Modern Japanese is a chimera of native words, Chinese, Pali, and various European languages. Kanji are used to write the Chinese loanwords, hiregana for the indigenous stuff, and katakana and Romaji for the European loanwords (sort of). You could write everything in hiregana, or even in katakana or Romaji with some effort, but doing it this way is easier.
Most languages are, it’s just that Europe had the benefit of latin being really dominant. We’re super lucky here we just latinized all the Greek and Hebrew, instead of writing them in their own alphabet.
Specifically in the case of Japanese language, the current orthography highly depends on the use of kanji to remove ambiguities from a purely phonetic notation in either kana system.
As a side note, Korean language also used to be written with hanja (Chinese characters) mixed in with hangul (native phonetic alphabet). The shift from mixed hangul-hanja notation to pure hangul was gradual and the major contribution that made it possible was the modernized orthography rules that allows visual differentiation of homophones when written down while adding some complexity. It’s not perfect, but it works.
So, while many argue that kanji is essential to Japanese or hanja needs to be reintroduced in Korean for examples cited, I think the definitive reason is that the japanese speakers themselves doesn’t feel the overwhelming need to switch right now. If they chose to
introduce a purely kana orthography and had enough funding and political will, that’s how they will roll.
hey just wanted to ask: what’s up with the circle-bits in korean characters? they’re really unique, I just have no idea what they indicate (if anything) and always wondered…
Japanese is whacky… Like why not just pick one alphabet instead of using 3 different ones? Are they stupid?
Modern Japanese is a chimera of native words, Chinese, Pali, and various European languages. Kanji are used to write the Chinese loanwords, hiregana for the indigenous stuff, and katakana and Romaji for the European loanwords (sort of). You could write everything in hiregana, or even in katakana or Romaji with some effort, but doing it this way is easier.
Most languages are, it’s just that Europe had the benefit of latin being really dominant. We’re super lucky here we just latinized all the Greek and Hebrew, instead of writing them in their own alphabet.
I had to はし (hashi) over the はし because I forgot my はし at home.
Same word phonetically, three meanings. With Kanji it’s easy.
So what? English has eye, I and aye. Same pronunciation, different writing. You don’t need three writing systems for that.
The Japanese alphabets are phonetic so all homophones have the same spelling. In your example all the words are spelled differently.
Fair enough.
Specifically in the case of Japanese language, the current orthography highly depends on the use of kanji to remove ambiguities from a purely phonetic notation in either kana system.
As a side note, Korean language also used to be written with hanja (Chinese characters) mixed in with hangul (native phonetic alphabet). The shift from mixed hangul-hanja notation to pure hangul was gradual and the major contribution that made it possible was the modernized orthography rules that allows visual differentiation of homophones when written down while adding some complexity. It’s not perfect, but it works.
So, while many argue that kanji is essential to Japanese or hanja needs to be reintroduced in Korean for examples cited, I think the definitive reason is that the japanese speakers themselves doesn’t feel the overwhelming need to switch right now. If they chose to introduce a purely kana orthography and had enough funding and political will, that’s how they will roll.
hey just wanted to ask: what’s up with the circle-bits in korean characters? they’re really unique, I just have no idea what they indicate (if anything) and always wondered…
The circles? You mean
ㅇ? It’s a component (consonant ieung) letter and indicates either:[na]- 아[a][ŋ]at the end of a character block, placed at bottom: 앙[aŋ]yeah, thanks! TIL.