Re: Whither 日本語 ?
pls
> On Tue, Nov 10, 2009 at 5:36 PM, Jon Johanning
<riverr...@gmail.com>wrote:
> >
> > The recently attempted reform of German spelling doesn't seem to have
> > worked out too well.
> >
>
> The German speakers on the list can let us know how it went, ...
This speaker of German can not evaluate how it went _in general_, since he
has not lived in Germany since the time the reform was implemented there
and has never bothered to give the matter more than a passing glance. :-)
There is only one item that was immediately obvious to me and has thus
stuck with me: there was a new (consistent!) rule concerning the
distinction between double-S and sharp S (aka SZ) that enticed me to let go
of a set of memorized idiosyncratic spellings that i had never really
liked. That's all i consciously remember and know about the spelling
reform, although i suspect that, as a consequence of my ongoing copious
consumption of German reading material, my spelling and writing style may
have changed in some other ways, as well.
If the reformers had asked me i would have proposed that instead of new
"rules" they should offer "new suggestions"/"new permissions", so as to let
people naturally gravitate to those changes that suited them. After all, in
this age of electronically mediated communication it would not be difficult
to work well with a fuzzy set of rules for spelling and grammar. But nobody
asked me (maybe that explains why there is still an ongoing debate over the
reform)... ;-)
Regards: Hendrik
.
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pls
> I actually think an all-kana system would actually be better, because
> it's naturally suited to the phonetics.
Agreed.
But have you (or has anybody here) ever read a substantial text (not just a
line or two) in all kana? Methinks there is more needed than just kana - to
make this manageable you would need to introduce spaces (quite like when
writing in romaji), and the Japanese would have to define what constitutes
words in Japanese (something that is not as obvious as some might think).
pls
kanji.
On the contrary - someone else has pointed this out, and my own
observations support that: with electronically mediated communication kanji
use is increasing. Here are some kanji that i've seen in
携帯メール often enough by now that i remember them:
何故か行けないの？
十時迄終わる筈。
其れは変だよ。
念の為に...
取り敢えず（sometimes also written 取り合えず）
...かも知れません
A comment on 其れは変だよ。I used to wonder why anyone would add extra time
to their writing by doing a kanji henkan on
それ, but over time i got the impression that the kanji is meant to add
emphasis - can anybody else corroborate that?
Regards: Hendrik @ a 携帯メール aficionado
David Farnsworth
less, with electronic word input.
Example: My omni-knowledgeable Word 2007 software thinks that I need a
French e in café or passé. This is irritating, because it is NOT English,
it is French.
Microsoft believes otherwise...
David Farnsworth
Tigard OR 97224
pls
[...]
> Sure -- China is the home of the kanji. They probably also
> don'tbelieve that a young upstart people like the Japanese could
> contributeanything of value to anything having to do with the kanji!
It may be a small contribution, but 電話 was adopted from the Japanese. :-)
One thing about simplified kanji: i feel (have) no compunction about
learning Mandarin using "Taiwanese" kanji.
Regards: Hendrik @ partial to Taiwanese kanji
Michael Hendry
> But have you (or has anybody here) ever read a substantial text (not just
> a
> line or two) in all kana?
Children's books are often written that way. I remember when I first started
reading those books to my kids... It was very difficult. Spaces aren't
necessary though. The trick to reading them is, of course, knowing Japanese.
As my knowledge of Japanese (and the words that crop up in children's books)
increased, my fluency reading all-kana increased as well.
Michael Hendry, in Newcastle Australia
JimBreen
> But have you (or has anybody here) ever read a substantial text (not just a
> line or two) in all kana? Methinks there is more needed than just kana - to
> make this manageable you would need to introduce spaces (quite like when
> writing in romaji), and the Japanese would have to define what constitutes
> words in Japanese (something that is not as obvious as some might think).
I have
heard the kana-only text isn't a problem when it's all you have ever
used.
Jim
S Zaveloff
>
> It may be a small contribution, but 電話 was adopted from the Japanese. :-)
Actually, quite a few 熟語 made their way into Chinese from Japanese. In
addition, I was to told by one of my Chinese teachers in Taiwan that the
Chinese even borrowed a grammatical construction: XX性 (as in 可能性).
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P.O. Box 200203 Tel: (512)219-7142
Austin, Texas 78720-0203 Fax: (512)233-2770
http://members.capmac.org/~stevenzaveloff/
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A star at dawn, a bubble in a stream;
A flash of lightning in a summer cloud;
A flickering lamp, a phantom, and a dream.
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Tom Donahue
> A comment on 其れは変だよ。I used to wonder why anyone would
> add extra time to their writing by doing a kanji henkan on
> それ, but over time i got the impression that the kanji is meant to add
> emphasis - can anybody else corroborate that?
I doubt they wanted the 其れ. This happens when you hit the
convert key out of habit, or convert a whole phrase. Then maybe
they didn't notice it, or just felt too lazy to go back and fix it.
--
Tom Donahue
Alan Siegrist
> > Sure -- China is the home of the kanji. They probably also
> > don'tbelieve that a young upstart people like the Japanese could
> > contributeanything of value to anything having to do with the kanji!
>
> It may be a small contribution, but 電話 was adopted from the Japanese.
> :-)
I found a rather extensive list of such loanwords from Japanese:
http://www.geocities.jp/ps_dictionary/wailaiyu.htm
And yes, 電話 is on the list. I had heard about 経済 being a loanword.
But so were some rather surprising words like 共産主義 and 共産党, as well
as 安全 (did they not have a word for "safety"?) and even 暗殺. A lot of the
words on the list are words used in modern political and scientific
language, perhaps evidence of the many Chinese politicians and intellectuals
that had had studied in Japan.
Regards,
Alan Siegrist
Carmel, CA, USA
Wayne Root
On Nov 12, 2009, at 10:50 AM, Alan Siegrist wrote:
> (did they not have a word for "safety"?)
>
that accidents were considered "Acts of God."
Wayne Root
roo...@astound.net
Marc Adler
But have you (or has anybody here) ever read a substantial text (not just a
line or two) in all kana? Methinks there is more needed than just kana - to
Nightly. Entire books! Not a single kanji. And they're totally understandable. It just takes time to get used to, really. But once you're used to it, you don't miss the kanji. Naturally, they use spaces.
--
Marc Adler
www.adlerpacific.com
nirebloga.wordpress.com
mudawwanatii.wordpress.com
blogsheli.wordpress.com
Chris Moore
I think for my part kanji would make the reading slightly more
smoother… as would katakana to separate out onomatopoeia. The
interspersal of multiple scripts in Japanese is a feature in this
case, as it is easier to tell not only word boundaries, but the kind
of word that is being viewed, setting up subconscious expectations for
how to interpret the content.
Another related point is that although the hiragana is spaced,
hiragana tends to be "airy" and the spacing is not always as apparent
as one would hope at normal "reading aloud" speeds… this is more of a
typographical issue though.
Smooth reading of these books does come with practice, and usually
there is a willing audience waiting to hear a repetition, so any kinks
tend to be worked out after the first reading and forgotten.
Chris
2009/11/12 Marc Adler <marc....@gmail.com>:
Jon Johanning
From: Hendrik "pls" <oki...@yahoo.co.jp>But have you (or has anybody here) ever read a substantial text (not just a line or two) in all kana?Children's books are often written that way.
What about books written on an actual adult level? For example, books about a subject like Japanese history or archeology, where I would think it would help a lot to be able to distinguish among words which are not used in most people's everyday conversation (to say nothing of most 6 year olds' conversation) and which would be identical in kana. Similarly, books in almost any technical field (at least the ones not heavily colonized by 外来語) might be rather a chore, I would think.
I realize that Japanese blind people make do without kanji, but those little darlings do have their advantages for us sighted folks, it seems to me. Not the least of which, of course, is that they drastically reduce the influx of gaijin wanting to make a quick buck or euro in the fabulous Japanese translation field and become our competitors, once they realize how much drudgery is involved.
Jon Johanning // riverr...@gmail.com
Marc Adler
sighted folks, it seems to me. Not the least of which, of course, is that they drastically reduce the influx of gaijin wanting to make a quick buck or euro in the fabulous Japanese translation field and become our competitors, once they realize how much drudgery is involved.
That goes without saying!
--
Minoru Mochizuki
The president of a leading Japanese trading company once set up a rule that all internal communications must be done in katakana. He had a vision that the use of katakana throughout the company documents (Japanese documents) will increase business efficiency. Unfortunately to him, as soon as he stepped down the chair of presidency, the rule was rescinded.
Minoru Mochizuki
From:
Jon Johanning [mailto:riverr...@gmail.com]
Sent: Friday, November 13, 2009 4:48 AM
To: hon...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: Whither 日本語 ?
Alan Siegrist
Minoru Mochizuki [mailto:min...@rhythm.ocn.ne.jp]
writes:
The president of a leading Japanese trading company once set up a rule that all internal communications must be done in katakana. He had a vision that the use of katakana throughout the company documents (Japanese documents) will increase business efficiency. Unfortunately to him, as soon as he stepped down the chair of presidency, the rule was rescinded.
So how long did he last? And did this rule have anything to do with his resignation?
I assume the use of all katakana did not lead to a great improvement in efficiency.
Regards,
Alan Siegrist
Carmel, CA, USA
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Minoru Mochizuki
The president was Itoh, Chubei II and the trading company was Itochu.
The year was 1961. Since Itoh, Chubei II was the son of the founder of the company, he resigned when he thought it was time.
He operated not only Itochu but also Kureha Boseki (Toyama Boseki), a textile company, and was a deep believer of Katakana and Katakana typewriter being a member of カナモジカイ, an association established for promoting the use of Katakana, so that he caused the two companies to use katakana writing as an official communication and book keeping method. For details, read the following Wikipedia article: http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%82%AB%E3%83%8A%E3%83%A2%E3%82%B8%E3%82%AB%E3%82%A4
I believe that all katakana writing is very difficult to read and that is to do with the fact that Japanese is an agglutinative language.
This difficulty of reading is one reason I don’t read manga at all. It prohibits me to read each page diagonally, i.e. dynamic reading to capture the approximate context of the page and to search and carefully read only a few sentences per each page. All katakana writing makes it extremely difficult to search important sections of a page, if there is. I believe it is not a good way to improve business efficiency.
Minoru
Chris Moore
I think katakana is an awful choice against hiragana if one was to
choose between the two for a single script for Japanese. First, the
second of the fonts needed extra marks to help differentiate シツソン.
Second, some of their recommendations for kana usage are particularly
bad. I learned about the kanamojikai recently while watching ナニコレ珍百景.
The show featured a sign in Kanagawa prefectures of a shop that was
called カトゥジドゥシャ. Apparently the founder of the shop was a member of
the kanamojikai and their recommendation is to use ゥ to lengthen
sounds.
http://www.tv-asahi.co.jp/nanikore/contents_pre/collection/091028.html
(3rd item from the top)
Chris
2009/11/13 Minoru Mochizuki <min...@rhythm.ocn.ne.jp>:
Jonathan Merz
But have you (or has anybody here) ever read a substantial text (not just aline or two) in all kana? Methinks there is more needed than just kana - to
make this manageable you would need to introduce spaces (quite like when
writing in romaji), and the Japanese would have to define what constitutes
words in Japanese (something that is not as obvious as some might think).
Nora Stevens Heath
> While perhaps not strictly "texts" like the kind that we work with on a
> daily basis, the text of many older video games, particularly dialogue- and
> narration-heavy RPGS on systems like the old 8-bit Famicom, were written in
> all kana. And yes, they were broken up with spaces - otherwise they'd have
> been close to illegible, especially since the comparatively los-res font
> made reading the kana tricky enough as is, for me at least.
the texts on which I cut my Japanese teeth. It's telling that games
that originally had kana-only text (like Final Fantasy IV) introduced the
option of a kana-plus-kanji scheme when ported over to the newer Game
Boy Advance or Nintendo DS platforms.
Nora
another old-school gamer
--
Nora Stevens Heath <no...@fumizuki.com>
J-E translations: http://www.fumizuki.com/
Marc Adler
If you know the language, it's not too hard to follow the meaning even without kanji - but having kanji, as more recent games do, would certainly have made things easier.
This is all speculation, though. I'm willing to bet dollars to doughnuts that after even a couple months, people would be able to read all-kana texts with much more fluency than kanji texts.
Mark Spahn
--
Marc Adler
Marc Adler
My impression is that (2) would be easier.
Well, that's the way we do it in English, but I haven't seen a children's book that doesn't do it with method (1). I've had no trouble reading the books that way.
Marc Adler
2009/11/12 Mark Spahn <mark...@verizon.net>My impression is that (2) would be easier.
Well, that's the way we do it in English, but I haven't seen a children's book that doesn't do it with method (1). I've had no trouble reading the books that way.
Richard Thieme
their own kana typewriters, even a one man outfit in Tanzania for example?
Did he last into the day of the fax?
One reason I ask this, is that I can remember seeing five or six page faxes
typed in romadzi (Kunrei not Hepburn) when I used to work for a development
company that did business with trading companies.
Regards,
Richard Thieme
----- Original Message -----
From: "Minoru Mochizuki" <min...@rhythm.ocn.ne.jp>
To: <hon...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Friday, November 13, 2009 9:23 AM
Subject: RE: Whither 日本語 ?
Tom Donahue
> This is all speculation, though. I'm willing to bet dollars to doughnuts
> that after even a couple months, people would be able to read all-kana texts
> with much more fluency than kanji texts.
that lists 6 different words for こ. They're all specialized terms (no 個 or 小),
but I can understand what they mean pretty well just by looking at the
kanji.
--
Tom Donahue
Marc Adler
Fluency, yes, but would they understand it? I have an architecture dictionary
that lists 6 different words for こ. They're all specialized terms (no 個 or 小),
but I can understand what they mean pretty well just by looking at the
kanji.
Seriously, if you think the Japanese language can only make sense with kanji, then that's the same thing as saying the Japanese language is deficient. But the fact that architects can have very technical discussions shows that you don't need the kanji. People don't speak in kanji.
Tom Donahue
> Homonyms exist in every language.
in every field. Law, medicine, physics...
> And if there were too many homonyms, then they'd come up with ways
> around it, the way the Chinese did by adding 子 to certain one-syllable words.
ones, the way that 昇降機 lost out to エレベーター. That will be fun (not).
--
Tom Donahue
Michael Hendry
> People don't speak in kanji.
がいこくじんのがくしゅうなどいままでのはなしのながれのなかでもんだいにされてないとおもいます。あくまでもにほんじんにとってどうか、ということです。たとえば、がいこくじんがにほんごをならうばあいよりにほんじんがしょうがっこうでかんじきょういくにつかうじかんのむだのほうがはるかにおおきいもんだいのようにおもわれます。
That'snottoodifficult,isit?Ofcourse,aJapaneselearnerwouldhavetheDevil'sowntimetryingtofigureitout,butitisnotinsurmoutableatallifyoualreadyknowthelanguage.
(English is another matter...)
MichaelHendry,inNewcastleAustralia
Marc Adler
がいこくじんのがくしゅうなどいままでのはなしのながれのなかでもんだいにされてないとおもいます。あくまでもにほんじんにとってどうか、ということです。たとえば、がいこくじんがにほんごをならうばあいよりにほんじんがしょうがっこうでかんじきょういくにつかうじかんのむだのほうがはるかにおおきいもんだいのようにおもわれます。
That'snottoodifficult,isit?Ofcourse,aJapaneselearnerwouldhavetheDevil'sowntimetryingtofigureitout,butitisnotinsurmoutableatallifyoualreadyknowthelanguage.
If that was a test, I can read both of those without a problem. I think people (including myself) have mentioned that there would be spaces, too.
がいこくじんの がくしゅう など いままでの はなしの ながれの なかで もんだいに されてないと おもいます。あくまでも にほんじんに とって どうか、ということです。たとえば、がいこくじんが にほんごを ならう ばあいより にほんじんが しょうがっこうで かんじきょういくに つかう じかんの むだの ほうが はるかに おおきい もんだいの ように おもわれます。
So this is theoretically the way this imaginary never-to-come-true Japanese which I am not advocating would look like, more or less.
No Japanese person will look at that and tell you with a straight face that they have no idea what it says, because it's obvious. The only thing our hypothetical Japanese person would say is that it's "hard to read," but that would just show that they're not used to it. This is an important point, because as I've said, no one has ever actually done a study about all-kana text comprehension (or whatever), and when your average Taro or Hanako looks at the above text, there's a lot of things going on, other than mere comprehension -- the unfamiliarity of the way it looks, thinking it looks like children's books, etc., etc. -- which say nothing about the actual comprehensibility of the text. The former is often confused for the latter, i.e., people look at that text, and take the fact that it is difficult to read (because it's simply an unfamiliar way of writing) as conclusive proof that all-kana writing "is difficult to read." As I say, it would take some time to get used to, maybe, but there's no way it would be *harder.* And after one generation, there'd be no going back.
Regarding the homonyms, can anyone explain to me how lawyers, physicists, architects, etc. talk to each other if homonyms are such a problem?
And just to make extra double super-duper clear to everyone: I'm not advocating the elimination of kanji, nor do I think it will ever happen. All I'm saying is that an all-kana writing system would be 1) easier to learn (I hope no one argues with that point) and 2) easier to use. For point 2) I use as evidence the fact that people talk to each in "all-kana Japanese" without problems. Not only that, but children! Children can talk about extremely specialized Kamen Rider weapons, for example, without knowing any of the kanji involved.
Again, it's not my language, I personally think kanji are cool/beautiful/using them makes me look smart (yadda yadda the usual laundry list of reasons for gaijin kanji infatuation), and I *don't* think they'll ever be eliminated. Nor am I advocating it.
Another thing I'm not saying is that the kanji are all that hard, or that the current system is "broken," "unworkable," "the Japanese language is at a dead-end" and whatever unrealistic alarmist BS you sometimes hear in these discussions. Because obviously it isn't. Moving to an all-kana system would have advantages, but not that many more than the current system.
Plus, as I say, it's never going to happen.
Jon Johanning
> Seriously, if you think the Japanese language can only make sense with
> kanji, then that's the same thing as saying the Japanese language is
> deficient. But the fact that architects can have very technical
> discussions shows that you don't need the kanji. People don't speak in
> kanji.
vocabulary. Outsiders would have a lot more trouble, I would suspect.
I've never seen Japanese architects conversing with their clients, so
I'm only guessing.
Another question is names. Are Japanese people going to give up kanji
for their names? If I'm not mistaken, Koreans haven't.
I don't know what you mean by saying that Japanese is "deficient." It
just has a very complicated writing system is all.
Jon Johanning // riverr...@gmail.com