Been lurking on this thread for a while, and one thing still baffles me.

How does kanji 'triple work' on computer? It's the exact same key-strokes as it would be to enter hiragana or romaji and the computer picks the kanji FOR you. Also Kanji are a total blessing for text messaging. Cuts the word count down enormously.

The Korean's developed their Hangul system due to the illiteracy of their population due to complexity of the Chinese characters.

If Japan has a 99.0%+ literacy rate, what's the purpose of dumbing down their system?

That's rhetorical... Dumbing it down for the dumb foreigners...

Heh, yet again another discussion where everyone seems angry.

Anyway, I can understand people defending the language for cultural reasons, but for PRACTICAL reasons, there could be better alternatives,
Imagine how the japanese typewriter would look like if they used another writing system.

Don't get me wrong, I LOVE KANJI, I doubt there is a better looking and intricate system, but it is ILLOGICAL.

should we have a cultural cringe just by the fact that mandarin chinese has a simpler grammar than english and mandarin happens to be as efficient as english? enough of my pointless ranting.

you can say that everything that a human being expresses is illogical or better way to put it, inefficient. i would say arbitrary instead as we human beings are so righteously imperfect and naturally irrational. how would you tell when a part of a certain language is illogical or not? i do not know.

Perhaps when it makes the NATIVE speakers struggle with it?
For example: Japanese names must be written both in katakana and kanji, The Rendaku((連濁), and many others, which make life harder.

The difficulty of OTHER languages, isn't the case, we are talking about writing systems.

Kind of ironic that people interested in a culture where the very pretense is politeness "seem" to come off as exactly the opposite. Although, less than 10% of communication is the actual words used so maybe the insults and slurs being hurled around here are said in a lovingly, and whimsical type tone. (heh....)

Yes, this is probably the reason for the stated poll.

A few quotes from established "experts" on the Japanese culture who point out this same fact:

Jay Rubin (Professor of Japanese Literature at Harvard University) quotes in his book "Making Sense of Japanese" George Bailey Sansom's (historian of pre-modern Japan particularly noted for his historical surveys and attention to Japanese society) astute observance that the sounds of Japanese are:

"simple and few in number, are very well suited to notation by an alphabet, and it is perhaps one of the tragedies of Oriental history that the Japanese genius did not a thousand years ago rise to its invention. Certainly when one considers the truly appalling system which in the course of the centuries they did evolve, that immense and intricate apparatus of signs for recording a few dozen little syllables, one is inclined to think that the western alphabet is perhaps the greatest triumph of the human mind."

Now, I wouldn't think it proper or logical (which is ironic considering the Kanji system IS very illogical) to remove kanji from the Japanese culture because it is one of the most dramatic (and traumatizing heh) cultural aspects to a foreign person.

Can you explain to me how English is logical?

Hell, just explain to me why the letter "a" is pronounced "a"??

How is that logical? Can you explain that to me??

every language is not perfect. get over it.

I don't think its very realistic to expect kanji to disappear from Japan, but some Koreans seem to laud its removal from their writing as well.

I think it's a bad idea but I don't think it's impossible.

They were thinking of abandoning kanji in the meiji era if I remember correctly.

Also, as Taln points out, the Koreans managed to successfully abandon kanji (mostly) due to the invention of hangul which is actually quite an innovative writing system.

(　´∀｀)σ)Д｀)
Do you like to dance by the fake information?

I made a mistake.

It was after the war in which this occurred.

Japanese script reform - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"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."

Don't know much of Japanese, but I believe that any culture/country/people with a language that can be expressed verbally to an intended audience without losing its meaning or requiring outside/physical aid to create context can have its written aspects/graphemes altered or changed.

It’s just more trouble than it’s worth after centuries of an established system. With that being said, only the Japanese can come to the conclusion as to whether or not they want to eliminate the Kanji from their written mode of communication. If it's such a huge inconvenience or if it is impractical, I think they would have done away with it a long time ago.

I am currently on first year studying Japanese. So far I have learned Hiragana and Katakana. Even from the little bit of knowledge I have acquired so far. I think it'd be really confusing not to have Kanji. A lot of the Senior students say that Kanji really does make reading a lot easier.

There is a certain degree of time and investment you must make to learn each Kanji, but I think it's worth it in the end.

Many words in Japanese can be written down in Katakana and Hiragana in the exact same way, or would sound exactly the same (without the accentuation or intonation).

So I guess it would be sorta like Where and Wear? and They're, Their, and There. If they were all written the same way it would be based on context to figure out what it means right?

Not sure about you, but I think it'd add a lot of confusion into the reading system if you were to eliminate Kanji.

I also think Kanji has a really artistic concept to it too! The Japanese did import the Chinese characters, but I think they made it their own. It's unique and I think they should keep it :)!

Get rid of Kanji. no language is better suited for the alphabeta than Japanese.

Yes... just after the war...
アメリカが日本に「漢字をやめろ」と持ちかけたのでし ょう？
They had to give up the idea because they found it impossible...

ここのスレまだやってたの？ＹＥＳのパーセンテージ、 知らない間に急に上がってるけどどうして？
スパマーばっかりやん。

ずっと消そうとしてはいますが、エラーが出ていてなか なかうまくいかないです。

にょろりんさん・・・
ダイジョブ。スパマーを無視できるまでに慣れてきまし たｗ
ようつべの広告だと思えば平気ｗ
無理なさらず、焦らず、頑張りすぎないで。
気長に行きましょう…