Goetterwind t1_j7192lr wrote
The Kanji used in Japanese are basically the old school versions of the traditional Chinese characters. There are even specific Japanese Kanji. So while technically they are of the same origin as the Chinese ones, they are not exactly the same nowadays and back then (they are very close to traditional Chinese, though) Afaik.
it makes no sense to eliminate them, as they are 'distinctive' enough. You also have to understand that every fascist Ideology heavily relies on religion, heroism and tradition. You cannot rely on traditional values, if you kill the historical inscription, seals and so on.
How do you want to explain to the common people that their emperor, the direct descendent of God, now has to write his name in the peasant signs? ;)
Would you give up the Arabic numbers, the Hindu '0', the Latin alphabet even if you hate them all? I don't think so, as they are such old, that they are basically a part of your own identity, history and culture.
perrothepotato t1_j73p509 wrote
China didn’t introduce simplified characters until 1949, before then they were using traditional characters. If you read one (simplified or traditional), you can generally read the other. So they’re not that distinctive and while pronounced differently, their meaning is the same.
I haven’t looked into it - but I imagine it’s linked to cultural identity and nationhood. If the Japanese abolished Kanji, they would also be restricting access to some of their greatest works of literature and their written history. During periods of nation building, these soft powers are needed to construct the national narrative.
Goetterwind t1_j73utql wrote
I don't know if your reply is a criticism on my comment, so maybe I was not exact enough about the differences of traditional/simplified Chinese vs. Kanji. You can correct me, if I am wrong, as my knowledge of Chinese is (extremely) limited, but I have been several times to Japan. So this is bascially my (limited) knowledge from about 12 years ago.
Concerning the Chinese characters vs. Japanese Kanji: There is traditional and simplified Chinese, yes. The traditional Chinese had several reforms, the major ones about 210BC and starting from 1949 another one (leading to the simplifed Chinese being formely adapter in 1964 afaik). However in between these major dates, obviously a bunch of other quite minor adaptations happened (as in every language and writing) - however it is mostly static. The reforms tried to simplify writing, but there are some runnning gags nowadays, like 'the simplified love lacks the heart'...
There are traditional Kanji and (after WW2 some modifications - leading to the 'shinjitai'?) modern Kanji. However, the set of trad. Kanji are derived from roughly the 5th century AD (mainly due to Buddhist texts and trade, as Japan had no writing system) and there are additional characters Japanese-only kanji that form the so-called 'kukoji'. Those kanji don't have an on'yomi (Chinese) spelling, as they are not 'from China' - but obviously kun'yomi (Japanese spelling). An example is 込 ...
But as a fun twist of history, some Japanese kanji were even absorbed back into traditional Chinese so they 'gained' an on'yomi spelling!
But it does not end here - some kanji even have a different on'yomi as you would expect from their traditional Chinese counterpart, mainly due to the fact that they are not derived from Mandarin, but some other dialects. Some are some exapmles of different meanings, the most commonly known being 手纸/手紙 (Shouzhi? Sorry for buthering this) meaning 'toilet paper' in Chinese and 手紙 (tegami) meaning 'letter' in Japanese.
So yes, Kanji are to the vast majority traditional Chinese characters, but with some slight twist.
perrothepotato t1_j7705b9 wrote
Oh, I’m sorry. No it wasn’t a criticism at all. Your comment just made me think.. so it was more just me thinking out loud in a response. Haha.
Yeah traditional characters have been reformed (standardized) but it was usually for unification (mostly for ease of trade and government organization purposes). Which would probably be the same reason the Japanese didn’t abolish it. It was needed for communication during a period where their leaders and scientists (unit 731 & other sites) were spread throughout the whole Asia Pacific region.
The evolution of language is fascinating. I wonder if the Japanese had won, if kanji would have been phased out… I think that would have been slightly more probable. It wouldn’t make much sense to under go a whole language reform during empire building.
And yeah, 手纸 is toilet paper/letter in Chinese/Japanese. But if you break the word apart, it literally means “hand paper”. So given the context that it’s written you’d still be able to derive the correct meaning from it (and a bit of a laugh too probably). And even 込 komi: to include. If we pulled it apart into its original radicals, it’s 辶 and 入，which literally means walk in. So again if the character is in context, you would still be able to derive it’s meaning from its semantic indicators. Which takes us back to the OP question, this example of the evolution of kanji, to use the original Chinese semantic indicators to create their own vocabulary, is a great illustration of how deeply embedded kanji is and how difficult it would be to simply remove it.
War_Hymn t1_j7dv7oq wrote
> they are not exactly the same nowadays
I don't know about that, when I need to translate Japanese kanji, I just use a traditional Chinese dictionary.
SushiMage t1_j7wjv9n wrote
> they are not exactly the same nowadays and back then…very close to tradditional
What. They are exactly the same characters which is the only reason I can even recognize them as someone who can only read chinese and not japanese. The characters are identical to what I see in chinese signs/books/internet forums. This is going to give a blantantly false impression to people.
Also keep in mind there are less than 100 kokuji characters while kanji numbers in the tens of thousands. It’s a weak attempt to severe the connection.
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