Languages & Cultures of East Asia

Trad 101, Sections 18-19-20-21   Fall 2000

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Lecture Outline, 9/11/00 - Japanese Writing System

Review
Japanese
     Example
     History
     Use
     Reform?

Review

     three types of writing systems

          alphabetic
          logographic
          syllabic

          alphabetic

               each symbol represents?

                     e.g., English pentagon

          logographic

               each symbol represents?

                    e.g., Chinese

               morpheme = the smallest unit of meaning

	English	uncovering
	Chinese
		resist + discussion -> protest

          syllabic

               each symbol represents?

	e.g., JPN
		karaoke

Japanese

Example (overhead)
     Vertical (right to left) – traditional (e.g., newspaper articles)
     Horizontal (left to right)
     No space between words
     Mixture of different writing systems

History

     By 3^rd(?) century AD, probable contact with Chinese writing

     By 4^th/5^th(?) century, actively started adopting Chinese writing

               Probably with the help of Koreans

     Chinese words were borrowed from different places
     at different times

		= gyoo + gi	'manner'
		= koo + shin	'marching'
		= an + gya	'pilgrimage' (onyomi)

     Assigned Japanese readings to Chinese characters(kanji)

               ku 'to go' (kunyomi)

               Resulted in multiple readings of kanji (overhead)

     At first all writing was done in Chinese

     Soon they started writing Japanese using kanji

     Problems: Chinese and Japanese are very different
               Chinese doesn't have inflection
               But Japanese does:

     By 8^th(?) century
     Manyoogana: use of kanji to represent sounds

	yama 'mountain'
		evening + hemp

     Soon developed symplified versions
          Simplifyng the "cursive" style of writing manyoogana -> hiragana
          Abbreviations of manyoogana -> katakana

Present-day use
          Kanji for content words
          Hiragana for inflectional endings and particles

	miru	see
	mita	saw
	miro	see (it)! – non-polite
	mite	see (it)! – polite
	mireba	if (one) sees (it)
	miruna	don't see (it)!
	miyoo	let's see (it) – non-polite
	mimashoo	let's see (it) – polite

     Katakana for foreign words (except for Chinese)

     Ono teacher IBM's computer        using (polite)
     'Master Ono is using the IBM computer (polite).'

Reform?

     Difficult to learn/use
               Three different systems plus the Roman alphabet
               Multiple readings of kanji

     Abolishing Kanji?
     Romanizing everything?

     Homonym (borrowed many words from Chinese)
     Very high literacy rate (99%)
     Part of the culture
     Limit the number of kanji (approx. 2000)