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> The Japanese identified the problem and created a vocalic language from Chinese, the kana. This is not quite accurate, kana are basically just an alphabet (t

> The Japanese identified the problem and created a vocalic language from Chinese, the kana. This is not quite accurate, kana are basically just an alphabet (two alphabets actually) that can be used to write Japanese. To my knowledge kana were adopted to the spoken language rather than the other way around. > The reason Japanese stated running circles around Chinese and humiliated them.(Chinese and Japanese hate each other so much) Is it? Perhaps you are right -- but your argument strikes me as somewhat implausible. First of all, the Japanese were extremely isolationist until the Meiji era (1860's); they didn't start to "run circles" around China until close to 1900. So I suppose that you are claiming that many Japanese books were published using only kana in this time period? Contemporary Japanese books, except those written for young children, use a combination of kana and Chinese characters. I believe the same has been true since 1860 (i.e. the start of the Meiji era), so I'm not sure that the existence of kana can be responsible for Japan's rise to power. Please correct me if I have said anything incorrect.

hga 12y ago
You're correct. Japanese isn't a phonetic language as such, it's syllables, with only the vowels and 'n' allowed to be alone, the rest are a consonant follow with a vowel (although the vowel is often omitted in speech), and there aren't very many of the. Therefore there are a zillion homonyms (and puns) and a lot of inherent ambiguity, which is addressed by context and, as you note, except for children, using full kanji (adopted Chinese ideographs). Publications for older children frequently use kanji with small kana to the right side called furigana for the kanji they're still learning. That said, as I understand it there are many fewer kanji that literate Japanese need to learn compare to the Chinese, about 1,800 by the time they graduate from high school. Japan also wasn't extremely isolationist until 4 decades into the Tokugawa Shogunate, so it's really a period of 1641 to 1853, and as Wikipedia puts it, correctly to my knowledge, it "maintained limited-scale trade and diplomatic relations with China, Korea, the Ryukyu Islands and the Netherlands".

hga 12y ago

You're correct. Japanese isn't a phonetic language as such, it's syllables, with only the vowels and 'n' allowed to be alone, the rest are a consonant follow with a vowel (although the vowel is often omitted in speech), and there aren't very many of the. Therefore there are a zillion homonyms (and puns) and a lot of inherent ambiguity, which is addressed by context and, as you note, except for children, using full kanji (adopted Chinese ideographs). Publications for older children frequently use kanji with small kana to the right side called furigana for the kanji they're still learning. That said, as I understand it there are many fewer kanji that literate Japanese need to learn compare to the Chinese, about 1,800 by the time they graduate from high school. Japan also wasn't extremely isolationist until 4 decades into the Tokugawa Shogunate, so it's really a period of 1641 to 1853, and as Wikipedia puts it, correctly to my knowledge, it "maintained limited-scale trade and diplomatic relations with China, Korea, the Ryukyu Islands and the Netherlands".