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 Chinese character

               morpheme = the smallest unit of meaning

English
uncovering
Chinese 2 Chinese characters
resist + discussion -> protest

          syllabic

               each symbol represents?

e.g., JPN 4 Japanese characters
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 3rd(?) century AD, probable contact with Chinese writing

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

               Probably with the help of Koreans

     Chinese words were borrowed from different places
     at different times

2 Chinese characters = gyoo + gi 'manner'
2 Chinese characters = koo + shin 'marching'
2 Chinese characters = 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:

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

               Japanese character .......

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

yama 'mountain' 2 Japanese characters
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 2 Japanese characters
mita saw 2 Japanese characters
miro see (it)! – non-polite 2 Japanese characters
mite see (it)! – polite 2 Japanese characters
mireba if (one) sees (it) 3 Japanese characters
miruna don't see (it)! 3 Japanese characters
miyoo let's see (it) – non-polite 3 Japanese characters
mimashoo let's see (it) – polite 5 Japanese characters

     Katakana for foreign words (except for Chinese)

     Japanese sentence with 'IBM' in the middle

     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)