Quote:
Originally Posted by talycap
still wondering why they use kanji
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I don't know. Why do you use the letters A–Z?
They use kanji because they started using kanji many centuries ago when they borrowed them from China. Pick up this book (
Amazon.com: A History of Japan: Revised Edition (9780804820974): R. H. P. Mason, J. G. Caiger: Books) and you'll understand.
Essentially, China was advanced. Japan was not. Japan had no writing system. Japan's educated class borrowed kanji from China so they could actually write things (they used kanji to write Chinese, but also adapted kanji to write Japanese). Over time, many of the kanji they were using became very simple. We now call these "hiragana" and "katakana."