Quote:
Originally Posted by hennaz
Hi all! You know, I've been thinking... should Japan still be using kanji (Chinese characters), limit their usage, or get rid of them altogether?
The Japanese language may have to continue using kanji, because it's been culturally important to the language, ever since the written language began. Many Japanese words are derived from Chinese, and despite several spelling reforms throughout the ages, kanji continue to be used. Kanji tell readers what words mean, and help people to understand the concept of Sino-Japanese words and sounds and native Japanese ones (on'yomi and kun'yomi). There are many homophones in Japanese, so kanji is needed to distinguish words. For learners of Japanese, learning new kanji can help with learning new words.
In South Korea, Chinese characters are no longer commonly used to write the Korean language (North Korea has banned them altogether). Although the young generation of South Korea are still taught Chinese letters, and that Chinese letters are still used to write formal documents and newspapers in Korean, many Koreans don't know that many, and usually can only spell their names in hangul (Korean letters). If South Korea has used this "middle-road" policy, then there shouldn't be any reason why Japan can't do the same with their language.
However, it may make sense to ban kanji altogether, as they are just so many to learn and remember, and would only make it harder for foreigners to learn Japanese. (With their currently ageing population, Japan need foreign workers, but the foreigners need to be able to speak, read and write in Japanese.) If there are so many homophones in Japanese, and kanji help distinguish similar sounding words, then what about spoken Japanese? Kanji don't come out of peoples' mouths, so you have to know what people are saying. This makes it almost pointless in learning kanji as it only helps you to write and read Japanese, not to speak or listen to it. Even Japanese people can't always read other people's names in kanji, and some names can be spelt using different kanji, so why bother using them instead of kana? If Japanese already has kana, a phonetic alphabet, then why bother having 1000's of kanji to learn?
Anyway, these are some of the reasons for each of the 3 arguments. But I'm interested in hearing YOUR opinions and reasons for them, what do you think?
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I don't agree that Kanji should be banned, thats like saying that they are banning their culture. Why should the country make changes to their culture for foreigners? While it is true that Japan is aging, I don't think the government's stance is to "attract" foreigners, until then, there is no reason to do anything specific to "attract" foreigners.
Just my 2 cents...