Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of Figures
- List of Maps
- List of Tables
- Preface
- Abbreviations
- Part I Introduction
- 1 Typological and historical overview
- 2 Dialects
- 3 Sound system
- 4 Writing system
- Part II Lexicon
- Part III Grammatical foundations
- Part IV Major clause types
- Part V Clause linkage
- Part VI Pragmatics (language usage)
- References
- Index
4 - Writing system
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 December 2014
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of Figures
- List of Maps
- List of Tables
- Preface
- Abbreviations
- Part I Introduction
- 1 Typological and historical overview
- 2 Dialects
- 3 Sound system
- 4 Writing system
- Part II Lexicon
- Part III Grammatical foundations
- Part IV Major clause types
- Part V Clause linkage
- Part VI Pragmatics (language usage)
- References
- Index
Summary
In striking contrast to its simple sound system, the Japanese language employs what is arguably the most convoluted writing system ever devised in human history. Sampson (1985: 173) declares,
One reason why Japanese script deserves its place in this [Sampson’s] book is as an illustration of just how cumbersome a script can be and still serve in practice.
This notoriety is ultimately due to the fact that Japanese writing evolved from that of Chinese, a language with substantially different sound and word formation systems.
Writing Japanese with kanji
In the late fourth and early fifth centuries AD, Chinese script was introduced to Japan under the tutelage of Korean scholars.1 In Chinese (as spoken and written then), each meaning unit consisted of one syllable, and was represented by a single character called a KANJI, literally ‘a character of the Han dynasty of ancient China’ (206 BC–220 AD).
Recording a language with kanji is fundamentally different from doing it with, say, the Roman alphabet, which is designed to represent speech sounds. The method of recording speech sounds is termed a PHONOGRAPHIC writing system (phono = sound). In kanji writing, by contrast, ideas, rather than sounds, are represented, so it is called an IDEOGRAPHIC writing system (ideo = idea).
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- JapaneseA Linguistic Introduction, pp. 43 - 58Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2014