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perrothepotato t1_j73p509 wrote

Reply to comment by Goetterwind in Why didn't Japan excise Chinese characters from the Japanese language, when Japan hated China so much? by 3cana

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.

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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.

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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.

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