Re: tlug: Re: Japanese input

[Cliff Miller <cliff@example.com>]

> watching all the discussion about Japanese input methods I am
> getting heretic ideas. Before setting them out some historic
> considerations, however.

...

> When I consider the fact that kids need to be taught reading and
> writing more than eight years in japanese schools, the very
> considerable complexities in handling kanji using machines etc.
> etc. I wonder whether it wouldn't be better to do away with the
> kanji altogether and to stick to the tried and proven kana
> system. I am aware that there will be considerable political
> resistance against doing so and I might also have broken some
> cultural taboos in discussing the option. Well, I don't mind. I
> even don't know whether this has a chance of ever happening.
> However, this outdated kanji system is costing the japanese
> public a high price in terms of added complexity and extra time
> needed to handle it and this appears as a real waste to me -
> just consider the time programmers spend to design an implement
> input methods, the size of the font files etc.

Your idea is actually quite a good one, and is interesting to ponder,
but I don't think that it'll fly. It's just too political an
issue. 

Such proposals are actually not new. Mainland China tried with
little success to promote pinyin (the phonetic transliteration system
for hanzi (kanji)) during the earlier years of Mao. It seems that they 
have pretty much given up. [Korean may be a good example of how things
could change according to what I believe you want to propose, but I
think that the Japanese will not go down that path.]

For all the complexity, there are real advantages in kanji. Japan has
the lowest illiteracy rate in the world. Of course, the educational
system has a lot to do with it, but not everything. Dyslexia
is unheard of (correct me if I'm wrong here) in Japan and
China, and this is almost certainly attributable to the fact that
kanji/hanzi are used. 

Culturally, kanji/hanzi are so much a part of the heritage of Japan
and China that loosing the ability to read and write them would take a 
huge toll. Historical records, literature, paintings and other art 
would loose much of there meaning. True, you could transliterate the
books -- but paintings?? 

[An aside: for the Chinese, the writing system is one thing that
ties the country together like nothing else. With such wide diversity in
spoken dialects (languages), the writing system used to be the 
lingua-franca that Chinese from different parts of the country could
use to communicate.]

Of course the disadvantages of using kanji + kana are numerous, and 
the hairy gaijin trying to learn them will soon be able to
enumerate them. So the logical balance is not necessarily in favor of
keeping the complicated system. But I'm pretty sure that the cultural
and political factors are more important in this case. 

Cliff

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Cliff Miller
Pacific HiTech, Home of TurboLinux
Tel +81-3-5477-9675
Fax +81-3-5477-9919
cliff@example.com


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