to ...
applications
InDesign,
Illustrator
An illustrator is an artist who specializes in enhancing writing or elucidating concepts by providing a visual representation that corresponds to the content of the associated text or idea. The illustration may be intended to clarify complicate ...
, the
JustSystems application
Ichitaro, and
LibreOffice
LibreOffice () is a free and open-source office productivity software suite developed by The Document Foundation (TDF). It was created in 2010 as a fork of OpenOffice.org, itself a successor to StarOffice. The suite includes applications ...
allow conversion of variant forms in software that have full support for OpenType.
However, there are few other applications released for Windows Vista that support OpenType, and
Office 2007 does not support conversion of variant kanji forms.
See also
*
Historical kana usage
*
Asahi characters
Asahi (Japanese 朝日, 旭, or あさひ 'morning sun') may refer to:
Places in Japan Cities
* Asahi, Chiba (旭市; ''Asahi-shi'')
Wards
* Asahi-ku, Osaka (旭区; ''Asahi-ku'')
* Asahi-ku, Yokohama (旭; ''Asahi-ku'')
Towns
* Asahi, Aichi ...
*
Character encoding
Character encoding is the process of assigning numbers to graphical character (computing), characters, especially the written characters of human language, allowing them to be stored, transmitted, and transformed using computers. The numerical v ...
References
Bibliography
*Suzuki, Yasuyuki. (1977). ''Kokugo Kanji Mondai no Riron''. Mugi shobō, .
*Takashima, Toshio. ''Kanji to Nihonjin''.
Bungeishunjū, .
*Tabei, Fumio.. Taishukan Shoten, .
*Tsuneari, Fukuda. ''Watashi no Kokugo kyōshitsu''.
Bungeishunjū, .
External links
Japanese Agency for Cultural AffairsNippon-no-Rômazi-Sya(An organization promoting the use of rōmaji)
The Society for the Romanization of the Japanese Alphabet
{{DEFAULTSORT:Japanese script reform
Kanji
Spelling reform