Quote:
Originally Posted by hatsuto11
Since the Japanese did NOT have a way to write at first, they adopted the Chinese hanzi and started to write their own language using it following the Chinese grammar. Afterwards, they started to express the japanese grammatical patterns using phonetic hanzi and the language was still written using only hanzi at that time! But as you mentioned, women were finding it difficult to remember a very huge amount of kanji which was used at that time and consequently they innovated the kana.
As for what you mentioned (concerning whether it is a personal opinion or not....), i believe you are biased to the japanese alphabet and i don't know why you really are  Have ya ever thought of the origin of hiragana and katakana???? They didn't come from the air lol! They Japanese people simplified some phonetic kanji into those silly letters and you can check that in wikipedia if you want. The beauty of the japanese script is in its kanji and there's no use defending hiragana which made japanese look simple and hid its beauty!
Even though the US tried to get rid of them after it defeated japan post WW2 forcing the japanese people to reduce their number, Japan NEVER EVER stopped using them and they tried to protect them as much as they could. i believe that Kanji is not entirely chinese and it is an indispensable part of the Japanese culture.
＊＊＊＊漢字＝文化
＊＊＊＊平仮名・片仮名＝戯言
Bear that in mind  |
To the first part, women didn't have problems remembering the Hanzi or using them, it's just that during that time period women were not involved in 'higher learning' so they weren't really taught classical chinese.The japanese people adapted the Kanji through a variety of ways, by the way. Some were borrowed for their sound, some were borrowed for their meaning. I'm not trying to say that you should write using only hiragana or katakana, that'd be harder to read in more complex sentences.
As for the comment about World War 2, that is just plain wrong. The US didn't try to alter the Japanese language after WW2. The 常用漢字 are entirely Japanese in origin. It started with the 当用漢字 that were decided upon and implemented in 1946. The 常用漢字 then took the place of the 当用漢字 in 1981 with the number of 1945 kanji and just recently (I think a month or two ago?) even more kanji were added to the jouyou list.
You're arguing against the evolution of a language. The communist government didn't come in to china and force everyone to write in simplified characters, they just standardized what was already a nationally used short-hand. The US government didn't force Japan to do anything about their own language. Japan *chose* to implement a list of 常用漢字 which is what you need to know to be (technically, not actually) considered literate. The only reason it would be considered odd or incorrect to use kanji instead of just ひらがな in a certain place is if the vast majority of Japan has moved away from using that kanji in that context. You say that Kanji are culture but you're also denying the current culture that exists now by insisting that you do it your way.
